Goal differential -24, but who’s counting?

September 26, 2011 Goal differential -24, but who’s counting?

Our regular season ended tonight with an 0-8-1 record and a cumulative goal deficit of -24. Four goals scored, 28 allowed. And yet I’m very happy with how our season has gone.

It’s a team of fifth- and sixth-grade boys, not a select player among them. That’s not true of most of the teams we play, but I’m fine with it. I prefer it, in fact. I’ve coached this group of kids since they were in first grade. Some have come and gone over the years, but there’s a core group of eight or nine, including my older son, who have always played together, getting one or two, sometimes three wins each year on 10-game seasons. We don’t do try-outs, and we always play everyone, though we’ve awarded minutes based on performance a lot more than ever lately.

We’ve lost some laughers this year, an 0-6 loss or two among them. But we managed one tie (1-1) and two one-goal losses (0-1 and 2-3). Our best chance at a win was rained out. Last I checked, the team we were meant to play that night has given up 61 goals and scored one all season. They lost one game 0-15, and the best they’ve done is 1-7. We showed up to play them not knowing the game was rained out, so we stayed and had a blast scrimmaging ourselves in the pouring rain on a school night. There’s a lot of joy on this team.

Anyone who knows soccer will appreciate how much truth can be in this next statement — we’ve gotten dramatically better as the season has gone on. Early games, I don’t know that we had more than a single weak shot or two on goal in a typical game. Now, we’re so frustratingly close. Tonight’s 0-4 loss illustrates it. We gave up three of the goals in the first half but held them to one in the second. Promisingly, we took shot after shot in the second half but fell victim to good goalie positioning, bad luck and at least one sensational save. One missed opportunity after another. But we had them on their heels and kept taking chances, which is a lot more than we did earlier this season.

Part of it has been, I’m not ashamed to say, better coaching choices. We’ve toyed with strategies, starting the season with a 2-2-3 but changing to 3-2-2 to bolster the defense and switch to a boot and run style. We’ve moved kids around, finding the right mix for exploiting their skills and hiding our weak spots. It’s been a learning season for us coaches, too.

The kids see the progress, feel the momentum. Yes, momentum. Though we face one of the strongest teams in the tournament this weekend (everyone makes the tournament), my talk after tonight’s game was of momentum, how we have it, how we’re tantalizingly close to putting the pieces together. The boys still come to games happy and hopeful, full of strong effort and strong will. I can’t ask for more.

The tournament is single elimination, and our chances Saturday are not good. If we do not surprise, I will be sorry to see us run out of time to finally put it together. That’s the thing about missed chances — you don’t get them back. The game sweeps you along. The ref blows the final whistle. The season ends.

I also have perspective. These boys are spirited fifth- and sixth-graders. It’s a game. The stakes are low, and their spirits are high. That, for me, marks the difference between success and mere winning. They’re staying in there, figuring out how to make it all work. They want to make it all work because they truly love it.

And so do I, which is why I’m already thinking ahead to next season. I haven’t given up either; I won’t until someone tells me I have to. If we can figure out how to put it together, the results will be amazing. Just, wow. And it will have been worth every moment when it was hard to see how.

Tags: coaching, cyo, youth soccer

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