S&L Juniors U11 Whites - Virginia Water U11 Foxes
Home match played on grass pitch 5 in sleety cold rain (had to come sooner or later!). With agreement from the opposition we played 8-aside throughout. Get better soon Dexter, we missed you! Steve and Paul did an exceptional job of ref and lines-person as always!
What can I say? What a flying start to the season! From the five games we've won four, the loss could have gone either way, we've scored an amazing 22 goals and conceded 10. We have a half-term break next week, but I think we'll be moving up a division or two after. This could (and should) make games more competitive, not that we're not enjoying ourselves! One of the best things we're witnessing is the team'y-ness (not a word - should be!) we now show. This makes us so proud to coach and watch you develop week in week out.
Before we started the match we spoke about snappier floor passing and control, being touch tight when man-to-man marking (so we know where they are when not looking at them), talking more (man-on, 1-2, ME, SHOOOOOT!), avoiding fouls by making interception runs (to our goal rather than at the oppo player if they're past us) and reminded of our Golden Rules (to respect all team & oppo players, coaches and supporters). The rules are available on our team info sheet.
Passing was sooooo much better than last week. So much faster with some great balls out of defence and between the midfield and attackers. So dangerous!
We controlled the game with some great defending, limiting their chances to very few. They had one penalty and an open play goal on 60+2. It was also evident that they were playing high in attempting to create chances. This left us loads of room to run in behind and we were fast and pin-point in taking chances.
We lacked goals/ chances from within the box last week. It was so much better today: I believe helped by the passing. This enables us to get more variance in how we score making us even more dangerous. We can mix it up - come from long with running/ shooting or ping it around the box for tap-ins. Exactly how we want to go forwards. When to dribble and hold it was also better balanced.
Special mention to Nivan winning Player of the Match. You ran tirelessly, broke down play and your passing today was the best we've seen (so far - more please!).
We can't wait for the next match to see the next chapter in this great story; keep it up guys, you're smashing it!
