What a season!

I can't tell you how proud I am of this team. The season looked really difficult from the beginning. With a screwed up recruitment process we only picked up one new player. I was stuck as the only coach and made a lot of mistakes from the beginning. We played with almost no subs the entire season. Some games we played with 9 or 10 players. And there we were in the premier flight of the league. It looked like a recipe for being blown out most games.

 

I gave the parents who made it to my parent's meeting my coaching philosophy: "I want the boys to have fun, exit the season better players than they entered it and not to get blown out all their games or to blow out their opponents." Let's see how we did meeting those goals.

 

• You'll have to ask your boys if they had fun, I know my two boys did.
• I can tell you that most learned a lot this season. The practice attendance was really quite good, (see below for details) and they learned some great drills with Leo and Julio as the coaches that they put into practice in the games. I saw tremendous improvement in Sebastian, Roberto, David and Liam.
• We were only blown out by one team but even in that game they played keep-away for only the last few minutes of the game.
• And we finished the season quite respectably: Three wins, six losses and a tie.

 

The big problem that plagued us throughout the season was a lack of substitutes. It didn't help having two injured players and two who were committed to another team. But I am really disappointed in the lack of support I received from the club in this area. I was constantly offered help but those offering it didn't follow through. I will be dealing with the club over the winter to try and get some help here. I will hold Rene's feet to the fire to have him get me the help he promised.
The only good side to this problem was that the players got plenty of playing time and were in terrific shape by the end of the season.

 

Let's have a parent's meeting after Thanksgiving to discuss the past season, the winter training, the spring season and any help you would like to offer me. Please vote on when you can attend and I'll set it up for a time that works for everyone. Vote on which days work for you and I'll pick the most popular.