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This is our JV team at Mt Tahoma, an inner city school in Tacoma. As with our varsity, it is almost entirely first and second gen immigrants. Lots of love for soccer but pretty limited technically and tactically, though this group does have several players competing at the non-premier select level who have potential.
production quality is still poor (our cameramen are still in training) and it’s longer than most people will want to sit through, but this was created for the players, not for this forum. You can get the gist of things by watching pieces of it. Towards the end the other team really ramped up the jungle ball, which did make it harder to play, especially as we put in more of the bench players, but it gives you a good idea of the contrast in styles. Our opponent is actually one of the better JV teams in the leagueTypically in the past we have been heavy on Coerver Type stuff with this group, but this season we did most of our technical work within the framework of the 343 exercises, and the single main theme of the year was basically “playing out of the back”. Three seasons ago the JV group was getting destroyed and they were playing with 8 or 9 at the end of the year because not enough kids were willing to go out and lose by double digits. This year they were 8-2-2. Four of the points they dropped came on the road, in a neighboring area where the refs are more than happy to let the suburban kids punch, grab, kick, and trip their way to a result.
The point of this video is obviously not to show how great these kids are… we love them but obviously they are on JV for a reason! There are technical, tactical, physical, and mental shortcomings all over the shop and we see that. The pace of their game is painfully slow most of the time.
And yet… They are out there trying to play possession soccer, trying to keep the ball and trying to play it to feet 90% of the time. To a point Gary has made several times in the forums, You don’t have to have the greatest players to pull this off. As long as your players have comprable abilities to their opponents, it can be done.
Our varsity team finished league 6-6 and was just eliminated from district playoffs on PK’s last night, only the second non-losing league campaign that we have a record of for this program (the first and only winning season was last year). Two years from now, if our varsity team can dominate their opponents the same way this JV group is now , I am going to pee myself.
SHORTER Videos.
https://vimeo.com/96827774 5:45 Focus in this game was on attacking-from / building-possesion-out-of the back,
https://vimeo.com/96859382 9:36 Focus in this game was more on transition/counterattacking, but still with the ball on the ground and with the defenders very active in the play
Longer vids on my vimeo page if your curious what the club trained opponents like like when they are on the ball, or you can take my word for it that there is a lot of jungle ball. When the opponents do string a few passes together, they plays tend to go nowhere, starting and dying in the center of the field.
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