Latest News including tournament times

Great job coming from behind to tie up the game on Sunday! Roberto and David both had great goals. Our defense was solid except for two great goals by their top players. Too bad about Jake getting two yellow cards. Hopefully there is no suspension involved, I'm waiting to find out. But the team showed me they can come from behind and stay strong in the stretch. And our boys didn't let themselves get pushed around. We gave back as good as we got. The extra substitutes really helped in the last two games.

We are still in second place in the flight. Clarkston, the team we tied last week has a record of 5 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie. We have 4 wins and two ties. They have played one extra game. But we end the season strong. Our boys will have come off a tournament and finish with a three game home stand. We play the teams in 3rd and 4th place and the team one from the bottom.

What does this all mean? Our destiny is in our hands. If we win each game, we finish in first place because Clarkston will have one loss and one tie versus our two ties. We win on points. So let's focus on that.

I have the tournament schedule. Here is the link.  We definitely play on Saturday at 10:00 AM and 3:30 PM. The semifinal game depends on how we do in the first two games but will be on Sunday at 9:15AM, 10:30 AM or 1:00 PM. The final game is Sunday at 6:00 PM but only if we win every  game prior. Hopefully there is little conflict with baseball and we can have most of the team there. If not, we'll be playing short and everyone will get plenty of playing time.

Regarding the end of the season and moving into next year, here is what I know. All but one of the parents I have spoken to has voted to stick with the status quo and keep paying $500 - $600 per child and not using the extra trainer time. Jarib would prefer to pay more for more training. Jack and Liam, Ned and Nayef, Sam, Roberto, David, Brandon, Freddy, Zaeem and Sebas all prefer the status quo. I have yet to speak with Joey, Jake, Joel, or Dario about their plans.

So, the most likely scenario is that we continue in the fall with the status quo and those players who wish to get more training either get it on their own or play also for another team or join an academy-style team. I hate to see this team broken up but I knew that this choice would likely make some people unhappy. I was willing to go with the majority and it looks like that is the status quo. I'll be looking to speak with the last few parents about their choice today if practice is on.

Speaking of practice, I think I've been too quick to pull the trigger on cancelling practice in the past and will not make that decision prior to 3PM from now on. As I type, the rain has ceased and we still have a chance. With the practices we have canceled, I don't think I'll need to ask any more trainer money from the parents who paid extra in the fall, perhaps a little from those who joined in the spring.

I'd like to host an end-of-season party at my house after our last game. It is an 8:30 AM Sunday game at Barbour Pond so we could all go straight over to my house after the game and let the boys swim and have brunch. Hopefully we'll be distributing trophies at the same time. (I'm not sure when we get these) If that's too early and you need to get the boys to church, I understand and we could host an afternoon party, though this will be tougher for those who live out of town. I'll put a poll about this to the left, please vote on your preference.

Wayne Soccer Club Direction

Parents,

I just returned from the monthly coaches meeting with some important news, which concerns you as parents. Read the story below and let me know how it affects your son's future with the team.

When the Wayne Soccer Club (WSC) was formed 30 years ago, it was created to compete with Boys and Girls club and the PAL. All organizations had a goal to provide a higher level of soccer than recreational for the better players in town. The organizational was mostly voluntary and fees were pretty low, spent on paying dues to organizations like Northern Counties and referees. It grew and added professional trainers and tournaments but dues were pretty well in line with the other clubs in town.

But there were academies and elite clubs nearby that charged more and provided more training and better tournaments and more games. These clubs have been poaching some of the better WSC players. So the WSC has decided to combat this by becoming an elite club. Rene Moran's U-11 team is an example of what they want the entire club to become. They practice three times a week using Red Bulls trainers. They go to about five tournaments a year, sometimes out of state. They play all winter long. And the parents happily pay about $1200 a year per child.

The WSC is mandating that all teams U-11 and younger, starting in the fall, will follow this model. Note that we are grandfathered in and don't have to do so. But I wanted you to see what is happening so you see the direction the club is taking and how some peripheral actions will affect us. If your child was U-11 or younger in the fall they would have the following schedule mandated by the club:
40 practices a year with a Red Bulls Trainer

• 20 games a year coached by a Red Bulls Trainer
• 12 practices a winter with a Red Bulls Trainer
• 2 tournaments a year coached by a Red Bulls Trainer

Dues for this team would be $950/player

They also have an elite division with an extra 20 practices and full-side winter training for $1,200 a year per child.

