At this point I'm concerned because LL is exhausted from that grinder of a game and he only has 45 minutes until his next one. I take him, cram some bananas and a yogurt into him, some hydration, and a little downtime. We walk in about 10 minutes before kick off and as I'm getting him switched into the right jersey the club coach walks up and tells me he has to go and that "my" team is waiting for me over in the locker room. Oh crap, when do I get to just sit and watch?
Oh well, at least I see we have enough players to get started. Then I check the roster and realize that we are playing a team in the age group up. Good kids from a nearby club, I know some of them and the coach is a good guy. Then I find out that I'm having another player added to my team. I'm supposed to "try out" D1. We're playing an Under9, tier one team who we are already giving up an average of 13 months, 4 inches, and 15-20 lbs to and he sends me D1. Now D1 is a good kid with good touch, but he is tiny. He is tiny even for his age. Did I mention he just turned 5 this month? And he can only play forward? And he doesn't speak english? He literally came up to the belly button on the biggest kid for the other team.
Oh well, I put the line up in as the normal coach specified and the game began. A minute in and our goalkeeper leaks one through the five hole trying to be fancy. Seriously? Fancy NOW? We were down 4 nothing eight minutes into the game when I said screw it and through out the coach's game plan and decided to improvise. Normally he puts D2, who is big and has good footwork, in as centerforward, LL as Left Wing, and B as right wing. The problem is that D2 refuses to pass and our defense is weak. So I moved D2 into defense and told him for every goal the other team scores because he didn't pass he has to spend 5 minutes on defense. I left T on defense and moved my weak defender to the bench, B1 who is a great all around player into defensive midfield, LL as attacking Mid right in front of him and B2 and D1 as forwards. (I had to keep D on the near side whenever he was in because someone was translating all my directions
) Neither one of the forwards were likely to score as they don't have a strong foot, but I knew they'd run and could control and pass, and both move to compensate for a changing structure. LL played up the center with B1 backing him up. 2 minutes later it paid off as D1 fought hard for the ball and knocked it away from the defender, LL ran onto the ball in the corner, beat one defender and hit the top corner. D1 subbed out, J subbed in and managed to head the ball over the defender, LL didn't wait to gain control, he just turned and volleyed the ball in from midair, again over the keeper. LL came out, D1 back in. That didn't work quite as well and the other team scored. LL back in as defensive mid and B1 out. Now it is a running battle between the midfielders with the defenders locking things up. We scored a couple more times before the half. We went into the half down by one. At that point B3 shows up late. We were better off without him as he really doesn't belong at the club level yet. Nice kid, just not ready for it physically or mentally. But he's there so he subs in. He can't defend for squat so upfront he goes. But he can't control or shoot either so we are now essentially playing a player short. We go down another point on a breakaway and I put the strongest team back in with J and T on defense, LL and B1 in midfield, D2 on the right, and B2 on the left. In that format the kids go on a run and we find ourselves up by a point with two minutes left. B3 goes in as a mid, B1 dropping to defense because J is just out of gas. The other team immediately ties and B3's dad asks me to pull him so he doesn't lose confidence.
So D1 goes in as forward and B2 drops to mid with LL. The other team is pressuring hard when T drags one of their players down. Free kick from close in - there's a point as the ball goes over our keeper. (grow a little will ya kid?
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We're down by a point with a minute left. I push B1 up to mid, so we're now only with one defender and loaded on the attacking front. B1, B2, and D1 combine some nice movements to find LL in open space where he pops it in over their keeper before getting leveled by their defender. He's crying but won't come off the field as we're tied with 40 seconds on the clock. The other team presses everyone forward on the restart and our kids are fighting hard to keep them out until we get called for handball about 20 feet out and to the left of our goal. All the kids rush in and make a wall and it looks good until the last second LL sees the other team's top scorer completely unmarked just drifting over to the backside of the goal and sprints over to cover him. B2 is totally startled and starts yelling at LL and completely doesn't notice as the ball goes right past him to bounce into the goal off the other team's player who was just standing and watching the clock. We're down one point with about 10 seconds left so I push everyone including the keeper up. The kids fought hard but the other team was well trained and they kicked the ball out of bounds twice to kill the remaining time.
A well fought game. The other team's parents and coach all commented on how well the kids did. They really did fight hard.
I saw our club coach on Sunday and he asked how the game went. I told him that we lost by one and explained that the kids would have done better, but B2 and D2 aren't used to taking directions from me and aren't used to my lineups, and D1 isn't used to english so we had some growing pains. He laughed and said that he expected our kids to lose by double digits as the team we played was the number one ranked team tier one team and had gone the whole outdoor season undefeated. Oh thanks, you couldn't tell me that before the game started?