Soccer January 8 2013 games at Oak Sq Y
Tuesday evening, this evening, they had 4-minute soccer games at the Oak Sq YMCA. I managed to get in about 20 minutes of warmup time. The warmup included one Eagle-Se-E2 aerial run attempt and one Wildcat aerial run. Both attempts were fast successes covering 22-33 feet, without any prior aerial warmup.
Six 5-person teams showed up pre-formed, formed before they even entered the gym, ethnic cliques of friends type things. The leftovers were seven people of whom I was one, out of which two five man teams were formed, with Calder the manager of the event and some others filling out one of the teams. Thus there were approx eight five man teams.
For the first time, Calder forced the teams sitting on the bench on the sideline, to move right at the end of every game, so that the team or the two teams on the extreme right on the bench, would be the next to play on the court. Like a conveyor belt.
About 16 games were played in all. I played in: game #4 (we lost 2-0) to the Calder Blues; game #10 ( we tied the opponent team 0-0); game #13 (my team won 1-0); game #14 (tie 0-0); & game #16 (tied N African Reds 0-0). So in all, I played in five 4-minute games, mostly defense.
Highlights:
I dribbled through two defenders, one of the was Calder, after safely getting by the both of them, a third defender ran up and got his foot on the ball at the same time I did, propelling it in the direction of my goal. Nobody dropped back to compensate for me a defender going on the offensive, and the other team quickly scored. This kind of thing has happened before. I have to make a point of getting my eyes up to watch the second line of defense, after I penetrate the first line of defense.
I did something that it is hard to practice, hard to teach, and hard to learn, that I have noticed I am able to do: In one touch, I intercepted a pass, and successfully passed to a team-mate.
I sent a long chip pass about 25 yards, that was supposed to glance off the wall to a team-mate. One of the guys sitting on the bench watching headed the ball instead of ducking, as a result of which the team-mate did not get the ball; but the pass was accuate.
An opponent team, the Spanish Greens, had a three on one, with me the lone defender. I tried to feint rushing the one with the ball and then running over to block the shot recipient's pass, but the one-touch shot made after they centered the ball was too fast for me to block, and they scored.
A 35 yard chip pass across and down the court that I made was well placed, curved about 9 feet to the right, but was not as accurate as it should have been because I had trouble distinguishing friend from foe due to a lack of colored jerseys. Many of the jerseys were way too small for an adult. More than once, I had to hesitate an extra moment before passing, because I was unsure who was on my team and who was not. But today I was able to get the ball to a team-mate after the hesitation, because the delay gave me enough time to distinguish friend from foe.
One of my team-mates was French, from the foreign-language school down the street. There was a loose ball, I was not sure if he was on my team, I clashed with him for the ball, the ball came loose and went to an opponent near our goal who shot and scored.
Analysis
We played according to the rule that the winning team stays on court. The winning team was allowed to stay on court for three games straight. The winning team stays on court format, inhibited my desire to leave defense and move up to offense. Early on, when I went on an attacking run, nobody dropped back to play defense and the other team scored.
Today for most of the evening, my team-mates surprised me by hustling on defense. Hence, though I started out the games playing defense, I did not see as much action as I usually do when playing defense. I play defense, because when I play offense, I don't get the ball much, because the people in the games either pass to friends that they know, or dribble/shoot, and I am not a friend whom they know. As usual today, even when I was open for passes that should have been made to me, the ball was not passed to me.
Seems the only way to deal with things, now that my teammates are hustling on defense, is to simply concentrate on improving my endurance, so that I can get in on the action despite playing defense, alongside teammates who are hustling on defense. Maybe I should simply start spending about half the time on offense. I've noticed that the high scoring guys, spend all their time in the opponent half of the court, their team-mates tolerate such and pass to them.
'Adiel', who told me that he was Spanish, was one of my team-mates. He agreed with me, that my team-mates failed to drop back to take my place on defense, when I went up on the attacking run. He said that our team-mates were being ball-hogs, dribbling and shooting when then should be passing. My team-mates were an East Asian who considered himself a forward, and two French from the foreign language school.
Overall on defense, the opponents seemed to be avoiding me, which further reduced the action for me. While I was on the court, the other team scored in total three goals. One came when I went up on an offensive run and nobody dropped back to cover for me; another came when I was the only defender against three attackers; and a third was a fluke caused by confusion re who was on my team. This reflected the usual pattern wherein the other team scores as a result of: me going up on offense; then having overpowering three on one type advantage; or, a fluke.
In general I suffered from a kind of grogginess during the 16 games during the 80 minutes. Seems the combination of the long drive to the Oak Sq Y, the crowded Oak Sq Y locker room, the small Oak Sq Y lockers, the ball hogging nature of the players, the noisiness of the gym, the playing for 4 minutes every 12 minutes, the playing the defensive position, the being only about 75% as fit as I should be, all adds up to make me sleepy, lazy on the court. By the time I am warmed up and ready to do cool things, the game is over.