This sounds extreme but, since this is a non-profit organization, the kids pay about half what some of the local academies are charging yet receive better services.

Now this is a far cry from what our team and what many of the other WSC teams are accustomed to. This is a much higher commitment of time and money by the parents and a higher level of professionalism in the coaching. If you remember, I did all the winter training and most of the game-day coaching for free. We will end up paying about $600 after you add in the extra training dollars and tournament fees I added to the $425 I collected at the beginning of the year.

Whenever a change like this happens, there is some turmoil. Parents who didn't sign up for this leave and parents who were thinking about leaving the club because it didn't offer this stay. And parents who are searching for this level of play arrive. What will be the net effect? I'm not sure. I hope for the best.

But what does it mean to us? We are not mandated to go this route. It goes against my own coaching philosophy but I'm just one parent. I'd like to find out what you think. Rather than run an anonymous poll, I'm going to ask you to make a comment below this post about what you think of this change and which direction you want this team to go.

So here are your choices:

• Stay the course, play the hand we're dealt, accepting players as we need them and training them at the same level. Dues will be about $600 a year all told.
• Jack up the winter training with the existing players, add game day coaching and charge about $1,000 a year.
• Increase the training to three times a week, add game day training and more tournaments for about $1,200 a year.
• Or some combination of the above.

I know some of our existing players are looking around at other academies to find a higher level of competition and training for their boys. If we don't change, those boys will leave the team.
On the other side of the coin, there are those who don't want to pay $1000 a year per child and will leave if the dues increase.
Either way, I doubt all parents will reach a consensus so we will need to recruit more players after those who are unhappy with the group's decision leave.

I want to do what's best for the team. So please weigh in and let us all know what you are thinking. We have many options, including leaving the club en-masse and joining another club.

Practice Attendance

Practice attendance is still pretty good, with my boys being two of the more frequent skippers due to injuries and sicknesses. Ned and Nayef are tied for the lead with 13 sessions, Dario, Zaeem, Jarib and Sebastian can catch them with 11. Joel and David are still in the hunt for the best attendance prize.

Let's keep it up, I'm learning skills just by watching what Tiago is teaching the boys. I like the way Tiago teaches a skill at slow speed and then works it up to game simulations.

Don't forget your Red Bulls skill of the week. Click on the link to the right for this week's episode:

Practices

As you know, I keep tabs on who attends practice and who not. Why? Because this is the biggest benefit the boys get from joining the team. They get $1,750 worth of training each season, fall and spring. This money goes to professional training and those who attend practice get the benefit. They learn things here, get to try them in games and improve their skills. So who wouldn't want to attend practice?

Before I took over and started keeping track of practice attendance, we would get between three and five boys at practice sessions. The old adage of: "That which is measured gets improved" works. Look at fall's numbers:

This Spring season's numbers are looking even better. Lots of boys are taking advantage of the training and the team is improving as a result. Here's how we're doing so far:

I keep this updated and post it on the bottom of this blog.

This year I decided to award a special prize, at the last practice, to the boy who has attended the most practice sessions. So keep track of the leader board and get those boys to practice as often as possible. So far Ned and Nayef are in the lead but Jake's right behind them and lots of boys are right behind Jake.

See you all on Sunday for another win.

Practice During Spring Break

Looks like most of the boys can make it so we will practice on Monday and Wednesday from 5:00 to 6:30.

While enough parents voted yes on doing a spring tournament, I couldn't find one that was convenient to us and still open for extra teams.

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.

Scrimmage and Practice Times

We have a scrimmage set up for 9AM at Barbour Pond Saturday. Please bring your boys there by 8:45 AM for warm-ups. Xavier will be on the sidelines since I have plans for the day but I'd like to see them get some early practice. Please respond ASAP with your availability to attend so Xavier and the other coach know what to expect. Liam and Jack will both be there.

Also Leo has suggested some days that he is available for training I'll put a poll on the blog shortly. Please vote on what days work for you so that I can pick the best times for our boys to get practice.

Mon, Tue Wed any time. Fri after 6PM

Also think about what time you'd like to practice. It is starting to get darker later so we can start our practices at about 4 now and move them later when daylight savings time arrives.

