One Down...

History was made tonight as the first ever soccer game involving HOPE Middle School was played on the south side of Milwaukee. Just getting to the field ready to play was - as could be expected - an adventure in and of itself.


I ordered the uniforms last week and was told if I wanted numbers/names on them it would take 4 weeks, but if they were sent without screen printing it could be done in a week. They arrived two days ago and look pretty sharp.


Last week all of our practices were attended by less than 9 kids, which kind of had me sort of worried that I might have to reschedule tonight's game due to numbers. We even lost a couple more of our older players this week who decided soccer was not their game. However, a handful of younger students wanted to give it a try so now our roster has 19 players! Of those 19, all but 3 turned in their permissions slips/waivers by today so that they were eligible to play in the game.


We dressed for the game 15 minutes prior to dismissal but this was complicated by my responsibility for manning detention (which I passed on to our principal and another teacher) and several of our local high school's students downstairs in our building waiting for another teacher. Twelve players with their permission slips turned in were in school today with rides arranged, so we suited up and jumped in our vans and rolled out.

One turn away from our school we turned on to the main road that leads to the highway and it was blocked so we turned down an alley to get to the next main street over- but that alley ended 150 feet later. We turned around got to the highway connected to the next highway, hit our first exit, then turned on the road with the field and drove...and drove...and drove. Our Mapquest directions had left out a really important turn- the last one. Eventually the school's AD called me and got us back to the field. (Sadly, we lost one player/family in the process who never made it to the park.)

We got to the field with 11 players and 10 pairs of cleats. The 11th pair rolled up as we took the field. As a coach (whether its soccer or basketball) I absolutely HATE not having adequate warm-up time- so it is safe to say that I was a bit frazzled heading out to start a game with NO warm-up. I was excited though, as were the kids. We started out in a 6-2-2 formation (6 defenders, 2 mids, 2 forwards) as I figured it would benefit us to try to stop their scoring for as long as we could.

We fell behind 3-0 by halftime. Their first goal was totally due to our lack of experience. Their second goal came on a pretty decent free kick from about 25 yards out. Their third goal was much like the first. We had a couple break downs (a full back all the way up by the forwards, another fullback not moving at all from the spot I assigned) but over all we were running well, just lacking movement and any sort of offensive attack.

We started the second half with the ball on their end for almost 5 minutes (we played 20 minute halves because of our lateness and another club coming soon to the field). We had one REALLY close shot the just sailed over the goal. We were much more competitive in the second half only giving up 2 goals for a final score of 5-0.

Overall, we were much closer than I imagined we would be. Our opponent is one that we should be beating in two years tops. Our biggest disadvantage (besides our overall lack of experience) is leg strength. Several times our goalie punted the ball deep into their side only to see their fullbacks control it and send it flying back. We had two free kicks and one corner kick and in neither situation were we in a position to put the ball on goal or into a position to be shot. We made one more serious push on goal, but were thwarted.

Our kids actually had a really good time, many said they had fun. Despite the chaos, I had a good time tonight too. I am not sure if the rest of our opponents will be on the same level of ability as tonight's opponent (I am going to assume they get better), but I think now that the kids have played a real game they will be more up for working hard in practice. We took a lot of pictures which I will have up soon! Thanks for all the support that has come in. I will be posting some directions to coming games for anyone in the MKE area who wants to come out and catch the Tigers!