Winning isn't always about which team scores more goals.

I am one of the most competitive people you will ever encounter. That said, those who have played for me will attest to my rarely knowing the score during or after a match. As a player, I always knew the score. Not so much as a coach. This is because I am not in competition with the opposing team or the opposing coach. As a coach I compete with myself.

As a player I learned the need to improve each day. With each new sunrise I was driven to be better than the day before. Not blessed with blazing speed of incredible quickness I learned to read the game, to anticipate and to out-think the opponent. These things allowed me to play much faster than my physical speed would allow for.

In coaching I am fond of saying "the game is my test" to determine how well I prepared the team to play. One might consider if my team won, I have passed my test, but this is not always true.  I have had teams play poorly and win. Similarly I have had teams play very well and lose. Passing my coaching test, my self-evaluation of how well my team was prepared to play, is the the key to being successful as a coach.

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This spring I have a U16 / U19 team.  That's one team.  Most of the players are currently 8th and 9th graders. We have had one 18 year old on our roster. Why he was not turned away is an administrative issue I had no control over. So, this springs team plays in a U16 league and a U19 league. We have had three matches to date (all in the U19 league) losing each of them.  The scores were 0-4, 0-4 and 0-6. ( I had to look those up, lol) My personal coaching grades were F, C- and B.

Sometimes you just don't know what you have until you play a game. That is the case this spring season. I had some knowledge of a few of the players, but most were completely unknown to me and I to them. When I inquired of them the positions they had experience in playing nearly everyone of them identified as a center midfielder.  Sometimes this can be a good thing!  Many coaches will place their best players in the center midfield positions as they want their best to be around the ball as much as possible. In observing the players from this spring team train I was unsure whether they were all liars (TIC) or whether it had been so long since I had worked with 14 - 16 year old kids that I had unrealistic expectations of how a player of that age group would play as a center midfielder.  The truth lies somewhere in between.

After that first match for which I graded myself an F I knew I had my work cut out for me. The team did not defend well. They did not possess / attack well and they did not transition well in either direction. To top it all off, we don't have a goalkeeper and are having to rely on "volunteers" to play between the pipes.  I have learned more about the players from each game we have played.  I have moved from a reliance on what they have told me about their playing experience to personalities & skill sets to positions based on building relationships with the players and on my observations of their individual and collective play.

I have been able to identify both individual and collective team strengths and weaknesses from there first forays on the pitch.  Some things I had assumed (hoped?) would be present are in fact missing. I have had to dial things back a bit to lay a more proper foundation on which to build. The most glaring weakness we have is a lack of Soccer IQ.  There just hasn't been much thought put into what we are doing on the pitch. The pattern of play has been "see ball, chase ball, give the ball a whack" or "see ball, chase ball, take excessive number of touches on the ball, turn the ball over."  Neither is a recipe for success.

Truth be known, I knew these were problems areas from the first five minutes I watched this team train during the winter. Their play was all one-decision soccer. They played very slowly and very much as individuals because of this. I set about immediately to provide the players with the necessary tools to increase their speed of play and reliance on one another as teammates pursuing common goals.  It's been a struggle.  As can often be the case, it can take a little time to get used to using new tools. This has been the case with our team this spring.

To aid in developing their individual and collective soccer IQ I have used tried and true measures. Each player has a soccer journal they are to write in on a daily basis. I have provided a handout with formation positional roles and responsibilities broken down in great detail. We have done pattern play and walk-through's among other training exercises.  From game 1 to game 2 we improved. Not nearly enough to my liking, but there was improvement provided you did not focus on the result.

The third game we played the same team from game 2 and the margin of defeat was greater by 2 more goals than the previous contest. One might assume we made no improvement or even regressed based solely on the scoreboard. You know what they say about assuming anything, correct? It makes an ass out of u and me.  We made significant progress in the process during that 3rd game. This was the first time we played as a team. There was far less reliance on individual play.  We defended well as a TEAM for long stretches of the match, The vast majority of attacking play was done in two touch or at least limited touch fashion. We were able to string several passes together and had some nice combination play. I know at this point I have a starting 11 who are "getting it."  Most of the reserves also made significant improvements throughout that 3rd match.  In fact, only one or two players are still resisting or not buying into what is being asked of them.  It is of no coincidence that we allowed 3 goals in less than 7 minutes when they entered the game.  We immediately lost positional and role responsibility integrity as these players went off script. This remains a concern going forward.

Overall, I came away from the third match "jazzed" about the improvements made. The day was a grand success and I feel we are about to turn the corner on this season. Good things lie ahead of us as long as we continue to play as a team. Play for one another. This is perhaps the most important thing to take away from yesterday's contest - because we played for one another we began competing as a team,  This is a most significant development in the process!

1) Learn to give intelligent effort.

Extremely rare are the times I have witnessed a player not give good effort.  Almost everyone will give you the best effort they have on any given day. That does't always equate to intelligent effort though.  As I pointed out to a coupe of individual players yesterday, sometimes it is possible to work too hard to the point that your efforts are used against you. The lights however dim they might be, went on in this regard for a couple of players yesterday. Now we just need to turn up the brightness so it shines like the sun on a clear summers day!

2) Learn to compete.

This is the stage most of us entered yesterday afternoon. We are far from completing this stage of our development but there was marked improvement yesterday.  One of the prize moments yesterday was to see one of our youngest players begin to shut down one of the opponents who had given us the most trouble. The opponent had one basic move he relied on time and again. I believe it was on the third rotation in for our player that he began taking that move away from the opponent AND shared what he had learned with teammates! GREAT stuff, that!.

3) Learn to win.

Learning to compete is a two stage process. The individual learns to compete and the team learns to compete. Both begin happening yesterday!  Both are reliant on learning to trust. Trust yourself and trust your teammates. Again, we made progress in this process with only a couple of players yet to enter the learning to compete phase.  TRUST is the king consideration in learning to win.  Trusting your teammates to play their positions and fulfill their responsibilities to the team. Trusting that all teammates are indeed pursuing  common goals.  Trusting one another enough to allow everyone to contribute and having faith the contributions made will be in line with the process required to reach the common goals being striven for.

On the scoreboard we got our butts kicked yesterday, but in terms of improving and continuing progress in the process we won the day!  This team still has a ways to go, but I feel we have found traction, are turning a corner and are ready to come out of it aggressively into a straight away where we can gain some momentum to propel us to better things in the next couple of weeks!  We improved individually and collectively. That's what winners do. And that's exactly what we accomplished yesterday. It was a good day and it holds the promise of many more to come!