I came across a few draft blog entires that I never ended up publishing today, and felt that some of them were well worth publishing. This post was originally written on October 25, 2009, shortly after Cambrian’s soccer season came to an end. Cheers to all of my teammates, the coaches, and the administrators. It was a blast, we had a great season!
After a season filled with up’s (beating Algonquin, Fleming and Seneca) and downs (losing to La Cite, drawing with St. Lawrence, and having 3 goals scored against us in the opening 20 or so minutes against Fleming), the season has come to a close. Our inconsistency followed us into the play-offs. We traveled to play against Humber, not as the proud squad who battled tooth and nail for a play-off spot, but as the complacent, confused squad that fumbled around in losses to easy teams.
It’s no simple task to point out the causes of our many collapses this season. We had a number of factors that contributed to our season not ending as we had hoped (for the most part):
Injuries not a factor
We dealt with a slew of injuries during the season. Whether they were nagging injuries (Arthur Vaies’s season-long groin injury, or Mark Bauer’s season-long knee injury for instance), temporary injuries (Kyle Westenenk’s concussion trouble in the latter half of the season, or Jacob Quinn’s leg injury), or season-ending injuries (Jason Simons’ leg injury), they all pushed other players to step up their game. At times, some of those players were able to step up, and take over the roles left vacant by these injuries. Injuries happen, and any team has to be able to overcome them. For the most part, we dealt well with the injury trouble we were faced with. Most of the players were willing to dig deep and sacrifice to give the team their best, even if they were injured. Injuries were not a significant factor in our season.
Player’s lack of focus and inability to sacrifice an issue
At times, the team suffered from a tremendous lack of focus. This doesn’t just rest on a handful of players tuning out, because it was a fault shared by the entire team. We had a tendency to lose our focus completely, and become a scrambled mess on the pitch. Marking opposing players was generally a strength of our defensive team, but in games like the one against Humber, we made several mistakes that cost us important goals. At least two of the goals were a result of non-existent marking on our part. Another large part of the game that we failed to take advantage of was setting the pace of the game. Against a team with skill, we had to stick to the gameplan: sit back and invite. We also needed to make sure that we upheld the team’s strategy by attacking our opponents at the point on confrontation. We were supposed to make sure that when we do attacked their ball-carrier, we let them know they will not gain space easily. We were relatively successful at this for the first half of the game against Humber, but in the second half our resolve diminshed. We weren’t as physical on them as we could have been either, which was uncharacteristic of our team.