Soccer games of December 11
Tuesday evening, December 11, I played in the 4-minute soccer games at the Oak Sq Y. The results of the games are at Soccer indoors Oak Sq Y Brighton Dec 11, 2012.
Before the games started, we had 5-10 minutes of warmup time which we do not usually get, because of the gym schedule. I did a few of the aerial runs I've named 'Wildcat' & 'Eagle'; they worked well from the beginning, without warmup. After the games ended we had a few minutes on the court, and I did a few more 'Wildcat' & 'Eagle' type aerial runs, they worked well again. Best I can recall one of these aerial runs did not go exactly as it is supposed to go, but the ball remained under tight control anyway.
I played in four games. I was on defense during three of the games, during this time the opponents scored one goal--a player to my right in the corner, centered the ball through my legs and they scored. I guess I have to be more alert about swinging a leg forwards to block such passes. Then when I was on offense during one game, the opponents scored 2 goals on us. As I expected, our team fell apart defensively when they put me on offense.
The main lesson of the games today: skills that do not get practiced during games degenerate. Although it is true that sometimes, when skill A is easier than skill B and similar to skill B, mastery of skill B can automatically produce mastery of skill A without skill A being practiced, nevertheless, often mastering a skill fails to produce mastery in a similar skill. Along this line, one can see looking at 'April 2012 Conditioning Drill Stats', which contains data regarding my progress in conditioning, that my improvement in terms of running the conditioning drill without the ball, did not automatically lead to improvement when running the conditioning drill while dribbling the ball.
At one point I dribbled forwards down the left wing, and fired a shot at a 45 degree angle towards the goal. The shot went wide. During practice I have not been working on 30-45 degree angle shots off the dribble. In another instance, I attempted a first-touch chip-pass off a rolling ball. The pass did not go where I wanted it to go. During practice I have not been working on chip-passes off of rolling balls.
In a couple of instances, a bouncing ball came at me, I attempted to kick it on the first touch, and the ball did not go where I wanted it to go. This despite my competence in terms of 'aerial dribbling', which involves me running at a fast speed while keeping the ball close to the body and under control. During practice, this week, I did not get a chance to work on first-touch kicks of bouncers that come at me, though I had planned to do this.
In general, there are certain skills that are difficult to practice when practicing alone. This evening I learned the importance of practicing these skills anyway. I cannot allow the fact that it is like a difficult chess problem, a headache, to invent ways of practicing certain skills when alone (there is little interest in soccer in my area), to dissuade me from practicing those skills.
On the 'positive' side:
After stilling the ball, I sent an almost-perfect 25 yard aerial pass, that reached an apex of about 8 feet, forwards to a team-mate. The pass led the team-mate perfectly. But since the man defending him was perfectly positioned, and since the pass was about a foot too high, the defender knocked the ball away with his head. If the pass had been a foot lower, it would have been a perfect pass.
After dribbling the ball down the left wing into the corner, I crossed the ball inwards and backwards to the same teammate, a 40-foot aerial pass. The pass was almost perfect, but a little too hard and a little too high-- the team-mate could not reach it. If this pass had been 6 inches lower and softer, it would have been perfect.
These passes would have been perfect passes if thrown to receivers who can use their hands to catch the pass; perhaps, I've been effected by watching American-style tackle-football. It is indeed an achievement to be able to pass so accurately, but I believe I have to learn to compensate for slight inaccuracy by taking a little bit of power off the passes. Seems the overpowered passes are a result of the way I've been practicing: in practice I 've been forgetting that aerial passes need to be toned down in terms of velocity, to compensate for the fact that the passes are usually slightly off in terms of targetting.
When I gained possession of the ball on offense, I did not panic and pass prematurely. I waited until I had lured the defender into thinking I was about to dribble to my right. This opened up the teammate to my left. Then I passed to my teammate to my left.
On defense as usual, I was disrupting dribbles, blocking shots.
Regarding my teammates:
We had a new guy on our team. As we settled into the usual pattern of me on defense alone and the rest on offense, this guy spent alot of time playing right in front of me, which rendered me somewhat redundant. He did not play in any one position at all. Sometimes he was to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes on offense, sometimes on defense. Between games I questioned him, he retorted that he was not playing any position. I mentioned this to a teammate I do not usually play with, and the teammate said that the court was too small for playing positions.
Their weird words/actions shocked me. I have played in many of these soccer games on basketball courts; everyone always plays a position; nobody ever says that the court is so small that nobody needs to play a position; everyone understands that it is beyond debate, that if people do not play a position, chaos erupts.
True, I've often been annoyed at the inflexible failure of teammates to change their positions so as to compensate for me leaving my usual position when such is advantageous, and so as to allow me to leave my usual position when such is advantageous. However this does not mean that we should play without generally speaking adhering to a particular position such as defense, offense, left, or right. I don't understand this weird idea that the court is so small that players should not attempt to play a position. The court is about 60 feet wide, which makes it difficult to play on both sides. The court is about 100 feet long, which makes it difficult to play both offense and defense.
