soccer report

[rone]

After a bye week, we suffered another ignominious loss, this time to White Puke, something like 13-8. I had to go into SF today, so i didn't have dinner, and i knew it'd come back to haunt me. About midway through the second half i started running out of gas; it didn't make that much difference, though, as i didn't really give up any soft goals except for one when the guy shot just as i blinked.

What really ruined my mood was the twins playing on my team, who get awfully scrappy when things don't go their way (and sometimes even if they do). In this game they each had a nasty takedown from behind; White Puke players weren't exactly playing clean, either, but that ain't no excuse. Playing with people like that is embarrassing and is bad for the team because we're playing a man down while they're cooling their heels in the penalty box.

My confidence in playing out of the box is increasing. I gotta keep working on that. And i'm gonna have to start throwing myself at players' feet if they have a chance to shoot and my defenders are away. If they manage to elude me and score, i can adjust. Otherwise, they'll just pick their corner, and i can't let them do that anymore. I'm sick of this 3-game losing streak.

Comments

Diving at feet...

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

In my experience, diving at the feet of incoming opponents doesn't seem to be one of those things that you can plan to do more of: if you have time to think about it, self-preservation tends to prevail.

You probably know the following already, but i'm still going to say it. In one-on-one situations, I rarely worry about where the striker is going to shoot. Instead, I concentrate on minimising the available space and anticipating when they're going to shoot. If the forward is good, they'll score anyway, but if they don't find one of the corners, or if they let you get too close, simply spreading out at the right second will block a lot of shots. Of course, it's also why I save a fair number of shots with my face, and receive the occasional knee to the temple...

Re: Diving at feet...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Bah, self-preservation my ass. I can worry about self-preservation during the time i'm not stopping shots.

Re: Diving at feet...

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

That's more or less what I mean. If an attack happens quickly and I have to hurry to respond to the threat, I find it easier to be "stupidly brave" (to quote teammates) than if I have time to think about what I'm going to do.