Soccer Offensive Teamwork Notes
My thoughts as of 9:16 AM 12/4/2012
Seems many of the young men participating in soccer games at the Oak Square YMCA, are not adept at the art of pass receiving, even though pass receiving requires minimal physical or mental talent or skill.
This is because of mental error; they have not devoted any thought to the art of pass receiving. They have never been on hard-driven, uniformed, official, coached, soccer teams.
Everyone on my high school soccer team knew that if a pass to you did not come directly at you, you still chased after the ball. Everyone chased after the ball when the pass to them was a little off. This often ended up in goals being scored by us, or us preventing them from scoring goals.
Chasing After balls passed to you that are slightly 'off-target'
Not so the Oak Square boys. If You pass the ball to them and the ball misses the spot on the floor that is directly under their behind by more than one foot, they will make no movement in the direction of the ball.
These same boys rush up to play offense at the start of a game and never participate in playing defense. Their excuse is that they are allegedly more perky than us defenders, so they should play offense. If indeed they have more endurance than us, why then do they fail to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are even just slightly off-target directionally?
In part it's because they are obsessed with dribbling, and shooting. Being obsessed with dribbling and shooting, they have forgotten the art of pass-receiving. They despise making passes, and pass-receiving is the partner of passing. Defenders contribute to offense by passing but the boy-wonders have become enamored of 3-second video clips showing stars dribbling and shooting. The 'bigot' within wonders whether their little brown ethnic mommies spank them.
By failing to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are not perfectly on-target, these sluggards make great passers look like losers.
Often the perfect pass is not sent directly to the recipient, but to a spot a little away from the recipient, so that the pass-recipient can hook up with the pass on the run. But the sloths will not chase after a pass that is not sent directly to them.
Could be that their reflexes are simply slow. You send them a lobbed lead-pass. It sails to the perfect point where, if their reflexes were quick, they could have caught the pass on the run. But by the time the ball gets to that perfect point a few feet away from them, they have not moved and are still standing there watching the ball.
They reserve their energy for dribbling and shooting; they refuse to chase passes or play defense because such would leave them with less energy for dribbling and shooting.
Last week or the week before, I was on the right side in my half of the court. I chip-passed the ball, the ball sailed about 30 yards into the opponent's right half, diagonally across the court. Such is hard to do on a basketball court, because there is no grass to hold the ball up so the foot can get beneath the ball.
The ball reached an apex height of at least 20 feet, and maintained that 20-foot altitude for a few feet of horizontal movement through the air. The ball 'hung' in the air, the way American tackle-football players try to 'hang' the ball in the air when they punt the ball, so as to allow their team-mates to catch up with the ball. One of the players watching on the sideline gave a hoot as the ball sailed through the air.
The ball finally bounced, but almost straight up towards the ceiling. As the ball bounced, my team-mate closest to where the ball bounced was still watching the ball and had not moved from where he was standing when I first kicked the ball. Finally he started chasing the ball, and got the ball away from the defender, who had to deal with a bounce straight up with my team-mate on top of him just after the bounce. Next, the ball was loose, neither team had possession, the ball was near the opponent goal, the other team was in chaos. But nobody from my team had run forwards to follow up the action behind the player who was closest to the ball.
Following your team-mate's dribbling charge
Similarly when I went on runs of at least 30 feet in distance last week from my defender position, both times, in the end I and one of the second line of Dutch defenders got our feet on the ball at the same time, and the ball ended up loose, not in possession of either team, close to and in front of the opponent goal.
If a team-mate had followed me even at a slow jog as I sped up the Dutch middle on the dribbling runs, he could have pounced on an open ball in front of and close to the opponent goal and scored.
My team-mates did an impressive job of falling back on defense to compensate for my run up to offense from my defensive position. But they overcompensated. Seemed my whole team dropped back to defense, when I went on a dribbling run that carried me into the Dutch territory. All it takes is for one of my 3 non-goalie team-mates on the court, to fall back when I go on an offensive run. If just one of the 3 had followed me on my dribbling run, both dribbling runs could have ended in goals.
