State Cup Tournament

It has been while since my last post. Things have been hectic on my end, trying to get prepared for the state cup, getting ready for the tournament and setting up training programs for summer.

State Cup was a great success for both the U10 and U11 boys teams. We set a goal at the beginning of the season and I'm proud to say we did achieve that goal. This was to be their first appearance and that's all they talked about at the beginning of the season. Both teams started well Saturday morning. The U11's played first winning their game 1-0. It was pretty close game with both teams starting of rather slow, trying to get the feel of each other. Our goal came in the second half with Charles hitting a great shot right at the corner. My high point of the U11 games was when they played their second game. We talked about moving the ball and keeping the ball. The boys did just that, the first 15 - 20 min of the game we had more position of the ball. With Ben, Jake, Blade and Bryce helping to keep that ball at the back. I was so pleased with how beautifully they each executed the movement of the ball at the back. The boys are slowly getting the concept and that's all it matters now. We made two mistakes at the back but at this age that is not my big concern, I'm concern with are they getting the concept down. That's exactly what they did, they got the concept and even took it to the next level when I saw them starting to play the direct balls straight in the middle for maddox to start the plays. The defence felt comfortable enough to play those direct through balls in the middle. The movement that came from the 4 forward guys helped make a big difference. Maddox fought all the way in the middle, Drew, Charles and Anthony were a constant threat to their (Bridge FA) defence, with Anthony getting two break aways and also hitting a post. If you walked to the fields and didn't know what the score was, you could surely think we were leading within those first 20 min of the game. We ended up losing 3-1 but the score did not reflect nature of the game.

The U10's are another story, the first game was WOW, the boys were 2-0 down first half. Second half we talked about getting back in there and winning the game. I thought we were going to win the game. The game ended up 3-3, the hustle from the boys was amazing. They kept that team on their own half for almost the entire second half. The more pressure you put on the other team the better it is, because chance are they will make mistakes. I cannot pin point individuals in this game, it was the group effort. The second game was even better. We were down 1-0 at half time, I told the boys we are going to win this game 3-2. Meaning we will score 3 and the other team will score 1. Guess what, we went in there and score 3 goals. We ended up winning 3-2. The boys came out and said Coach China you called it.

The boys had a great and a successful weekend. Christian, Sam, Bridger, Boomer, Cian, Noah, Daniel and Chris, all contributed to the team to making it to the final. Key word TEAM, it was not an individual effort. If one or two players are down the others are on point, and vice versa. Their final games showed how fatigue too over, the boys were tired and you could tell that their legs were running out. Both Teams ended up losing 3-0 in their respective games.


The boys played the entire tournament with no subs and still made it through to the final. Now every time I looked to my left or right depending which side of the bench we were sitting, the other teams have 4 or 5 subs, now if this does not tell you about the character of these boys then nothing else will convince you other wise. The only time our boys got water was second half, GET IT, second half of each game. That's pretty impressive for their age. No one complained, they constantly worked hard, even those who were kinda hiding at times they got saved because the other boys had to do twice the job to get the job done. That's what team work is about, take one for the team. Blade played the entire tournament with his injury, Jen you should be proud, Drew was missing a toe nail as well and they both played hard and got stuck in tackles. Jake, Ben, Anthony, Charles, Bryce, Bridger, Noah, Sam, Chris, Boomer, Christian, Sam, Daniel, Cian and Maddox all were hurting some how, but, hey they got the job done. To me that's bigger than "A O.K", its character and that's one thing that is going to take these boys far.

Great Work Boys.