Six 5-person teams showed up pre-formed, formed before they even entered the gym, ethnic cliques of friends type things. The leftovers were seven people of whom I was one, out of which two five man teams were formed, with Calder the manager of the event and some others filling out one of the teams. Thus there were approx eight five man teams.
For the first time, Calder forced the teams sitting on the bench on the sideline, to move right at the end of every game, so that the team or the two teams on the extreme right on the bench, would be the next to play on the court. Like a conveyor belt.
About 16 games were played in all. I played in: game #4 (we lost 2-0) to the Calder Blues; game #10 ( we tied the opponent team 0-0); game #13 (my team won 1-0); game #14 (tie 0-0); & game #16 (tied N African Reds 0-0). So in all, I played in five 4-minute games, mostly defense.
Highlights:
I dribbled through two defenders, one of the was Calder, after safely getting by the both of them, a third defender ran up and got his foot on the ball at the same time I did, propelling it in the direction of my goal. Nobody dropped back to compensate for me a defender going on the offensive, and the other team quickly scored. This kind of thing has happened before. I have to make a point of getting my eyes up to watch the second line of defense, after I penetrate the first line of defense.
I did something that it is hard to practice, hard to teach, and hard to learn, that I have noticed I am able to do: In one touch, I intercepted a pass, and successfully passed to a team-mate.
I sent a long chip pass about 25 yards, that was supposed to glance off the wall to a team-mate. One of the guys sitting on the bench watching headed the ball instead of ducking, as a result of which the team-mate did not get the ball; but the pass was accuate.
An opponent team, the Spanish Greens, had a three on one, with me the lone defender. I tried to feint rushing the one with the ball and then running over to block the shot recipient's pass, but the one-touch shot made after they centered the ball was too fast for me to block, and they scored.
A 35 yard chip pass across and down the court that I made was well placed, curved about 9 feet to the right, but was not as accurate as it should have been because I had trouble distinguishing friend from foe due to a lack of colored jerseys. Many of the jerseys were way too small for an adult. More than once, I had to hesitate an extra moment before passing, because I was unsure who was on my team and who was not. But today I was able to get the ball to a team-mate after the hesitation, because the delay gave me enough time to distinguish friend from foe.
One of my team-mates was French, from the foreign-language school down the street. There was a loose ball, I was not sure if he was on my team, I clashed with him for the ball, the ball came loose and went to an opponent near our goal who shot and scored.
Analysis
We played according to the rule that the winning team stays on court. The winning team was allowed to stay on court for three games straight. The winning team stays on court format, inhibited my desire to leave defense and move up to offense. Early on, when I went on an attacking run, nobody dropped back to play defense and the other team scored.
Today for most of the evening, my team-mates surprised me by hustling on defense. Hence, though I started out the games playing defense, I did not see as much action as I usually do when playing defense. I play defense, because when I play offense, I don't get the ball much, because the people in the games either pass to friends that they know, or dribble/shoot, and I am not a friend whom they know. As usual today, even when I was open for passes that should have been made to me, the ball was not passed to me.
Seems the only way to deal with things, now that my teammates are hustling on defense, is to simply concentrate on improving my endurance, so that I can get in on the action despite playing defense, alongside teammates who are hustling on defense. Maybe I should simply start spending about half the time on offense. I've noticed that the high scoring guys, spend all their time in the opponent half of the court, their team-mates tolerate such and pass to them.
'Adiel', who told me that he was Spanish, was one of my team-mates. He agreed with me, that my team-mates failed to drop back to take my place on defense, when I went up on the attacking run. He said that our team-mates were being ball-hogs, dribbling and shooting when then should be passing. My team-mates were an East Asian who considered himself a forward, and two French from the foreign language school.
Overall on defense, the opponents seemed to be avoiding me, which further reduced the action for me. While I was on the court, the other team scored in total three goals. One came when I went up on an offensive run and nobody dropped back to cover for me; another came when I was the only defender against three attackers; and a third was a fluke caused by confusion re who was on my team. This reflected the usual pattern wherein the other team scores as a result of: me going up on offense; then having overpowering three on one type advantage; or, a fluke.
In general I suffered from a kind of grogginess during the 16 games during the 80 minutes. Seems the combination of the long drive to the Oak Sq Y, the crowded Oak Sq Y locker room, the small Oak Sq Y lockers, the ball hogging nature of the players, the noisiness of the gym, the playing for 4 minutes every 12 minutes, the playing the defensive position, the being only about 75% as fit as I should be, all adds up to make me sleepy, lazy on the court. By the time I am warmed up and ready to do cool things, the game is over.
posted by David Virgil at 12:33 AM
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