Practice Time and Tournament

Since two people wanted to change practice to Tuesdays and couldn't practice on Fridays, we will practice for 3 weeks on Fridays and then switch if that works. Talk with me after Saturday's game if this is a problem.

I will bring magnets to the game for you to buy.

I am working in Pennsylvania on Friday. Hopefully I will return in time for practice but, if not, could someone run practice for me? Let me know.

The TBS game for this Saturday is 4PM. See you there.

Recruiting

Good news on the recruiting front from yesterday's coaches meeting.

1. Rene has offered us two or three of his players to play up.
2. We will be placing an advertisement in Wayne Today for a special tryout during one of our indoor training sessions
3. Bruce will place a flyer asking for boys at Turf City. They have agreed to post it there.
4. Xavier is working on two people he knows
5. Harib seems interested and I am following up with him
6. Roland is in discussions with Nicky to bring him back

With all of these possibilities, I feel strongly that we will have a full team going into the spring. But I still encourage the boys to do what Jack did and find other boys in their schools who like soccer and may be playing for another team or looking for one to play on. Bring them to practice on the 17th and we can try them out.

Also, let me know what your thoughts are about changing practice times.

Parent's meeting

We held the parent's meeting on Monday night and discussed many items. I'll try to capture them all below:

1. We lost four players for the Winter and Spring seasons: Justin, Damien, Franco and Danny
2. Two more players will not likely join us next fall: Joey and Jake
3. In addition, three players will be considering another sport their primary sport in the spring: Joey, Jake and Dario. This is especially problematic for a Spring tournament.
4. That leaves us with eleven players going into the Spring. I will be working with Wayne Soccer Club and on my own to recruit more players so that we don't have to fold in the spring. We cannot enter Spring session with only eleven players. That would mean we would likely start every game short one or two players.
5. We decided to save some trainer money by not having any more game day trainers in the winter and spring
6. We also want to consolidate trainers to just Leo for the spring.
7. There is money in the budget for a spring OR winter tournament.
8. We decided we should spend this on the Winter tournament. $375 covers almost the entire cost of the tournament, (It's $445) leaving us needing to collect about $10 per child total to cover the remainder plus referee fees.
9. Bruce will contact Renee to get Xavier's card reinstated so that he can help on the game day assistance Bruce needs.
10. Other parents volunteered to assist Bruce in some of the random needs so that he can concentrate on recruiting.
11. Bruce also needs to find out from Renee when to register for the Spring season. We will hold off on this decision until we know if we have a team or not.

Parent's meeting tonight

Thanks for all your votes and messages from those who couln't attend either day. See you all at my house tonight for a parent's meeting.

7PM at
41 Coventry Road
Wayne, NJ

Agenda:

• Who's playing in the spring?
• Who's playing next year?
• When is indoor winter practice?
• Who will train the boys during indoor practice?
• What do we want to do about a winter indoor tournament?
• What do we have remaining for trainer fees?
• How much do we want to spend on trainer fees in the spring?
• Do we want to continue to pay for game-day training?
• Do we want to play in a spring tournament?
• Who can assist Bruce in some of the coaching duties?
• Any ideas on recruiting more children?

Parent's meeting

I probably gave too many options for a parent's meeting resulting in no more than three people voting on any of the nights. I'm also disappointed that only eight of the parents voted at all. So we'll try it one more time, this time with only two choices of dates. Look to your left and cast your vote so that the majority of us can meet and make some decisions about what we want to do with the boys this winter and spring.

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.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Let's start with the ugly: Saturday's game. Nearly everyone played poorly goals were flying fast and furious and we experienced the horrible feeling of the other team not being able to score any more goals on us because they were leading us by seven. Fortunately this was only near the end of the game.

There were a few brights spots. After their #17 scored two amazing goals, I placed one person on him full-time. Ed and Jake took turns and we shut him down for the rest of the game. And we scored twice! We also had a few opportunities to score more that we wasted so the game wasn't a complete rout.

Now the bad: Joel was suspended for two games:

Based upon the referee report for game #85384 which took place on 11/5/2011, Games Conduct has assessed the following penalty:

    Joel Castro has been assessed a two game suspension effective with the first game following the incident.

The reason for this penalty is as follows:

    GUILTY OF VIOLENT CONDUCT

A ridiculous penalty but one we will have to bear. Danny and Sam played goalie in the last game and we have two decent backups. I am able to retrieve Joel's card after Saturday's game so that he can finish out the season with us on Sunday.

