Supposedly our stopper called out the keepers name, but I didn't hear her... Thanks for that advice...I'm so busy now that I've started soccer that I have a lot of studying to do this weekend for various things, but I'll try to practice a bit. I kicked the ball against a wall a lil last weekend to practice accuracy and I think it helped. Yay!
One thing I hate, absolutely HATE, is when my teammates call the ball for me and the defender going for the ball pulls back, thinking I want the ball when I don't. Don't EVER pull back from a ball unless your GK calls it. You made the right play regardless of whether you heard your teammate or not.
I feel a lot better now. The grl who supposedly yelled the keepers name is a little mean. She's really good and doesn't tolerate my newbie mistakes very well...she's said the f-word to me plenty of times (I dunno if these forums tolerate cursing lol)!
Absolutely you made the right play, even if she did yell. You play the ball unless you hear your KEEPER call for it, nobody else. I've seen too many goals where 2 or 3 girls are standing around watching and waiting for someone else to play the ball. If your first instinct is to go for it, that's a wonderful thing. tell your teammate to shut the F--- up unless she's also going to help you get better. She'll probably like that...and help. Great that you're practicing with the ball. Remember, though, your first choice is always possession over just kicking it. Next time your post will hopefully say "I passed it up, which started a chain reaction..." And in practice, try to do the hard stuff - like holding the ball and dribbling. In a game you still want to play it safe but in practice work on the hard stuff. And finally, Richie was talking about using your peripheral vision to watch the ball. One way to see what he's talking about is to take a ball near a wall (or anything big to look at). Put the ball on the ground and take 2 steps back. Then look at the ball...slowly raise your head and eyes until you can just see the ball at the bottom of your field of vision. You should be able to also see ahead of you but it will be a little less than if you were standing and looking straight ahead. This is how you want to look at the ball, you don't want to look at your feet, 'cause then you can't see anything else, but this way you'll know and see where the ball is going, at what angle, how fast, and you'll be able to see the field around you. Eventually, you'll only need to glance down at the ball occasionally.