So here I am cooking potatoes and eggs when I hear an eruption of yelling from the living room followed by my dog barking up a storm. I rushed into the room to find my son yelling at the linesman who had just called a second straight highlight quality Ajax goal offside. My dog thought something was wrong and had joined in the critique of the ARs performance. It made me laugh, mostly because I know I’ve been the one doing the yelling at the screen plenty of times. It’s always worth taking a minute to enjoy when you see yourself reflected in your kids. Especially when it involves waking the dead at 6:45am.

Me and my son were watching the game. His mouth dropped open and he made one of those sounds that people make when they don’t quite know the appropriate words. I threw my hands up and yelled for joy. The writers of The Guardian’s daily e-mail The Fiver described the effect of goals like Van Persie’s this way:

Like the creation of a universe, all the elements have to be in the right place at just the right moment. So rare do these elements combine that volleys generally result in the ball skirting off the shin, over the roof of the stand and bouncing down the road, a new toy for an opportunistic passerby. But when they do come off, sit back and enjoy them. They will restore your faith in football…

All that to say Van Persie’s goal was amazing. There’s a few like that every year that make me wonder why I ever thought I could play the game even a little bit.

I recognized half the girls because I saw them at every 3v3 tournament, every indoor season, every winter workout, every soccer related thing going. I can’t say that I’m shocked that any of the girls I recognized are on the ODP team. Not because I’ve thought they were dominant players over the years (although a couple of them most definitely are). But because I’ve seen them play so so much. It just reinforced my general feeling that the kids who play the most, end up being the best. I think it’s almost unavoidable. If you show up to the field enough, you’ll figure it out. I’m sure natural gifts make a difference, but not nearly as big a difference as consistent attendance.

Congratulations to all the girls I recognized today. You deserve all the success you’re having.

Now I understand family commitments. I understand other priorities. I even understand, “I’m not driving to Athens on a Wednesday night.” Those things make sense to me. But I’ve had parents tell me a pick-up game was too far for them to drive when the game was 3 miles from their house. I had a kid on my U15 team who only showed to 7 practices during fall season. I don’t understand that.

I grew up differently. My parents made a point to get me to anything I was interested in participating in. They just did. I don’t remember a single time when I was unable to participate in something because my parents weren’t willing to take me. I was my mom’s only child, but my dad had 4 of us running around his house. Didn’t matter, they both got the kids where they wanted to go. And I promise you my parents were not the type to let children run the household. I’ve got tons of stories that will back that up if you doubt me. But they both placed great importance on their children pursuing healthy interests.

I remember times when my little sister was doing gymnastics, my older sister was doing cheerleading, and my brother and I were playing sports all at the same time. So we loaded up in the car and my dad got us to our stuff. There wasn’t even a question. So maybe it’s how I was raised that puts me so out of touch with many of my fellow soccer parents. I’ve watched kids jumping up and down begging their parents to take them to something and seen the parent say, “you’ve had too many activities this week already. We’re going to have a night at home.” Maybe it’s just the way I was raised, but my family didn’t do nights at home. Both my parents felt like, and I feel like now, if you sit at home all night you pretty much wasted your time. Of course, parents let their kids sit in the house all day during the summer now too. I guess I come from the, “it’s sunny outside, so get out” school of growing up. Other people must be different. But I still don’t understand it.

I may have been wrong in approaching each game trying to play a little. We might have been able to pack things in, defend like mad, and hope for a quick break. But the last thing I wanted to tell my guys was, “look, I know you can’t compete with these guys so here’s what we’re going to do.” So we gave it a go and tried to play. And as a result, we got ripped apart fairly regularly. But we also had some sections of the game where we created some chances and had a little fun. It was pretty hopeless, but I wasn’t upset with the effort the guys put in.

My son’s games were a little brighter fare. Their age group was a really strong collection of teams. They beat a team that is usually very tough in their first game, competed well but lost to what I consider the best team in the state in their second, and pretty thoroughly owned their last game. It was a really good showing for him and his teammates. They really put it in and should be proud of themselves.

So that’s the end of spring season. I’m done for… two days. Then I’m taking a group of my son’s friends to play indoor. This game never seems to end.

Does anyone else get grumpy like me when watching Aaron Lennon run inside from the right wing and still use his right foot even though its closer to the defender and then show that he can’t thread a clever little ball in to the box with his left foot because his “other” foot isn’t good enough????

You can read the whole post here. Essentially Roger is advocating for a base level of skill with both feet. I laughed at the excerpt above because my current U15s have no impulse at all to play with their weaker feet. My three best players are entirely right footed. To the point where they won’t even shoot with their left when clear opportunities present themselves. Then I watch a professional game and see international strikers attempt to cut the ball back onto their stronger foot and lose shooting opportunities in the process.

I don’t know who is right in this debate. Should you balance development? Should you allow kids to excel at their strength even at the expense of that balance? I think I lean more toward balance. But maybe I’m old school too.

We played a small club team from Covington. They had two kids who were really top notch players. One of the things about a small club is that in many cases, the top team is the only team at the club. So you have a much wider mix of skill and athletic levels than you do on my big club third team. My boys are pretty well grouped. I have players who are better than others, but the range isn’t massive. The top two kids on this other team on Sunday were head and shoulders better than everyone else on the field.

We managed to keep the ball for most of the first half. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to put it in the goal. Even more unfortunately, we gave away a penalty kick that the other team converted. So we went into half down 0-1. I couldn’t say a ton to the boys. They were playing well. They just hadn’t scored. I urged them to keep switching the field to give themselves a little more space going forward and we went back on.

The second half started rough. The other team figured something out at half and gave us real trouble for about 10 minutes. We recovered and started pushing forward again. Lots of possession, lots of shots, still no goals. With about six or seven minutes left, we finally got one. Game tied 1-1. I subbed one boy back in who I wanted to make sure took a penalty kick if it came to that. We had a couple more chances to win things. They had a couple chances of their own. But the final whistle blew.

Penalty kicks are stressful. I told the boys to act like we were playing a game of nets in practice. No big deal. No pressure. I don’t know if it helped or not. Their goalie saved our first two penalties. My goalie saved two and watched one go over the top. So we had our chance to win. My last boy stepped up to win the game. Cool as you like, smacked it in the corner. The boys went crazy. That’s how you want to end a season.

My older boys played against a team that only had 9 kids show up. So there was no real fun in that. Although I’m sure the boys enjoyed it. We won a lot to nothing. I don’t even know the score. I ask them to stop shooting about midway through the second half.

My younger boys played well both games today. We struggled a little bit with an aggressive team from a club I’ve never heard of in the morning, but held on to get the win.

Then in the evening game, we played a team I thought was way better than our earlier opponent and got a comfortable win. Even a couple of my players expressed surprise that we were doing as well on the scoreboard considering that the other team was a really skillful bunch of boys. It goes like that sometimes. My boys played well, especially as the game wore on, but the score flattered us a good deal.

So the young guys are in the hunt to win their tournament still. They’re excited. Back at it first thing tomorrow. Right now, I’m seeing my house for the first time since dawn. I’m beat.

So tonight when a very nice mom from our opponent’s team asked me if I write a coaching blog, I freaked out and said no.

I have no idea why I freaked out. Apparently I would make a very bad celebrity. “How is your new movie?” “I’m not an actor. Get off my lawn.” Not exactly PR smooth.

So I want to apologize for freaking out and lying about this blog tonight. I feel extraordinarily guilty about it. Mostly because she seemed very nice and obviously had no idea that I felt like my stomach turned inside out when she asked.

I’m sorry. I promise to do better next time.