Update on What's Been Going On

Practically every weekend since the last post on here, I've been busy with games. Not to mention every week, three times a week, I have practice. As you can see, commitment is pretty big for my team. We practice on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays unless we don't have practice on one of the days. In that case, we would have practice on Wednesday as the replacement. We do lots of different drills and small games with the girls that show up to train. For example, if we do somewhat of a passing drill, our couch will give us a certain number of passes to complete and the last group that finishes has to run somewhere. Obviously, nobody wants to lose so that's what gets us motivated and then the practice turns out to be a blast
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The picture above is a demonstration of a passing drill we sometimes do. The person that's standing alone receives the ball from one of the other guys and passes it to another and so on.

My team has been doing fairly well in our games because we've really improved on our communication and possession of the ball. In the image below, you can see that the blue team has control of the ball whereas the red team is defending and unsuccessful at retrieving possession. It's very important to maintain control of the ball in games because that's how you get goals.

Our standings right now are 2-3 or somewhere around that. We started off a bit unstable because everyone had just come back from high school season so everyone had to readjust. Believe it or not, different teams have very different playing styles and it's difficult to switch back into old habits quickly. On the brighter side, as I previously mentioned, our communication and control has improved immensely.

This past weekend, three players from my team, including me, were asked to play with the older girls because they were low on players for this weekend. We stepped up and played a great game but unfortunately, the ending score was 2-4. However, the team that we guest-played for never gave up and continued to fight and we got those two goals in the second half because we wanted to get back in the game. In my opinion, that's where my team struggles. Whenever we're scored on first, we lose confidence and don't play as well. I think we should definitely keep our heads up no matter what the score is.

 Here's a picture of a girl on the older team and me locking our arms because we were acting as a wall to prevent a goal from happening. This is from the game on Saturday.

My Passion of Soccer

Soccer: a sport played by many, loved by many, and watched world wide. There are so many reasons to fall in love with this intense, competitive sport and here, you will read several of them. Soccer, or fútbol, depending on where you're from and what you call it, is about a 70-80 minute game that is split into two halves. There are two teams playing against each other which contain eleven in each that have eleven different positions.













The goal of the game is to dribble down the field and work with your team mates and get past the opposing team and get the ball in the back of the net behind the goalie and get as many goals as possible.



My interest in this sport began about eight to nine years ago and here I am now, still playing the game. It all started with wanting to play more and more sports as a little girl and when I found soccer and started practicing, I absolutely fell in love with it. The speed, the energy, the skill needed, the team work; everything was so appealing to me as a lover of sports.




I've played all of the field as a player. My beginning positions varied because I was so little but I normally played forward. I loved that position because the feeling of scoring goals and getting past other players boosts your confidence more than you could ever imagine because of all of the encouragement. As the few years passed of playing on rec, I moved to a more competitive team because the coach saw me play and requested that I try out. After making this new team, I moved to playing keeper (goalie) and found out that I had talent in goal. About two years later, the coach changed because we got older. He saw my ability to boot the ball and my control over the ball so he thought it would be a great idea to put me as a forward again and I stayed there for the rest of the season, subbing in as keeper maybe two to three times that season only because I was the only other option. However, once another season passed, we got a new coach, which is our coach right now. I played forward for maybe three or so games and then I had to go back to defense because they knew I was tough and could take a few shoves because there was no other person. The coaches happened to love me in that position because I wasn't afraid of the ball at all and I could boot the ball really far if needed and I helped tremendously in the back. So, here I am now, about two years since that change, and I'm still playing center back. On my travel team, the one I've been describing, I'm team captain and I'm also on the JV team here at school as a captain as well, loving the sport more and more every practice.

(Just in case you didn't know, I am in the white)

Positions on the Field

Soccer, or fútbol, depending on where you're from, is the most popular sport worldwide; consisting of 250 million players playing in over 200 countries. On the field, the traditional set up is 11 v 11.

Depending on your coaches and how you want to set up your team, there is a wide variety of how many players can change positions. For example, in this diagram you see the goalie, the last player, the three defenders above the goalie, four midfielders, and then three forwards. But, let's say, you want four forwards, instead of three. You can move up one of your midfielders to forward and make it so you now have a 3-3-4. Like I mentioned, there is a lot of different ways you can set up your field.

The goalie, also known as the keeper, is a very important player on the field and it isn't too easy to come across a very skilled one. This player is the only one on the field who legally can use their hands to stop the ball. They are the last one of the players so when a forward from the opposing team is dribbling towards goal, the goalie will be the last player they meet. Once they approach the goal, they're aiming to shoot the ball and make it into the net past the goalie. The goalie's job is to keep the ball from getting past them and making sure it stays in front of the net.

In this picture, you see a girl in a dark blue jersey and another in white. The girl with the ball is most likely a forward for the blue team and she's trying to get around the defender in white to go to goal. The defender is trying to prevent that from happening so she's making it so the girl with the ball can't get around her and score a goal.

Midfielders are pretty much every position in one, besides goalie. They have to not only defend, but they also have to attack as well. In most cases, they do the most running because they're in the center of the field and they're constantly opening up for other players to receive the ball and play it to another player, or if possible, take it to goal themselves. The importance of these positions in the midfield is so the rest of the players have more feet to pass too and the players in the midfield must have steady control of the ball and quick movement to release it efficiently. 

In this picture, you see a man in a red jersey shooting the ball towards the keeper while men in white jerseys try to prevent him from doing so. The guy in the red is what we call a striker, or a forward. These players are more common to shoot on goal and they are the people who tend to make the most goals within the game. Their job is to receive the ball, get around whatever players from the other team there is and take a shot on goal and score another point for their team. These players are positioned at the very front of the field and normally hang around the last defender on the other team so they can have a nice short run to goal (depending on how far back the defender is) and have the least amount of players to get past.

So, hopefully these steps on how positions work on the field helped you understand some of the basics of soccer. Don't forget, only the keeper can use their hands!