My girls rock!
What a great soccer season it has been! It certainly hasn’t been without adversity though. I coach my daughter’s team with her best friends dad (U11 – 5thGrade). We have been coaching these girls for 4 years and could have never expected what this season had in store for us.
When we won the first game of the season I thought that we were off to a good season. When we tied the second game, I thought we would continue to have a decent season. Then in the third game, my daughter broke her arm but we didn’t know until after the game. You see my daughter crashed into the opposition’s defender and landed hard on the wrist. She had mobility in her wrist and she wasn’t in agonizing pain. She sat on the sideline icing her wrist and pleading with me to let her back into the game – what a player! Against by better judgment, I let her go back in (and probably only because it was my kid – I wouldn’t have taken that chance with somebody else’s child). So, guess what, we won the game.
From there on, we rolled through the competition this year. My girls were playing the best soccer I have ever seen them play. Our season was shaping up to be undefeated with the one tied game. Well yesterday was our last game. And my girls were given a gift. The gift of redemption for we got to play the same team that tied us which was the only team in our schedule that we played twice. To sweeten the pot, we played them at their home field.
So, I get a call a couple hours before the game. One of our goalies and the one we planned to play the whole game in that position (also the other coach’s daughter and my daughter’s best friend) filled in for a player on a different team earlier in the day. Well, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She had an accident in the game and was in ER with a possible broken ankle! Oh man our girls have endured too much this season (BTW, my daughter only was required to sit out one game because of her broken arm).
Now I don’t have our goalie and we had our biggest game of the season. If we won this game not only do we finish with an undefeated season but we proved that we could beat the only team to tie us.
Great teams aren’t built around an individual. You have a great team when a group of people with a common goal come together to leverage their collective skills and passion to rise above the challenges put it front of them.
Well, back to yesterday’s game…The team we played was tough. I was frustrated as they were pushing my girls and the referee wasn’t calling it. The coach of the other team was less than pleasant towards his girls (it is unfortunate how often I see negative coaching). We battled and won the game 3 to 0! My girls were so excited, what a blast! So we finished with an amazing undefeated season! Here is a stunning statistic – this year we outscored the competition with a season total of 65 goals to 17 goals (great defense and offense). I’m a proud coach and even more so, a proud father. My girls rock! Go HotShots!!!
