My first match back

My first match back at coaching on Sunday was an absolute disaster. Morale and energy were low, lots of ball watching, and there was no cohesion in the team. It was awful.to watch and I didn't really know what to do to turn things around.

Perhaps it was because the first match against this team was a close loss (3-4) and the second match was a win (2-1). Perhaps the girls thought Sunday was going to be an easy win? We also had a late afternoon kick-off (3.15pm) and I know some of the girls had a VERY late night. Reminds me of my drunk team days...

We ended up losing 2-1, a goal thanks to a penalty we didn't even deserve. I have a couple of girls with an accurate kick that has a bit of power on it. One of the girls hurt herself 2 minutes into the match - won't really know the damage until Friday. The other one took the penalty.

I was very disappointed to see the team in this state. So I had a bit of a talk to them after the match, but only properly discussed the low energy on Tuesday at training. The late night party group did say that perhaps they had abused the late kick-off time, so that was good. Better than them denying what I already knew.

During training I focused on trying to get the team passing to each other again. It essentially took the full 1.5 hours. Perhaps they always played like this and it was only not watching them and seeing the U-20 World Cup instead that highlighted it. But I doubt it. I made them play in two teams against each other. I let them know that if one team makes five passes in a row, the other team does five sit-ups, push-ups, burpees or whatever.

For a good few minutes the record was 2 passes. Eventually 3 were achieved and we only once got to five. This wasn't because the non-possesion team had a superior defensive skills - they team with the ball were never once looking for the pass. Blindly kicking the ball forward was their method of choice. My current pet hate.

We have a second training session each week now. A bit more passing work tonight to try and keep the small bit of cohesion they had at Tuesday's training and some basic defensive work. Knowing the caretaker coach he probably didn't do any of that...