Coaching the ISSEA Girls' goalkeeper

I have started to help out with the ISSEA girls' football team. I have already had two training sessions with the goalkeeper of the team and I am planning to train her every Monday morning during their training sessions. I might have to train more with her later on when ISSEA is near to get her fully prepared for the tournament.
I plan on helping the keeper, Meg, build on her weaknesses and become more comfortable as a player. Since I have already played as a goalkeeper in the ISSEA tournament for 3 years, I have gained much experience and I am aware of the most important skills needed to be successful in the tournament as a keeper. I will use this experience to help Meg become a very good goalkeeper.
I have already coached keepers before so I want to build on this coaching experience to then make me a better football player. I have coached the Varsity girls' football team goalkeepers in the past 2 years and I have also coached several under-10 and under-14 boys' keepers at Sags Academy.
I hope to build on my experience as a coach and football player as well has make Meg feel very comfortable in goal. This will hopefully build the girls team so that they are fully prepared for ISSEA so that both football teams can be very successful at the tournament.

Update:

Coaching Meg proved to be quite a challenge as she is resistant by nature and has a lot of attitude. It was hard to get her to do everything that I wanted her to do that I believed was necessary for her to improve as a keeper. She often refused to try the keeper drills that I got her to do and this greatly affected our progress during training sessions. I often was forced to get her to try particular drills over and over again till she finally tried through her frustration and was able to do them. This took away a great amount of our time together so I was unable to train her as much as I would have liked. Meg could do almost everything that I asked of her but she was unwilling to do them because of her fear and lack of determination and belief in herself.

            However, I was able to convince her that she was able to get down low, something that she had refused to do for a long time because of her long history of injuries. Also largely because of this long injury list, I was determined to get her comfortable with diving and getting to the ground quickly as these are important skills during ISSEA. I was able to teach her a few new skills by the time ISSEA came and I was able to make her a bit more comfortable with the ground. However, since she always said she was going to do everything I told her during the games but refused to do them during the practices, she was not as prepared as I had hoped she would be by the time the tournament came and she was unaware of this unpreparedness as she felt very confident. Since I had already played in three ISSEA tournaments before this ISSEA tournament came I was well aware of the tough and tiring nature of the tournament. This is something that I tried to get her to understand but she was too confident to realize that the tournament required a lot of hard work even for a keeper.

            Despite these set backs, she was able to start quite well in their games but was not always able to replicate what I had taught her during the training sessions. This resulted from her failure to practice these various skills when I was not with her and also often when I was with her. Her unpreparedness was then evident when she dislocated her knee in the semi-final and was no longer able to play any further. This forced the girls’ team to put one of their already decreasing number of fit players in goal, which could not have come at a worse time. I therefore had to quickly train three of the other girls to see who would be better in goal and to get them as familiar with the basics of keeping as I could in the very short time I had with them. Because of all the injuries that plagued their team, the girls ended up fourth place. I hope that Meg has now learnt from this experience and realized that success only comes with hard work and that one needs to practice their skills over and over again no matter how good they are if they want to be consistent and if they want to develop and improve their skills.

            This experience was also clearly a challenge for me and it has helped me realize the difficulty of coaching and it has giving me a better understanding of the techniques used that will most effectively help a coach communicate with his/her trainees and how a coach can motivate an athlete to continuously try their best to improve and develop. This was a great experience to test my leadership skill and to develop them for future use. It has also made me more aware of the difficulties that other people face when being a keeper that I am more comfortable with and therefore do not directly think about. This awareness has allowed me to more effectively train other keepers and I hope to test these developed skills while coaching other keepers. I might therefore continue coaching the girls’ football team’s keepers to help them improve on their skills and to help me develop my skills as a sportsman.

Varsity Football 2011

The Varsity football team has been playing for approximately 2 months so far. We are slightly past half way through our season and we are looking like a very strong team. I am the captain of the Varsity team and it has been a fun challenge to take up. I am responsible for making sure that the communication between the entire team, including the coach, is good. I lead the team during training sessions and during matches.

As a captain, and after having been on the Varsity and ISSEA football teams for 3 years now, I share my experience with other players and I use my experience to judge what is best for our team to make us as successful as possible. I am therefore constantly discussing tactics as well as other issues with our coach Sags.

This year we had a very strong returning Varsity team that was composed of mainly mid-field and attackive players. For this reason we had to bring in many new young players mainly in defense to the Varsity team. These players were inexperienced and it has therefore been a challenge for us as a team, and for me as a captain and keeper to build our defense as strong as possible. The younger players have been excellent in defense so far and they have definitely stepped it up as very strong players.

We have focused a lot on playing possession football this year and we have gotten very good as a team. The attitude of the returning Varsity players has also been excellent and this has been crucial at building our team to make it as strong as it is now.