Finished this essay in 34 minutes, @ 9:50 AM 12/4/2012
Seems many of the young men participating in soccer games at the Oak Square YMCA, are not adept at the art of pass receiving, even though pass receiving requires minimal physical or mental talent or skill.
This is because of mental error; they have not devoted any thought to the art of pass receiving. They have never been on hard-driven, uniformed, official, coached, soccer teams.
Everyone on my high school soccer team knew that if a pass to you did not come directly at you, you still chased after the ball. Everyone chased after the ball when the pass to them was a little off. This often ended up in goals being scored by us, or us preventing them from scoring goals.
Chasing After balls passed to you that are slightly 'off-target'
Not so the Oak Square boys. If You pass the ball to them and the ball misses the spot on the floor that is directly under their behind by more than one foot, they will make no movement in the direction of the ball.
These same boys rush up to play offense at the start of a game and never participate in playing defense. Their excuse is that they are allegedly more perky than us defenders, so they should play offense. If indeed they have more endurance than us, why then do they fail to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are even just slightly off-target directionally?
In part it's because they are obsessed with dribbling, and shooting. Being obsessed with dribbling and shooting, they have forgotten the art of pass-receiving. They despise making passes, and pass-receiving is the partner of passing. Defenders contribute to offense by passing but the boy-wonders have become enamored of 3-second video clips showing stars dribbling and shooting. The 'bigot' within wonders whether their little brown ethnic mommies spank them.
By failing to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are not perfectly on-target, these sluggards make great passers look like losers.
Often the perfect pass is not sent directly to the recipient, but to a spot a little away from the recipient, so that the pass-recipient can hook up with the pass on the run. But the sloths will not chase after a pass that is not sent directly to them.
Could be that their reflexes are simply slow. You send them a lobbed lead-pass. It sails to the perfect point where, if their reflexes were quick, they could have caught the pass on the run. But by the time the ball gets to that perfect point a few feet away from them, they have not moved and are still standing there watching the ball.
They reserve their energy for dribbling and shooting; they refuse to chase passes or play defense because such would leave them with less energy for dribbling and shooting.
Last week or the week before, I was on the right side in my half of the court. I chip-passed the ball, the ball sailed about 30 yards into the opponent's right half, diagonally across the court. Such is hard to do on a basketball court, because there is no grass to hold the ball up so the foot can get beneath the ball.
The ball reached an apex height of at least 20 feet, and maintained that 20-foot altitude for a few feet of horizontal movement through the air. The ball 'hung' in the air, the way American tackle-football players try to 'hang' the ball in the air when they punt the ball, so as to allow their team-mates to catch up with the ball. One of the players watching on the sideline gave a hoot as the ball sailed through the air.
The ball finally bounced, but almost straight up towards the ceiling. As the ball bounced, my team-mate closest to where the ball bounced was still watching the ball and had not moved from where he was standing when I first kicked the ball. Finally he started chasing the ball, and got the ball away from the defender, who had to deal with a bounce straight up with my team-mate on top of him just after the bounce. Next, the ball was loose, neither team had possession, the ball was near the opponent goal, the other team was in chaos. But nobody from my team had run forwards to follow up the action behind the player who was closest to the ball.
Following your team-mate's dribbling charge
Similarly when I went on runs of at least 30 feet in distance last week from my defender position, both times, in the end I and one of the second line of Dutch defenders got our feet on the ball at the same time, and the ball ended up loose, not in possession of either team, close to and in front of the opponent goal.
If a team-mate had followed me even at a slow jog as I sped up the Dutch middle on the dribbling runs, he could have pounced on an open ball in front of and close to the opponent goal and scored.
My team-mates did an impressive job of falling back on defense to compensate for my run up to offense from my defensive position. But they overcompensated. Seemed my whole team dropped back to defense, when I went on a dribbling run that carried me into the Dutch territory. All it takes is for one of my 3 non-goalie team-mates on the court, to fall back when I go on an offensive run. If just one of the 3 had followed me on my dribbling run, both dribbling runs could have ended in goals.
Finished this essay in 34 minutes, @ 9:50 AM 12/4/2012
Labels: soccer
posted by David Virgil at 9:56 AM
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