April Fools

Maybe the other coach was playing an April Fools joke on us when he asked us to switch our game time to 12:15 and then asked us to switch it back to 2:15.

I say we teach him what we think of his joke by trouncing his team on Sunday.

Who's with me?

First Game, First Win

Yes!!! We played hard, the other team was aggressive but we held our ground and only retaliated once for a yellow card. We shot many times and Dario put in a beauty from across the field. Our defense was stellar with Liam, Joey and Sebas holding the first line of defense, Jack cleaning up the few that got through them and Joel making some amazing saves when they got past Jack. An excellent shutout that can be attributed to the entire defense.

We also had a nice meal with most of the team afterwards and got to know each other better. I see a wonderful season ahead of us. See you all at practice tomorrow.

Tiago, our new trainer.

The Red Bulls Organization has provided us with our new trainer, Tiago. He met all the boys with the exception of Jake and Sam on Friday so that was a great start. The boys seemed to like him, he seemed organized. Here's his background. He has:
- played soccer for over 20 years at various competitive levels
- worked for Red Bulls for about a year
- his NSCAA GK level 1 and NSCAA Junior V Licenese
- coached the past two years girls varsity at Morris Tech in Denville Township  NJ
- a BA in Business Management from Berkeley College
- been coaching for 4 years now, working with various age groups from U9 to U18
Tiago is currently in the process of obtaining his MBA from Montclair State University

I have estimated his training schedule to be 20 practice sessions and two game-day training sessions. That should use up all our training money, including the extra we collected in the fall. 

I'd like him to attend the next game day so he will have had a chance to assess the boys outdoor in practice before he sees how they do in the game. That should allow him to make any adjustments he requires in the practice schedule. Then we'll have him observe another game after that to see how his adjustments are working.

One of the questions I'll be asking you is if we want Tiago to attend more game days and if you're willing to pay for that. It costs $113 a game, so that's about $7 per game per child. Let me know your thoughts on that.

New Players and First Game

Things are looking good for the first game on Sunday. First of all, we picked up five new players.

Jarib joined us from the U-13 team to add a punch in the offence. He played a few games in the winter tournament and scored some goals and sent a beautiful assist to Dario.

I have a card for Jarib so he can play on Sunday.

Brandon started joining the team during the winter training and is coming along nicely with a new sport. He is a natural athlete.

I have a card for Brandon so he can play on Sunday.

Nayef joined us near the end of the winter training and has shown himself to be skillful on both the field and as a backup goalie.

I don't yet have a card for Nayef but I am working with the USClubSoccer and Northern Counties Soccer club to get one so he can play on Sunday. He will certainly be able to play the following game.
Latest news: I have a card for Nayef so he can play on Sunday.

Ned is Nayef's younger brother who is playing up because the younger team is full and it's more convenient for his mother.

I have a card for Ned so he can play on Sunday.


And today we met Freddy who had been practicing with the U11 team all fall and winter, only to find out that he missed the cutoff by 3 weeks and should have been playing with us. He shows great defensive instincts. (Don't have his picture yet)


I don't yet have a card for Freddy but once we get their forms in we will get that. He will certainly be able to play the following game. Freddy says he'd like to watch the game on Sunday to learn about the team.

Could someone bring a camera tomorrow and we'll take a new team picture for the front page of this website?

Regarding Sunday's game, please bring the boys 45 minutes in advance of the game. Also, I'm thinking it might be nice to take the boys out to eat after the game. That will give us all a chance to meet each other, give the boys some bonding time off the pitch, allow me to bring up a few things I need to discuss about the team and allow you to ask any questions you may have. Please vote to the left about whether or not this works for you. Meanwhile, I'll research a place near the game that could easily accommodate us.

Getting ready for the new season

Great news! We managed to recruit four new players to join us for the spring season, bringing our roster up to 15. This should allow us to play games with substitutes and even having a full team when baseball games compete with soccer games. And knowing when the games are scheduled may allow us to reschedule some games when they do conflict with baseball. We also still have the option of bringing up to three players from Rene's team when we have the need.

Welcome to the four new players: Jarib, Brandon, Nayef and his brother Ned.
I received all their paperwork and we are hopeful that their uniforms will arrive in time for Sunday's game. If not, I'll be scrambling to find some substitute uniforms so let me know if you have any spares around that we can jerry-rig.

The situation with the trainers is still in flux. Red Bulls trainers must be used but they are not available this week! Outrageous! I managed to convince them to bring one to our last indoor training on Friday so that he can help us prepare for the first game and we meet him there. All I know at this point is that his name 'might' be Andrew. Try to all be at practice Friday so that we can set line-ups.

Fortunately Leo was able to come through for us in the pinch and train our boys today and Wednesday. Apparently we also have to deposit the entire estimated training fees for the season in our account with WSC soon. There is already $1,750 in there from dues collected in the fall and this spring and I have $635 extra money between what I collected from you last fall minus the extra from the tournament. I'll calculate it out and let you know what we owe. (It shouldn't be much)

See you all at practice on Wednesday. Might be nice for some of the long-term players to bring a parting gift for Leo for his years of service.

Schedule is out!

First game is Sunday March 25th at 3:30 PM at Hotspur. Check the calendar for links to the map etc. The two games scheduled for April 22 and 29 are TBS by the other team's request. That means we have until April 7 to work with the other teams to get them rescheduled. The good news is that we can schedule around baseball games so the whole team can be present. The bad news is that fields in Wayne will be difficult to obtain on days other than Sundays so we may be forced to play at the opponent's field.

We have one more indoor practice session, 4PM on Friday at Turf City

We hopefully get a Red Bulls trainer assigned to our team soon and will start outdoor practices.

Five new players have expressed interest in the team, four have attended practice and one signed up. We should have a roster of 15 before the first game.

Coach's Meeting News

I attended the coach's meeting last night and heard some interesting news. The good, the bad and the ugly.

First, the good:
Rene provided me with a new player who will hopefully try out with the team on Friday by the name of Nayef. Let's welcome him to the team.
Rene also promised me three players who will practice with his team but can also practice with us if possible and play for us unless there is a conflict. Their names are Ryan, Joe and Matthew. Hopefully we'll see them at practice soon also.
That brings our roster to 16 if they all work out. That should get us through the days when baseball costs us three players.
Schedules for Spring season come out next week

Now the bad:
Nobody U-12 showed up to the specialized tryouts on Sunday. So thanks to Dario, Joel, Zaeem and Liam for coming and I hope they enjoyed the extra hour of practice time but we didn't get any new players from here.
WSC has not yet received permits for the outdoor fields so we cannot practice there yet. Though I'm thinking about using the field behind my house for some informal practices that won't get us in trouble with the school district. Let's talk about it on Friday.

And finally the ugly:
WSC has signed a three-year contract with Red Bulls giving their organization exclusive rights to train our boys. I was not consulted on this decision and was shocked and dismayed by it. That means he effectively fired Leo who has been with us from the inception. I am understandably upset about this.

The details are that the $1750 dedicated to trainer fees for the spring MUST be spent on Red Bulls trainers.
I did collect a little extra in the fall to cover extra trainer fees so we could use the $400 odd on Leo. I'll talk to him about if he even wants to do this.

Tryouts to add players

Wayne Soccer club agreed to host tryouts for our team and the U13 & U14 teams Sunday at 10:30 AM. You may have seen the ads for this in yesterday's Wayne Today.

We need extra players so I'm excited. I'd like to see some of the players show up so that we can run drills with the new players. At a minimum it will be like an extra practice for the boys.

See you at Barbour Pond.