I have been lucky this year to be able to play as a keeper as well as an outfield player during our league games. This has given other players a chance to play as well as given some a chance to rest. Playing different positions has allowed me to be closer to the team so that I can lead them from different areas on the field as well as share my experience as an all-round player to the younger players. It has also allowed me to build my skills as a football player so that I can build my experience even more as a football player and as a leader.

We have been very successful so far this year with 4 wins, 1 draw, and 0 losses. We have played very good football on many occasions but we have also had several issues during games. Our goal now is to build on those issues and mistakes so that we can be a solid team throughout each entire game. This will allow us to reach the semi-finals and hopefully the finals. It will also get us fully prepared for the ISSEA tournament in Lusaka, Zambia in early November.

We hope to continue building our team to ultimately become the best team in the league as well as in the ISSEA tournament and I believe that our team is certainly capable of accomplishing this. We just have to continue working hard and continue building on our weaknesses, but also continue strengthening our strengths.

Update:

Final reflection:

            This year has been a very successful year for the Varsity Boy Football team. I have been on this team for four years now and this year was definitely my best. It has been a long time since the Varsity Boys Football team has made it to the finals of the ISL league but we were able to accomplish it and we were very close to winning it. Having been the captain of the team, it was a great honor to lead this great team.

            The season started out with several worries for our defense since most of our defenders from the previous season had left. We were more comfortable with our attack and midfield players since most of them were returning Varsity players. These worries were emphasized when we lost our first two friendly games against Rosslyn and RVA, loosing 4-0 in the Rosslyn game. However, together with coach Sags, we worked on our defensive problems and slowly built a very solid team. I worked very closely with Sags to ensure that the team continued to progress. The returning Varsity players were excellent this year at leading and motivating the younger players. The determination shown by the returning players was outstanding and this was quickly mirrored in the younger players and this was very significant in our later success as a team. The younger players, especially the defenders, did an incredible job at improving and making the defense solid. We did have a few issues with disciplinary problems with several of the younger players at the beginning of the season but we quickly and effectively solved these issues and made it clear to the younger players that playing on the Varsity Football team was a privilege and that it was very serious.

Therefore when our league games started we were very well prepared and continuously improved throughout the season. The work ethic and fighting spirit of the team was amazing and this is what brought us through to the final. We came from a goal down a few times during the season to win each of those games. There was only one game that we did not play as well in and that was the Braeburn game. However, the fighting spirit was again evident in that game and we were very unlucky to not come out and win it and we therefore tied the game at 1-1. This was a big disappointment for the team but we did not let that end our determination so we came out the next few games and won them all. This then brought us to our second meeting with Rosslyn but then this time in a league game. We knew that we were good enough to beat them so we gave them a very hard game to play. We were very unlucky to not score a few goals so the game ended 0-0, but this score line was a big difference from the 4-0 loss at the beginning of the season. Our team had clearly improved greatly as a team.

We went on throughout the season unbeaten till we met Turi in the semi-final. This was a tough game since they had come first in their pool and they had beaten most of the other teams in their pool quite easily. Therefore we had to be fully prepared and when the day of the game came we were ready. We played the game with great determination and it was clear that the team really wanted the win. The fans that came and watched witnessed a great game. We ended up winning the game 2-0 to put us through to the final against Rosslyn the next day at RVA. Since the final was the day after the semi-final, it was tough and the players had to do their best to keep their bodies fit for the final so that we could play our best game. We were well prepared so we played a good game and it was clear that we were very evenly matched with Rosslyn. The game ended 1-1 so it progressed to silver-goal extra time where a winner after five minutes would end the game. If there would be now winner after the extra five minutes we would move onto another five minutes and then a penalty shoot-out. We were very unlucky and we conceded a very unlucky goal in the last 30 seconds of the first five minutes of extra time to then lose the final. It was very disappointing but the team was proud of having been so successful throughout the season and it was a great pleasure and honor to have been the captain of this team. Having won ISSEA Boys Football for the first time ever, we knew that this team was very special and that we were all very privileged to be a part of it. The success of the team was largely because of our coach Sags and the determination of every player in the team.

My goals to improve on my football skills as an all-round player and to develop my skills as a leader by being the captain of the team were accomplished. I was able to play as the first keeper, left and right-winger, midfielder, defensive midfielder, and striker for the team in the league matches. It was a great experience and it allowed me to effectively communicate with the rest of the team as a captain. Captaining this team has greatly developed my leadership skills and I hope to use this for future sports, academics and many other areas. I also hope to be the captain of the Boys Rugby team next season and help build the Rugby team to a strong team able to compete against the more experienced other teams in Kenya.