Found myself a goalkeeper!

At the start of the season, I had a goalkeeper for the girls that I coach. Unfortunately the first team goalkeeper was injured so I lost mine. She has now played too many matches with the firsts, so I ended up without a goalkeeper. So I've been throwing randoms in there - some cope, some don't.

On the weekend I decided to use an U12 (Izzy) who plays on the pitch for her team and in goals for the U13s. She's not a tiny U12, so I figured she'd cope with the U16s.

Did she ever! All the other parents were impressed with her - I had the advantage of having spent time with her on Thursday nights where I help out with the U12 & U13 girls. It's one thing to see Izzy in her age group (where she mucks about a bit) and then to see her step up for the U16s in terms of her own performance but also the maturity to talk to the defence and claim the ball.

Looking at the U12, U13 and U16 fixtures... there's a chance I might be able to get her for most of the remaining games. I've put it all together in Excel, and calculated the travel time using Google Maps. Known as The Izzy Scheme, I've identified 7 of our 10 remaining matches where she has the time to make it to our matches (she could play 3 matches on one day on 3 of those days), and 2 where she'd have to decide between the 13s and 16s. Provided her parents are happy to drive about a bit, we may be able to cope without leaking goals for the rest of the season. It's just unfortunate that it took an injury and illness spree in the 16s to give me the opportunity/excuse to ask her to join us!

Back to Sunday - I had somewhat silly opposition. Their coach's excuse was that it was their first season. Heck, it's my excuse too - but I'd never use it! Anyway, we were a player short the whole time so I risked playing 3 defenders (vs. 3 strikers) the whole game as I noticed that when my defence pushed up to half-way, the strikers came up with them (expected). But when the wing-backs would push up past half-way, the strikers came up with them again! BONUS! Hee hee. :) I love stupid opposition. Or rather, stupid coaches who love to have excuses for poor performances. Unfortunately we couldn't score (and we definitely had our opportunities) so it ended up 0-0.

Hopefully with 11 players and perhaps some subs, we can get a result next week. :) I'll ask Izzy if she enjoyed herself on Sunday, and if so I'll ask her parents if they're happy with The Izzy Scheme. Now, here's hoping the 16As coach and player movement "manager" don't realise what I've found...

Random moments in junior football

I played one girls in left midfield this morning for the first half. In relation to where I was standing, she was on my side and attacking to my left. I moved her into the more familiar right midfield in the second half. So she was still on my side but should have been attacking to my right.

Should have been...

Round 5

Nearly 6 months into my grad job, and still struggling to find that work/life balance that is often spoken about - as a result I've fallen quite sick, and not had time to update the blog. I have made (most) training sessions - notable exceptions being at the height of my lethargy and one crazy week at work.

Nice and short today - I am leaving a comment that one of the most difficult things about coaching juniors is that you have to stay positive. We were leading 1-0 today, and ended up 1-1. It's only the second time we haven't lost, but frustrating nonetheless. The worst being when some of your players just don't have "it" but you need to maintain their enthusiasm and belief - even if you know that they're a liability for the team when on the park.

The junior season is kicking off!

So I have now accepted the role of being coach of the 2nd U16 girls team - which is a little off my plan of being an assistant coach, but should still be fun. That it's a second team means that the girls will still have training if work demands force me out of a training session here and there.

Got the fixture today, so it's time for me to start planning the rest of my life (whatever little there is anyway!) around the girls. I'm looking forward to the frustration, madness and general fun - I think it's safe to say that I missed coaching last year.

In my league is the club where I coached two years ago (while the junior part of the club was separate from the senior club that shared the grounds) and where I have played in the past (while the senior club was separate). Kinda looking forward to the 21st of June now - quite a few of my ex-teammates play at 1pm, and then my team will play their U16s at 3.15pm.

Finally, we have a football shirt.

Thank you Central Coast Mariners.

Labour Day Holiday Boredom!

But not bored enough to get back to work. I've almost finished writing my conference paper - I only have to tweak a few figures and then the nervous wait for acceptance will begin. The strange thing is that since I've decided that I will start my PhD sooner rather than later due to how much work has been driving me nuts, I've started to enjoy work again. Go figure that one out. Perhaps the happiness is due to the relief that I'm not "stuck" there. Of course, I'll be earning less when I go back to uni so my buy-an-apartment-and-move-out plan has completely failed.

One of the reasons that really "helped" me decide that I didn't want to stay at work was their piss-poor excuse for why I was not allowed to teach at uni this semester. Initially I just accepted it - really, what can a newbie really do? But when I found out another graduate can teach (he told me) at the same uni as I had plans to, but I can't - well, it really upset me.

So until I go back to uni I will have to be content with coaching. :) I have decided that since I had offered to be flexible with my hours when I said I wanted to teach microbiology, that I will be completely inflexible now with training nights. i.e. I will leave at 5pm, or perhaps earlier. Of course I'd get in at some ridiculously early time to squeeze in my hours and any physical activity I choose to partake in (my knee rarely hurts these days - except when running downhill). Add that I don't particularly see myself at the company by the time the year ends, and it's even more of a reason to be a bit more ballsy with my hours/demands.

These long days will cause me to be irritable, but hopefully I'll enjoy the coaching enough to balance the irritability. Of course coaching has its frustrating moments, so it will be interesting to see how I cope! The club had a bit of a trial-session a few weekends ago with the U14 to U16 girls. It's amazing that such a gulf exists between the age-groups. I'm sure the U14s would have been all over the U16s if we played them against each other.

The weird part was that once you moved a decent U14 to the U16 group, suddenly they became a different player. And not in a good way. Might have something to do with confidence, but all their skills just disappeared. It may also have something to do with trust - that the U14 with the U16s at any given time didn't know the other girls and hence stopped looking up, so their passes went awry. Doesn't explain the loss of touch - might have been nervousness/lack of confidence after all.

With the club looking at squad-based training rather than team-based, it will be interesting to see how it works out for the players and for the club. The club's made it clear why they decided to do it, but they also acknowledge that it's foreign territory for them. They are also willing to return to team-based training if they can see it's not working. I'm intrigued to see how it all works out.

The A-League season is now over, and I don't think I made an swooning posts, so Fabian Barbiero deserves a mention. He seems to have a lovely attitude combined with those cute looks and decent footballing ability. If only Vukovic would have that attitude, perhaps I could publicly swoon over him again (I've decided that Vuko can be an a-hole; there's confidence and then there's arrogance. Don't ask me why I feel that way, he just annoys me somewhat. Despite how hot he is.)

Long time between drinks

Sorry, I know. But spending all day at work bored behind a computer followed by coming home to sit behind a computer to do other work (which I enjoy but don't get paid for) means I don't really want to continue sitting behind it!

Anyway, I may have found a home for my coaching exploits this year - and they seem keen to let me have a go at goalkeeping coaching, so I'm looking forward to that. :) I'll try and keep the updates on that front coming, as we all know how well Melbourne Victory did on the weekend (even though I missed half of the match due to going out for dinner...)