Tag Archives: practice

Practice #10 – Nhé…

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Nhé it’s an interjection that we say in Brazil when someone asks how was your day and you say… Nhé… Like, mama huhu… Olivia was sick and Esmée had a quiz so she arrived late. Victoria was injured and her knee was hurting a lot so we my idea of “freezing scrimmage” where I would freeze the plays whenever I saw something worth of talking about went down the drain when I had to play. I love football, it’s my passion but as a coach I HATE to play, because I lose focus on my team.

The cool thing was that during the practice Louise played almost the whole time with a GoPro camera, kindly offered by Ms. Koenig. What she does not know and I hope nobody tells her is the fact the camera was not filming at all! I am so frustrated with it. I was all happy happy joy joy to check the footage and to my surprise it was in CAMERA mode, not in FILM mode. I can’t believe. She will be pissed if she discovers it.

Back to the practice, like always, someone gets injured and this time was Kyra, that got hit in the head by a ball that Julia kicked. Totally accident anyway but one less player. Luckily Fish volunteered and helped us during practice.

I saw great passing between Suh-Young, Louise, Hailey and Franziska but those passes were not being converted in goals. We need to shoot more from longer distance. Celine ran like the wind today, being every where in the field. It was really good. Passing, and positioning herself in good spots she knows. Now she needs to work trapping the ball.

Esmee arrived and joined one of the teams. She ran a lot but whenever she trapped the ball, was a little in slow motion. She knows what to do but she is taking longer than necessary to do it. We will practice it until it’s a brainless move for her.

All the defenders were really good; Inês, Katy, Elisa and … well.. Fish. They cannot do miracles, specially when it’s 4 against two attacking. That’s why the midfielders have to return to help.

Our goalies complement each other. While Cassie has a powerful goal kick, Janie is fearless to throw herself at the feet of a striker. I need to mix both and I will have the perfect goalie. More things to us to practice.

Monday will be a physical training where we will run a lot and as a reward, by the end we will practice a bit of futsal in the gym. So please do not bring the traditional football boots but regular running shoes.

Practice #5 – Under a Hailing Sky

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After a gorgeous Saturday last week to practice, we had the worst weather ever to practice today. At least in the beginning though.

Before actually practicing we watched around 10 minutes of our match against Suzhou, checking positions and some adjustments we have to do. Soon I will post the whole match online so we can watch it.

Unfortunately we were missing two players today, plus our mascot Julia. I would just like to remind that if you cannot make to one of the practices, you must let me know why. I am sure no matter how much we love football, we all have plenty other things to do, specially on a horrible Saturday morning like today.

We spent almost one hour doing specific drills planned according to what the players considered their weakness. Drills to improve trapping and passing, other to improve trapping high balls, defenders learning how to position themselves better and drills for the goalies on how to really securely hold the ball. I spent most of the time with them punting high balls so they would learn how to get it at the same time guarantee their space. I think at least for the goalies was very productive. I glanced the other drills and I thought the girls were doing it too slow. We have to have self discipline to keep repeating the drills until exhaustion because that’s the only way we can actually improve. I know the weather was not the best since it was even hailing when we actually started practice. At least, when we started a scrimmage, the weather was much better.

We played for forty minutes and it was a good match. It ended 5 x 3 to the reserves, playing with one less. I had to play with the reserves and I have to say Esmee and Celine were great, passing, positioning and scoring goals. Victoria played improvised as defender but her midfielder’s heart forced her to leave Katy alone many times.

Now we have Sunday to rest and go full force Monday to play against the German school. That will be their first official match of the season and they know we already won our first match. It will an interesting match.