Another year of Youth ball

[Assasin]

This year soccer season came to an end. My older son is played u11 and u10 while the younger played u10 and u9. Both had very good season and continue to love the game. They played in the Dacula tournament this weekend. My older played great but didn’t make it to the final (bad coaching decisions if you ask me). The younger one played outstanding in defense as his u9 team won and was unbeaten. With 7 minutes to go they were down 4-2. They rallied to win 5-4. Left some other kids crying. The parents started calling him brickhouse, despite been a tiny kid his defensive skills were great marshalling the defense along with his speed against kids almost 2 times his size. He stopped about 90 percent of break away. He also play forward but the coach couldn’t afford to move him upfront.

Now at least 2 other clubs trying to get the boys to change. I am not interested at the moment, not that our local club is the greatest but they know the players and get more games as the teams are sometimes short. Let them fight, work hard and lose some to get better, plus I am not driving 30 miles to training to the top clubs. There is a lot of observation as it concern US kids soccer but I will leave that for another time.

Met two Jamaicans who are responsible for a lot of the referees in GA. Dennis Zaide and Ricky Campbell (Former Wolmers baller).

Paul and Peter how was your season? Gamma any soccer this year?

[Stonigut]

Thanks for the update Sass. The yutes seems to be enthused, committed and having fun. I love that the little one is playing to the most fundamental of Jamaican traits as I see it, tallawahism = speed, strength, dexterity, courage, tenacity and intelligence is an amazing combination, keep it up pops!!! Sounds like he is also a natural chicken hawk, you cannot teach someone to be a master interceptor, it is all between the ears, it is purely about guile, intelligence on top of the physical attributes.

[Peter R]

Congrats on the boys' successes. The main thing is that they enjoy the game and keep working hard. "Soccer" is a game of millimetres and small margins. Hopefully the politics you allude to in US kids soccer will not be a hindrance to their progress.

I had no season to speak of as I'm out of coaching for the most part. I do have a group of U8s and of disparate abilities. It is more recreation than anything else to be honest as we play in no competition.

The closest I came to anything competitive this year is with my 16 year old, who attends the school where I work. I don't coach BTW, but myself and another colleague attend all the games and act as manager. We are a very small school and our U19 and U16 draw from a pool of less than 80 boys from ages 14 to 18. Needless to say we only fielded one team this year, U19, and we did win our division, in the North Zone (POS). We have a core of five boys who play club football (including my son) and they would probably make the squad of any school they attended. But, we simply do not have the depth of numbers to be more competitive than we are. Winning our division though means we move up to the Championship (second tier of local football). My son had a good season, but he developed a groin injury which has kept him out of competitive (club) football since November. He did play in the final that we won at school, but, the groin injury was already manifesting itself and I think he probably should not have played, but he is one of the more able players and once he's on the pitch it's hard to get him off... he played through his injury without saying how bad it was affecting him.

His club is currently playing in the U18 Pro League in T&T, for which he's normally a starter, but he hasn't been training. He was at the physiotherapist for about six weeks, twice a week, but after Easter he stopped going. He decided he could do the exercises on his own. However, in spite of that his season is done. The Pro League here goes into July but there's no way he will be able to get into any shape for the rest of the season. I think he'd be able to start training again if he really wanted to, but he's resigned to take the rest of the season off.

He will have to start training again soon though, as HS ball starts in mid-September and he will have to be ready. At that point however, he will also need to focus on his academics as it's his last year of HS (he's 17 next month) and if he wants to get into one of the schools and programmes he's mentioned, he's going to have to get mid 80s or more, in Sciences; Phys, Chem, Bio... so we'll see how that goes.

Good luck to you and your boys!

[Assasin]

Yeah man, thanks for the info. Hope he feels better soon and have a good season. Having a small school most of the time it hard to field a competitive side. Coaching take time. Hope he will get the subject he needs.

[Assasin]

The thing is both youth play any position on the field. They are solid defensively and score goals but the best part of their game is passing. I have been a little lazy with close skill lately but will work with them in the summer. The older one is also a good goalie although he doesn't play it often or never had training for it. The younger one is faster than the older one but the older is stronger. Because of the strength of the older one the younger one learn his defensive skills playing against him. They told me they wanted to get their left foot stronger over the summer.

[Gamma]

Sass....him rediscovering a love for football but is more inclined to train for club swimming. When the cousins come over we play some serious scrimmage with. A small ball and he will play for his class and house .... Not expecting much more beyond that

He swam in his first swim meet weekend gone and won him 100m and placed second in the 50. Both were heats and it's a timed final not sure he ends up overall but he had not been in the pool for a month.

My daughter has fully embraced swimming and although it's her first competitive season for club (second for school) this season she has about 8 medals so far including 1 gold from her school for a relay.

With ea h meet she has been improving her times so that is a big plus.

[Assasin]

yeah man swimming is good. I wanted to enroll the boys for a summer swim club but they only do it in the middle of the day here in the summer. Good going for them, keep on improving.

[Gamma]

Swimming is good. You seeing the effects of training on likkle gamma. Especially his chest and shoulders.