You have probably heard by now that a crew of us went to Atlanta this weekend to
play in Hotlanta Memorial Weekend Soccer Classic. Not only did we play
outstanding soccer, but we won the entire tournament!
Hotlanta is a fun
but grueling tournament played in the wicked Georgia early summer heat. 10
players from Marin went together as a team. To round out our numbers, we were
joined by 3 former Spikes who now reside in New York City: Jason, Thorsten and
Kevin, as well as by Bob who plays for Boston.
There were 6 teams vying
for the gold besides us. The Spikes never seem to get an easy draw, and this
tournament was no exception. Saturday we played 3 games, each lasting one hour
against San Diego, Florida 2 and Florida 1. We knew that San Diego and Florida
1 would both be on the hunt for championship.
We opened against San
Diego, a team that we consider to be like sister/rivals; we love them as long as
they lose to us. It was a well fought match. We were able to shut down their
key attackers and playmakers and seize a 2-1 victory. Great start. In our next
match we routed Florida 2 by a score of 6 - 0. This was even though we made
every effort to stop scoring goals in the second half. This game also served as
a bit of a rest break for us between tougher games.
In our final
preliminary match we faced rival Florida. Florida is is traditionally a tough rival for the spikes. We still have a bitter taste in our mouths from their come-from-behind victory
over us in the San Francisco IGLFA tournament in 2004. Their dirty play and
trash talking style doesn't bring them any closer to our hearts. It was a hard fought and ugly game.
Florida's physical play threw off our game a bit and prevented us from
establishing our rhythm (we need to learn from this!). The Spikes are not a
team to back down from a physical game. There were elbows, shoulder charges and
hard tackles galore. Several Spikes were given a 'timeout' by the coach for
losing their cool. The ball went back and forth with neither team able to
penetrate. Finally, a cross was sent in that Jason headed into the back of the
net! Jason was soon rewarded for this effort with an awful body check from a
Florida player that dislocated his shoulder and sent him to the hospital. Jason
was out for the rest of the tournament and will need shoulder surgery when he
returns to New York. Jason, we thank you and wish you a speedy recovery! We
held on to the 1-0 lead for a victory. With three wins, we had an automatic
berth in the semi-final the next morning!
On Sunday morning we faced a
fired up Atlanta1 in the semifinal match. They were hungry to beat us and came
out strong. I think that the Spikes were able to control most of the play
during the first half but many of my teammates think they took it to us.
Irregardless, our defense was able to shut down all of their attacks and we went
into halftime 0-0. We re-grouped during this break and came out ready to play
our game. The second half started with the Spikes in complete control. We
passed the ball well and created various attacks. Finally, Izzy was able to
convert a goal on a beautiful back header goal. When the whistle blew we were
thankful to pull away with a 1-0 victory.
The final game was against our
friends from San Diego. Now in fairness to them, they took the hard road to the
final and played a total of 6 games to get there instead of the 4 we played.
Additionally, their semifinal (against those biyotches from Florida) went into
overtime. San Diego was exhausted. It was clear as soon as the game started
that we were going to have more energy and be quicker to the ball. The Spikes
dominated the play but had some trouble converting until Thorsten put one in for
a lead. We had many more chances that we weren't able to convert. The weren't
a threat to us although they did have two quick and scary shots - one low and
one high - that Kevin deflected with inspiring athleticism. The game ended with
a 1-0 victory for the Spikes and well deserved championship medals!
I'd
like to give special kudos to the great defense we played as an entire team. We
only had 1 goal scored against us the whole tournament! Kevin will take away
the 'Golden Glove' award for the keeper with the least goals scored against
him. Great defense was essential because except for our routing of Florida2, we
won each game by 1 point.
There are two final notes that I want to make
as coach of this team. The first is that we AS A WHOLE TEAM need to work on
keeping our cool in high pressure moments. Yelling at the referrees, at other
players and at each other needs to be the exception rather than the norm to our
team culture. In the Chicago tournament last year, this overly spirited passion
was in great abundance for us. I feel that this really tore us apart and
affected our team moral and even our performance then. I saw traits of this
same misdirected intensity in Atlanta this tournament, and it simply needs to
stop. The other thing I want to say is that I was struggling not to cry as I
watched you all play the last 10 minutes of the final game. You were so
inspiring to me! We were exhausted, battered and run down, but we kept hustling
for every ball, refusing to give up, continuing to fight in the last game down
to the final minute. We worked with each other to play some beautiful soccer.
In my first year as coach, I want to tell you all how damn proud I am of the
amazing effort you are showing and the work you are doing to play some great
soccer. In that last 10 minutes, I could see all the sprints, the conditioning
runs, the plays that we practice ad nauseum, the work on quick passing and
receiving and running off the ball; I could see it all come together in a
beautiful, simple and sophisticated way, and I was so honored in those moments
to be your coach. The gold medal was simply the bling icing on a wonderful
cake. Thank you for giving me this experience.