Before the games started, we had 5-10 minutes of warmup time which we do not usually get, because of the gym schedule. I did a few of the aerial runs I've named 'Wildcat' & 'Eagle'; they worked well from the beginning, without warmup. After the games ended we had a few minutes on the court, and I did a few more 'Wildcat' & 'Eagle' type aerial runs, they worked well again. Best I can recall one of these aerial runs did not go exactly as it is supposed to go, but the ball remained under tight control anyway.
I played in four games. I was on defense during three of the games, during this time the opponents scored one goal--a player to my right in the corner, centered the ball through my legs and they scored. I guess I have to be more alert about swinging a leg forwards to block such passes. Then when I was on offense during one game, the opponents scored 2 goals on us. As I expected, our team fell apart defensively when they put me on offense.
The main lesson of the games today: skills that do not get practiced during games degenerate. Although it is true that sometimes, when skill A is easier than skill B and similar to skill B, mastery of skill B can automatically produce mastery of skill A without skill A being practiced, nevertheless, often mastering a skill fails to produce mastery in a similar skill. Along this line, one can see looking at 'April 2012 Conditioning Drill Stats', which contains data regarding my progress in conditioning, that my improvement in terms of running the conditioning drill without the ball, did not automatically lead to improvement when running the conditioning drill while dribbling the ball.
At one point I dribbled forwards down the left wing, and fired a shot at a 45 degree angle towards the goal. The shot went wide. During practice I have not been working on 30-45 degree angle shots off the dribble. In another instance, I attempted a first-touch chip-pass off a rolling ball. The pass did not go where I wanted it to go. During practice I have not been working on chip-passes off of rolling balls.
In a couple of instances, a bouncing ball came at me, I attempted to kick it on the first touch, and the ball did not go where I wanted it to go. This despite my competence in terms of 'aerial dribbling', which involves me running at a fast speed while keeping the ball close to the body and under control. During practice, this week, I did not get a chance to work on first-touch kicks of bouncers that come at me, though I had planned to do this.
In general, there are certain skills that are difficult to practice when practicing alone. This evening I learned the importance of practicing these skills anyway. I cannot allow the fact that it is like a difficult chess problem, a headache, to invent ways of practicing certain skills when alone (there is little interest in soccer in my area), to dissuade me from practicing those skills.
On the 'positive' side:
After stilling the ball, I sent an almost-perfect 25 yard aerial pass, that reached an apex of about 8 feet, forwards to a team-mate. The pass led the team-mate perfectly. But since the man defending him was perfectly positioned, and since the pass was about a foot too high, the defender knocked the ball away with his head. If the pass had been a foot lower, it would have been a perfect pass.
After dribbling the ball down the left wing into the corner, I crossed the ball inwards and backwards to the same teammate, a 40-foot aerial pass. The pass was almost perfect, but a little too hard and a little too high-- the team-mate could not reach it. If this pass had been 6 inches lower and softer, it would have been perfect.
These passes would have been perfect passes if thrown to receivers who can use their hands to catch the pass; perhaps, I've been effected by watching American-style tackle-football. It is indeed an achievement to be able to pass so accurately, but I believe I have to learn to compensate for slight inaccuracy by taking a little bit of power off the passes. Seems the overpowered passes are a result of the way I've been practicing: in practice I 've been forgetting that aerial passes need to be toned down in terms of velocity, to compensate for the fact that the passes are usually slightly off in terms of targetting.
When I gained possession of the ball on offense, I did not panic and pass prematurely. I waited until I had lured the defender into thinking I was about to dribble to my right. This opened up the teammate to my left. Then I passed to my teammate to my left.
On defense as usual, I was disrupting dribbles, blocking shots.
Regarding my teammates:
We had a new guy on our team. As we settled into the usual pattern of me on defense alone and the rest on offense, this guy spent alot of time playing right in front of me, which rendered me somewhat redundant. He did not play in any one position at all. Sometimes he was to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes on offense, sometimes on defense. Between games I questioned him, he retorted that he was not playing any position. I mentioned this to a teammate I do not usually play with, and the teammate said that the court was too small for playing positions.
Their weird words/actions shocked me. I have played in many of these soccer games on basketball courts; everyone always plays a position; nobody ever says that the court is so small that nobody needs to play a position; everyone understands that it is beyond debate, that if people do not play a position, chaos erupts.
True, I've often been annoyed at the inflexible failure of teammates to change their positions so as to compensate for me leaving my usual position when such is advantageous, and so as to allow me to leave my usual position when such is advantageous. However this does not mean that we should play without generally speaking adhering to a particular position such as defense, offense, left, or right. I don't understand this weird idea that the court is so small that players should not attempt to play a position. The court is about 60 feet wide, which makes it difficult to play on both sides. The court is about 100 feet long, which makes it difficult to play both offense and defense.
posted by David Virgil at 5:21 AM
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