The next challenge for the TSFA boys was to up the anti. To play an older, stronger, quicker, cleverer and more organised team.
Coach Gavin from Waterstone College obliged with his new U17 squad, still a new squad but with some serious potential and ability.
Unfortunately we still only have 12 boys in the senior group, with one injured and two just not up to the level physically just yet, left me needing to recruit some replacements.
Fortunately Stopwatch, Coach Perry's private coaching business supplied us two boys to fill in in the backline. The boys were a little older, one on his recovery journey back from an ACL surgery and the other not currently playing due to his grade 11 exams.
Their experience was invaluable. For our boys to play alongside players who could demonstrate composure, good technique and sound decision making was worth hours on the training field.
Our challenge remained the same from the previous two friendlies, despite the opponent being better and that was to maintain or improve on possession, improve on pass completions and passes per possession. After a week of good preparation built around these objectives, we were very happy to receive some positive reinforcement from the PLAYERMAKER smart tec system.
Game 2 Game 3
Individually we had similar impressive results.
On the physical stats, the highest recorded distance ran was 11400m and the same 15 year old boy achieved 2500m of high intensity distance. These are stats equal to that of a more senior player.
More important than that was a number of individuals pass completions percentages increased. This indicates that the general positioning of the players, desire for the ball and passing accuracy all improved.
For the players to understand their personal match performance and level of contribution and for the coach to balance and coach his team more efficiently, the Playermaker tec allows the coach to compare head to head stats on relative players. For instance, the amount of possessions and sprints the wide left player achieves compared to the right, a direct indication of involvement or the amount of successful passes received by the holding midfield from either of the center backs, an indication of relationships and passing ability among other things.
There are many of these comparisons that can be made, the more the players are aware of these situations the more likely a coach is to get buy from the players when it comes to improving through training..
Well done to this weekends players and keep up the good work.
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