2011 Spring Soccer Season

The new soccer season has started this year, so I thought I should finally blog about last season.  

The girls were on the team called The Blue Phantoms. This was their second season playing and they were still a little rough.  Their coach was named Marco and he was a young guy, totally reminded me of my brother Scott. He was a professional German soccer player, but had hurt his knee so he agreed to coach the American girls' team while his knee healed. He was a little rough as a coach at first, but like the players they all really grew as a  team. Towards the second or third game, they were rockin it.  Marco taught the girls a lot of really great things, he would bring cut outs of a soccer field and players as a visual aid, and when that got old, he brought an iPad and taught them on that.  He brought big bags of gummy candy for all of them, and was just really positive to them about their playing and teamwork.

The funny thing about soccer pictures to me is that when people post them, you can't ever see where the kid is cuz they're like little ants on the field.  I tried circling the girls for you.

The girls played defense (which I was so blatantly told off for calling it by the old name of "Fullback").  They were really great at covering the goal and became known as pretty fierce. They followed the ball every time they kicked it, which is not something most soccer players do.  They also shocked a lot of the parents when both of them, each at different times, ran from midfield all the way back to the goal, passing 4 players on the way.  They have gotten pretty amazing.  The main guy of the sports services over here wants them on a special team to play against German teams, which then will move on to be invited to play on a world team in Austria next year. We're hoping that will all go through.

The girls aren't in the next picture but I liked this picture for their memories.

This is their friend, Jazmine. I'm sure you'll recognize her from previous posts.  They loved being on the same team, and I loved being able to hang out with Jazmine's parents. They're super cool people.

At the end of the year, the coach helped us organize a BBQ, separate from the main community's BBQ so he could talk to the players individually and spend time playing more soccer with them. We had a great time at the BBQ.  Here is Coach Marco talking about the girls when they received their trophy.

I'll post pictures on the blog of their new season once I start taking them. :) They're team is now called The Golden Chaos.