Monday, October 5, 2009:

Well, we are back home in rainy Birmingham, after a week-end of conference games. Yesterday(Sunday), we visited Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. This would prove to be the most complete game of our season thus far....only from the standpoint of putting 2 complete halves of the worst soccer of the year. We got off the bus with no energy, emotion, desire or "want" and I knew at that moment we would be in for a very long day! That proved to be true, only worse than I could have ever imagined. This game may have been the worst complete game of ineptness of my coaching career. We never made good decisions, only bad ones throughout the entire game. We could not pass, we had horrible touch on the ball, we dribbled way too much and eventually wound up losing possession because of the excessive dribbling and again, just like the first half at Sewanee on Friday night, we could not even clear a ball out of our own 18 yard box. 2 terrible clearances and watching led to both goals. Again, off our possession in our own defensive third of the field! I cannot find the correct words to convey how much this loss has affected me as a coach. To watch as your players make the same mistakes over and over again is not only disheartening, but disastrous in its effect!

Sometimes as coaches we sit back and say, well we just all had a bad game, but this is certainly not the case here. We did have a bad game, but even when you are playing bad, you can still have a strong desire and work ethic to try and do something else to help correct it. We did not even attempt to hustle or change our game work ethic to make them have to work to beat us. There is never an excuse for not having a strong work ethic in each and every time you step on the field. Yesterday, was a clear example of horrible effort throughout the entire game on our part. We deserved to lose the game and justice prevailed....we lost 0:2!

As a coach, I am not sure where to turn to try and correct these repetitive mistakes of every game. We address these the moment they happen and we discuss them after the games as well. It must come down to the individual taking personal account of his play at every moment of the game. Like the old saying goes, "you can lead the horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink, unless he is ready."

It is very easy to make excuses after a horrible game, like their field was very small and we could never get in to a flow or rhythm, but, just because it looked as if we were playing in a bathtub, because of how we were all so close to one another, you can still overcome these issues if you just try! We did not even try to overcome them and that is what makes me the angriest. Mistakes of effort are always acceptable, but mistakes of laziness and not thinking is totally unacceptable. At halftime, I told them we could make some tactical adjustments, but in order to do that, we first had to correct our effort and lack of ability in clearing balls. If you can not do the simple things, you do not need to try and adjust the difficult ones.

Now, we have a top 10 team coming here on Friday and if we do not play better, we will have zero chance of success against them. Trinity, is who we play Friday night and they defeated us last year 0:7! It was embarrassing to say the least, but we are on paper a better team than last year, but after this past week-end, I am not so sure we are better on the field. We shall see soon enough. On Sunday, we play Southwestern University to conclude the week-end.

We will try to make some adjustments to our game tactics this week in preparation for Trinity. It remains to be seen if we are capable of doing what we are taught. The angriest I ever get is when players do not think on and off the ball! Right now we do not think at all during the game. In a soccer players formative playing years, he must be taught how to think, instead of how fancy we can be with the ball at his feet! The game of soccer is very simple. It is about thinking before you get the ball, when you get the ball and after you release the ball. That is it! Just think!!

Until this weekend, have a great week,
Coach G from Birmingham, Alabama