Game Day v George Mason

After being profiled in a nice article in the GW Hatchet newspaper (Colonial to Coach) I could have started to let my ego get carried away but if my feet were starting to leave the ground they certainly came crashing back to earth after only 23 minutes of our game today.  

Unfortunately after only 1min 30sec of play we had given the opposition a goal, did the same 15 minutes later and then made our task even harder on 22minutes as we conceded our third.  Not the perfect start we had been hoping for.  What do you do as a coach as the game plan was truly out the window??  Don't panic.  Despite the scoreline we had actually played some decent soccer so I still felt we could get something out of the game.  Its moments and games like this that you learn a lot about your players and your team.  Were we ready to cave in or stand up and raise our game?  

At half time I did contemplate taking the Sir Alex Ferguson approach and the infamous hair dryer team talk.  I ended up asking for something we seemed to lack in the first half BELIEF.  In these situations its tough to find and have belief in ones own ability let alone belief in the teams.  I wanted to see players doing things I knew they could do and have seen a thousand times, a GW team that plays with passion and works hard for each other, a belief we could get one goal, then two, then three.  Unfortunately the goals never came but the much improved second half performance certainly showed that we have some character within the team and the fight that we had showed the previous game in OT had returned.

Everyone was disappointed at the end but we can learn more in failure than we do from success.   We take what we can from this one and move onto the next 

Saturday September 1 Noon V Howard (at American in DC College Cup)

Magic Moment of the Day

Second Half Recovery/Performance