Now for the good: Kathy and I attended last night's soccer dinner dance. We were the only people sitting alone at a table meant for ten so it looked weird at first. But we didn't mind too much because there was a bright shiny soccer ball as a centerpiece which we knew we would get no matter what. The dinner was looking better already.

Then we bought some raffle tickets and put them in the various baskets. And we won two off them! We won the one we wanted, our own basket put together by Josephine and Janice. The other one was for two living wills. Maybe we can trade that for one regular will since we still don't have one. (I know, I know terrible of me.)

So, between the two baskets and the soccer ball, we pretty well broke even for the dance. Nice to have something good happen this weekend.

See you at practice on Wednesday.

Trainer money, Practice next two weeks and winter practice

Parents,

We have been using a lot of trainer time this year, more than budgeted by the club. They budget $1,750 for the fall season and we have used more than this. By the end of the fall session we will have spent $2,955 on training. Next spring should be similar and we haven't even talked about the winter training schedule yet.

The good news is that the boys have been improving due to all this attention and, as you can see from the chart at the bottom of this blog, most boys have been taking advantage of the training. The bad news is that this extra money will have to come out of our pockets. If we had put in a better showing at the dinner dance, we would have some extra money to pay for the extra training but we didn't even make our quota of filling a table. Only Kathy and I are going so far.

Bottom line: I need to collect another $150 per child to pay for the extra training bucks and we'll have to do what we can to use less professional training in the winter and spring. Perhaps if a parent can help me on the sidelines I can do away with most of the game-day training. And I am always happy to have a parent lead the occasional practice day to focus on something they want particularly for the boys to learn. Perhaps winter training would be perfect for that. I'll return whatever we don't use or ask for a little more near the end of spring season to make up the shortfall.

Josephine has graciously volunteered to collect the money in check form. Please give them to her at the next game. Make the checks out to Bruce Fieggen so that I can pay the trainers directly.

I set up two last practices for the boys under the lights this season. They are on the calendar and are Wed 11/16 and Mon 11/21 from 5:00 - 6:30 at Barbour Pond 1 or 2. That is the grass field.

Also, the club has set up six sessions of winter practice at Turf City starting Feb 17th from 4:00 - 5:00 PM. These are Friday afternoons. This will appear on the calendar shortly.

Saturday's game and other things

I loved the way we played during today's game. It was a tough competitor, one of the best in the flight and we held them close until near the end. We were also playing against a terrible referee who allowed the other team to foul ours incessantly, yet freely gave us red and yellow cards.

We lost Joel but Sam and Danny played well in his stead and will step up next week. Sebastian was a monster out there, stopping nearly everything that came his way. Liam made his debut today, playing a little shaky but he was able to provide that needed rest and played for Roberto when he was hurt and Joey when he had to leave early.

We played a lot of through balls to Franco and Zaeem and Davis and they almost put a lot in the back of the net. Anyway, congratulate your boys for me, I am very proud of them all.

In other items, I need to know who cannot make the 11AM makeup game on the 20th. If it is someone we normally count on, I will ask for a different date. That will probably be a week night. If not, we'll do it then.

Also, I didn't get a lot of people interested in indoor practice for the last two weeks of the season so we'll just plan on getting in a little practice before the games so make sure they arrive at least 45 minutes before the games.

Make up games and practice

Last week's coach sent us an e-mail with a plea to make up the snowed out game on November 20th at 11AM. Given the amount of snowed out games, we may have little choice in the matter. I'm hoping you can all make it. Vote on the first poll.

You voted unanimously to change this Saturday's game from 6:00 to 3:00 so I will make that change on the calendar.

We also need to decide about practice once daylight savings starts this weekend. It will be dark by 5 so the boys will be unable to practice at Schuyler any more. I will try for Barbour Pond but I was told early in the season that this would be impossible. So, do you want to pay for indoor practice or would you rather say that is the end of practice until our indoor sessions start in the winter? Vote on the second poll.

Practice location changed for this Friday

Since Schuyler has Teen Canteen tomorrow night we are moving the practice to a field that is rarely used, Captain Kilroy Park, behind my house. Type in 'captain kilroy park wayne, nj' into google or check the map on the calendar for the location. For GPS directions, type in the intersection of Concord and Coventry and drive to the end of Concord, then left into the park.