Match report 15.11.21

On Monday 15th of November 2021, the second week of the league took place. This week, training took place before the games, and instead of just one game there were two. The training session started with stretches, then we moved into a training exercise (as shown below). The aspect we were training was passing, so our captain designed an exercise where a player dribbles around cones (shown in yellow) and then passes to another player in a mini ‘goal’ (shown in red), who passes to the next player, who passes to the next player, who dribbles the ball back to the starting position. Dribbling is shown in a solid line, passing is shown in a dotted line.

The first game we took part in was red against blue. It was, to put it lightly, a dreadful game for red. Alvin of the blue team scored first, in an incredibly skillful shot that was defended well from red, as they had not yet lost morale. By the time the second goal happened, morale was still high as red believed it was possible to turn the game around. Conal of the blue team scored another goal against our keeper, which made the red team question the skill of the keeper. Our regular keeper, Louis, wasn’t present for the first game, which meant that a replacement keeper, Archie, had to take his place. It was clear that Louis was a better keeper than Archie, and this would become reaffirmed as the day continued. The third goal scored felt like the blue team was mocking the red team; red had let in three goals yet scored none so far. This led to a questionable strategy being raised by Harry, where all of the red team’s players were sent up to the blue team’s end of the pitch, including the keeper, meaning the red team had no defence at all. This was likely the reason for the prompt scoring by Seb, bringing the score to 4-0. As the game moved to its final minutes, it was clear that there was no chance of the red team winning; there was almost no point in trying. Likely out of frustration with how the game panned out, the red team’s keeper, Archie, scored an own goal by running the ball up the pitch into his own goal, making it clear that it was an intentional own goal. That marked the end of the first game, and it left every player on the red team distraught. The man of the match was clearly Alvin of the blue team; he put in exceptional effort into his goal, and this amazing skill and effort continued throughout the game.

It was important that the red team identified the failures in this game, and eradicated them in the next game they played. However, this didn’t happen, as you will see as you read into the second game. It is clear that Harry’s strategy of sending every player into an offensive position is a bad idea; it should not have taken a 5-0 game for that to be clear. It may be the case that increasing players in offensive positions is an acceptable way of increasing the likelihood of a goal, but having zero defence means that it was trivial for the blue team to score the fourth goal. It should be learned that while sending a few players into more offensive positions is an option, removing your entire defence is not. Having no defence meant that once Seb had passed the halfway line, it was just a sprint to score a goal, there was not even a keeper to contend with. Additionally, we learned that having our excellent goalkeeper, Louis, not in goal was an uncontrollable failure. This is proven in the next game played.

The second and final game played was red against green. This game looked more hopeful from the start, as we had our keeper, Louis, back on the pitch and in goal. The first goal was not scored for a while, with both teams playing very well. The first goal was, disconcertingly, scored by the green team. Mason scored a goal with the support of his teammates, against the defence of every player on the red team. It was clear that the green team would beat the red team if they let effort slip, so it was understood that this must not happen. However, this first goal prompted Harry to encourage all the players in the red team onto green’s end of the pitch, which was one of the failures that should’ve been learnt from the last game. Luckily for the red team, a green team member grabbed the ball out of the air after it had been kicked towards him; a blatant hand-ball. It was decided between the captains that a penalty would take place, which meant Oscar of the red team was able to secure an easy goal for red, bringing the score to a tie of 1 all. Harry’s questionable strategy continued, but it seemed to pay off against the green team as Louis' skill was put to the test against dain, where Louis kicked the ball out of the pitch to get the rest of the team time to run into defensive positions, which likely prevented a goal from the green team. Matt of the red team scored the final goal of the game, and red team’s only goal that took place in play for the day. Despite the game not feeling like a win, it did secure a comfortable 2-1 win for red. The man of the match was definitely Louis, his incredible goal keeping abilities saved the game for red, and his flexibility despite poor strategy forced on him was exceptional.

While this game went significantly better for red than the last game, there were still important lessons to be learned. Firstly, we learned that having a good defence team - with the backbone of Louis the keeper - is critical to a successful game. Secondly, we learned that despite having the same dreadful strategy as was applied during the last game, we were able to win. This showed that luck is always a large factor in whether a strategy succeeds or not. It is clear that when playing football, reaction time is critical. While we were the team playing a questionable strategy in this game, it was a flaw of the green team that they, unlike blue, were not able to identify that red had picked a terrible strategy and exploit that decision. This can be a lesson for both teams in that a good football team is fluid and can change depending on the team they are playing against. If a team we play in the weeks to come adopts a flawed strategy, we should be able to identify those flaws and exploit them.

In terms of points, we (red) lost three points due to players not having the correct kit. This is something that needs to improve. However, this was offset by the report produced of the previous week’s game gaining five points. In first place for points at the end of the lesson was the blue and green team, who both stood at 12 points, followed by red (us) and purple, with 10 points. This shows we have two points to catch up on next week. This should be achieved by: everyone in the team having correct and complete kit, meaning we lose no points to trivial forgetfulness and everyone putting effort into our games, meaning we are able to gain 3 points for each game we play (assuming we are able to win).

Kazoo, Red Team

https://sports.kazoome.me