Our spectacular boys finished in 3rd place by playing their hearts out.
I hope you enjoyed this massive and unique-format tournament, for some of you, your first. Our kids did simply amazing, going far beyond what was expected of them. To finish 3rd in a major tournament like this is quite an accomplishment and you should be proud - and we are so proud. They certainly played their hearts out, defeating and finishing ahead of all Ottawa teams, including all L4s, and only losing to traveling teams from Toronto and Peterborough.
Many lessons were learned for sure. We were scored on at the last minute on an illegal goal, still won that game on pks; we also came back and tied a game at the last minute, after one of our players had said that we were "toast". It's never over till you hear 3 whistles. One of our players received the first yellow card ever given to a player on any of my teams. I learned a player stayed until 2AM playing video games on Saturday night while he should have been sleeping and resting for a tough match. A tournament match. Some of our players were called names, but did not react. We could go on and on.
Some players were naturally upset by losing. Losing (fair) is perfectly ok. It was certainly very emotional for the coaches too and I shared some of the tears.
Sunday afternoon they were fully focused and playing so hard... If they always play like that, they can beat any team. Keeping that focus however, is not easy. There will be losses, you can be sure of that, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Tournaments require a ton of preparation. I had 48 formations printed out as well as the pk takers selected for which we had one practice session. These pk takers had to be subbed in at the exact moment otherwise they could not be eligible to take a shot. When the time came, some did not want to do it, that is all normal and part of the learning. The worst is food and energy management: that is the big issue with a group of kids who enjoys eating sugary junk.
Special thanks to our call-up Aeddon for playing really hard, scoring every pk in his own special way, and to his dad Graham for bringing tent no. 2, which turn out to be essential. Once again, thanks to Caroline for setting up and coordinating tent no 1. as well, and to Elena for keeping us on track, and big thanks to the parents for committing to this and coming to all matches.
It was exhausting, and not easy. It was far from perfect, but well worth it and enjoyable. More importantly, our kids had tons of fun. Please do make sure to watch the videos.
I'll finish with what the Peterborough coach said to me when we hugged after our 8th match ended, the one we lost on the 7th shot of the shootout.
"your kids played so great, and they were always fair, unlike many teams in this tournament".
:-)
The Cave Man.
P.S. Jorge asked me to send this:
"Hi kids , All I want to say is this, after a long marathon of games (icebreaker) and under the rain: You all played great, played like winners of the game and at the end all had fun and on top of that got to be happy to finish 3rd of the group, we played some great teams (premier) that we played to their levels win or lose and we were not out scored in a game. I noticed that some kids were not happy , sad for loosing the last game and not getting to the final, all I have to say to these kids is, other opportunity will come, we did our best and you got to be proud of yourselves to finish this high. Tournament is for us to correct mistakes and learn new thing to improve our game and be better for our season games (Div.1), and the parents, couldn’t leave them out thank you for bringing the kids out to play the game
Quote, “soccer isn’t about winning or losing , it’s about playing the sport you love.”
Jorge.
FANTASTIC! WELL DONE!
Video:
