All

Playing up a year if always hard, we give in to size, strength, speed and maturity.  Saturday, whilst the field did not help, it was a good lesson for the boys to learn.  I have make the statement to the boys we need to be "Smarter and more Aggressive".  If we can do this against older, larger players, when we do return to our age group to play we will have no problems.  Smarter equals finding more space of the ball, dropping at angles, finding 1v1 and numbers up situations etc.  

Game knowledge will come, not just from our games and practice but extra time spent with the ball individually and from watching the game.  We would like to create a soccer culture with not just this group but the club in general, being able to relate what we are working in at practice to something that you have seen or did within a game will only better the individual, team and the club.  The boys need to spend at a minimum 45 minutes a week watching a game.  This can be a High school, College Game in person or a Professional game live or on TV.  NE Revolution play weekly and had a very good game with the Red Bulls Saturday.  The English Premier League is shown on NBC weekly, additional channels such as Fox Soccer show Spanish games (Barcelona…..BORING), Italian League and Mid week European game.  45 minutes is not to much to ask and I'm sure they will ultimately end of watching more.  Parents please help to make this happen.

I am only looking to take positives from the weekend's game

Shape – We spent Monday night working on our shape and where we should be dependent on the ball position, this was a plus for us, whilst the opposition pressured with 3-5 players at a time, we looked to make the field bigger.  On a number of occasions we looked to go backwards and start the attack again if we could not go forward

Passing and Control – Conditions aside we did try to play for periods of the game.  Looking to make passes versus "lumping" the ball up the field.  A larger field would of allowed us more space, but also forced us to play under greater pressure

Vision – As above, we looked to play.  Game after game, practice after practice this is improving.  Keeping our head up to find opportunities will only help the team out.  Wednesday we working on 2 v 1 situations and how easy it should be for the 2 versus the 1

A good finish from Craig after great vision from Christian to find him for our goal

Overall not the best day collectively, we will work hard on the fields to have us ready for next weekend's tournament.

Tonight please be at Preston Field for 5pm, 5.30pm kick off Versus Merrimack.  There is a good chance it will be off because of the weather.  Please check your emails today.