Johnny Markey tallied twice for Montevallo on Sunday. --- September 4, 2005 Contact: Alfred Kojima No. 23 MONTEVALLO DEFEATS No. 13 ROLLINS MONTEVALLO (9/4) -- Freshman John Markey scored two goals while freshman James Ward tallied two assists, as No. 23 University of Montevallo defeated No.13 Rollins College, 2-1, in a non-conference men's soccer match at Varsity Field on Sunday. Markey scored his first goal in the fifth minute, with assists from Ward, and Glenn Murphy. The Tars tied the match in the tenth minute when Ryan Dodds scored his second goal of the season. Markey scored the go-ahead goal in the 39th minute with assists from Ward and Richard Henry. Senior goalkeeper Raven Keet had seven saves in net. Rollins held a 13-8 advantage in shots. Markey had three shots for UM, all on goal. UM (1-1) travels to Eckerd College for a non-conference match, Friday night at 7 p.m. (ET).
Thanks, MD. Sounds logical enough. If you have any more back story you want to PM me. I would appreciate it. Being new to Birmingham and having a kid who played up to U9 as a seven year old in VHSC last Fall before we decided we were moving to Homewood, where he played up to U10 in the Spring, I am just trying to make the right decision regarding where he can get the best development. He "gets it" and wants to work to become better. Much more disciplined that I was/am...
as a former Homewood coach it pains me to say that Homewood is not gonna cut it in his develoment. I'd suggest Mt Brook(insert shameless plug) as it is closer than any of the other big clubs(Vestavia, Hoover, Jets) and our DOC and asst DOC are both top notch coaches.
Rather than take offense to pvan4's shameless plugging, I have to agree with him that if you want to make a change, your first consideration should be Mountain Brook for two reasons: first, they do have quite a good staff, and second, they are close in proximity - we'd love to have you at American but it's a long long drive for a kid that age.
discussion: Team A at U11: lots of long balls to fast, big kid leads to a good record because of players dominance due mainly to early development Team B at U11: smaller kids that are not necessarily strong but coach tries to play "the right way". as time goes by do parents start sending their kids to Team A because they win more even though they aren't necessarily being taught the game properly?
Ask anyone in Huntsville. (Sorry, that wasn't nice.) My experience has been that it depends on the parents and their experience levels. If the U11 player on Team B has an older sibling who has stayed in the game past U14, the parents will have seen that puberty is the great equalizer with respect to the Route 1 approach to the game. If not, and the parents are front-runners, they will move. Until U13. Then they will be sorry. Getting parents to understand that the won-loss record of a U11 team is not indicative of the quality of soccer being played is a tough proposition.
Week 1 of CASL is in the books. On the whole it went well. There were some startup glitches - a number of games were rescheduled at the last minute by the teams involved, a couple of refs were late, and the field directions to one field were inadequate to get a team there - but other than that it was pretty smooth. One issue we are going to have to address is the inability of some coaches to manage a scoreline. Most of the games were reasonably close, but there were about 6 that went into double digit goal differentials.
After getting pasted by U11 Huntsville team, I almost decided to move there. We did not play them full strength, but to watch them pass and run without the ball was a thing of beauty. Our coaches have been focusing almost exclusively on skills and fitness. We do not practice tactics, like Huntsville obviously does. It showed in that game and in our record. Is this the right approach?
Thanks for the input, gentlemen. The MB club does seem like the best organized club around (from my limited interaction) amd we might explore that option. In the run up to our first match next Saturday we had a intraclub jamboree this past weekend. Our little U9 side whipped the club's top U10 side. Little man got his hat trick before being relegated to left back and my forbidding him to cross the midfield line. Looks like our MSSL schedule is filled with Chelsea teams, other Homewood squads, Adamsville, and the dreaded trip to (not Old) Trafford to face East United. We have a good little team of OLS kids that I managed to pull together from Vestavia, Hoover, the cuurent Homewood kids and Gardendale and have a head coach that was a strong college player, so this year should be fun. We will see how the club and league shape up, but I really want my son to get some coaching, and conditioning, that will push him. He seems a little bored and I really want him to remain challenged. It is great to read about the tournaments and things that your older kids are involved with. It is nice to lurk and learn.
After we whipped the older "a" side on Saturday, the coach asked what drills we ran. To which we replied, "none", unless you count incessant 3 v 2 as a drill. I wonder myself at what point it is expected that you change the focus from technique to tactics, as we have already done. I am sure that there are some kids on our little side that would benefit greatly from cones and drills. However, we have chosen to spend almost all of our time together pushing them to find space, make runs, cross early, finish towards the corners... I think this presupposes a certain fitness level and skill level that is not the average, as we see quite a drop between out first five field players and their backups. Is the thinking currently that this should take place at a certain age group (u10 or U11) and that the more advanced kids should play up into that level?
In reading this I find that it sounds incredibly SNOTTY... as if I know what I am doing (don't). I really am trying to figure out how best to coach these kids and bring them along and worry that I am missing the mark entirely with our focus. Although the above approach seems to have worked for a total of one match I know that this is not likely to remain the case.
Disclaimer: I am not a real coach, just a dad who's been watching kids and teams develop for several years. But in my experience: * An emphasis on training tactics at the U8-U11 level produces teams that win at U8-U11. * An emphasis on training skills at the U8-U11 level produces players that win at all levels. * A U11 team's tactical capabilities are useless if they never get the ball or can't hold onto it under pressure.
I should have added that in our training curriculum we work to strike a balance between skills work and small-sided tactics. Our teams do a lot of 1v1, 2v1, 3v2 games to develop both defensive skill and the importance of possession. You can't ignore tactics, but if you over-emphasize them relative to ball mastery, you find yourself with a kid who makes the perfect run but can't receive the ball.
spot on.....Rumbum, if you want I'll send you some links that will help tremendously in planning practices. You can either send me your email or I can PM them. Let me know.
Three Alabama girls are going to the national ODP event in Boca Raton in November: Merritt Mathias (90), Katy Frierson (90), and Lauren Arnold (91).
Rita causes postponements in California tournament http://gostanford.collegesports.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/092205aab.html
an article on Katy Frierson http://www.mountainbrooksoccer.com/index.php?ct=st_news_article&aid=25&nc=2&c=0 a true pleasure to coach.
List of all Region III attendees for the Thanksgiving girls ODP event: http://www.region3odp.org/girls_odp...al Event Invitation List-Region III Girls.pdf