Die wöchentliche Kolumne von Coach Bob Metzler - Coach Bob Metzler's weekly Column (neu seit der Rückrunde). Wer leichte Probleme mit dem Englischen hat, sollte sich hier die fehlenden Vokabeln besorgen.

Spiel 9: FG Stormarn 2000 - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   0:23   (0:9)   Sonntag, 20.05.2007

Hello again Ladies, well the regular season is now at a close and what a season it has been!!!!!!!!!!!! To finish a season with a record of 20 wins, 2 ties, and 2 losses is quite an accomplishment for any club team, men or women. Each and every one of you should be proud, not only of the final record, but of the time, effort and sacrifices each of you have made. And what a role model you have set for ALL the young girls in each club  -- they now have a goal to strive for and a club member that has been there..  As for me I THANK you for letting me be apart of this season and the GREAT  thing for me is that I now get to coach you for three more games before leaving your wonderful country.  ENJOY THE MOMENTS and I will see you all at practice this week.. Sincerely Coach BOB

Spiel 8: SG Güster/Breitenfelde - SV Müssen   4:0   (2:0)   Sonntag, 13.05.2007

Hello Ladies, today you accomplished exactly what you wanted and "you did it your way".  I hope never again will you go into a game worried about what the other team will do -- when you are on with your short passes and the entire team is on the same page -- to be honest with you it doesn't matter what the other team wants to do!!  I really hope everyone today saw the effectiveness of the short game to set up every aspect of attack.  So again I ask ALL to try in be at practice on Monday and especially on Wednesday for us to prepare for the last game and the prospect of three more games that may follow.  Proud to be the coach of the LADIES!!!  Coach BOB 

Spiel 7: SV Steinhorst - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   3:3   (2:1)   Sonntag, 06.05.2007

Hello Ladies, I hope all are now resting!  Today again you showed just why you are the number one team --no we were not all having our best game in the first half, but that didn't stop you from finding your way as a team.  I said it at half time and I will say it again --YOU WERE THE BETTER TEAM OUT THERE TODAY. If this team ever gets every player on the same page during a game, I pity the team you are playing.  Today our determination was our greatest weapon, but for some reason our passing seemed to be a lost part of our game.  I hope at practice Monday and Wednesday we are able to refine this part of our game -- it is a very strong part of our game and we will need it back next week.  As always --VERY PROUD TO BE YOUR COACH!!  Looking forward to practice  Coach BOB 

Spiel 6: SG Güster/Breitenfelde - Rot-Weiß Moisling   8:0   (6:0)   Sonntag, 29.04.2007

Well Ladies, I think the word is "WELL DONE ". Not only was the game played with skill and alot of class, but the team meeting was handled the same. When you are a team, it is just hard to get us down!!! As your coach I am so proud of everything done today.

Now there is just one little thing.  Today's game was a great example of what we talked about at the pre-game.  We played almost the entire first half attacking down the left side of the field.  The second half was a little better, but there were times when Sabrina and Mareile did not have a single defensive player marking them -- you had succeeded in pulling their entire defense to one side of the field.  So guess what we will work on in practice this week!!

I tallied up the days you picked for the entire team practice and the winner is Wednesday!!  More players can make it on that day than any other, so we as a team will try to have a good and long practice on Wed.  I will still have practice on Monday and Friday for anyone who wants extra work and of course for those who just can not make the Wednesday practice.  Closing words -- today you played like the number one TEAM that you are.

Looking forward to practice tomorrow night.. coach BOB  

Spiel 5: SV Fortuna St. Jürgen - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   2:1   (1:1)   Sonntag, 22.04.2007

Hello Ladies,

it is never easy to get over a defeat or to even make sense of just why it occurred.  As with all teams when having a great season-- when a defeat does come the finger pointing will begin.  I will only point the finger at one person and this I will talk about in this letter.  I point the finger at ME the coach.  I know the substituting becomes confusing for you at times and Rike has over the season brought it to my attention.  Today we did have to substitute in a number of positions but I can assure you I didn't do it to confuse you!!  As your coach and confined to the sidelines, I only watch the game to see if there are spots that we can improve on or create an advantage for our team through using a substitute.  I will ask again for you to continue to remind me that too many substitutions can become confusing for the players on the field -- I will make this my goal to become better at.  I also would like to apologize to Mareile for a very loud outburst from me to inform her of something I wanted done in the game -- it was so graciously pointed out to me at the time by Carina and I do appreciate her in bring it to my attention. SORRY Mareile.  Now that is ALL the finger pointing we need!!!!

The rest are problems we need to address at practice and correct before our next game next Sunday.  One loss does not make or break a season and we need to reach down and pull up our boot straps for the rest of the season. Practice as a team will make a TEAM.  Please everyone try their best to attend as many practices next week as you can -- I will be there!!!!

YOUR COACH BOB

Spiel 4: Lübeck 1876 - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   0:0   (0:0)   Sonntag, 15.04.2007

Todays game although the score wasn't what we were looking for - there were a lot of good individual plays.  There were even times of really good team play, but unfortunately not enough for us to establish total superiority over the other team.  We do have to remember that every team we play now to just tie us is a big thing and this team played with everything they had to accomplish this.  This doesn't mean we didn't play hard - WE DID, but team play means 11 players on the same page at the same time.  We did have a lot of opportunities that just didn't work today -- and the sign of a really good team is these missed opportunities don't bring the team down -- I believe not ONE player on our team stopped playing today and continues to give everything right up to the end of the game.

I have NEVER referred to a tie or loss as the results of a referee's bad calls and today I will not start -- although it did come to mind many times in today's game.

The one thing I did notice today is we are not challenging for the high balls and today it happened constantly.  This we will work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in practice.  When we take time away from the opposing players, they will make bad choices and our game becomes easier. We gave them too much time to make decisions which resulted in us working twice as hard to recover the ball - with todays heat this extra effort caused us to then not relax with the easy pass and we pushed even harder to make something happen. A common error and I know we will come back together in our next game.  Looking forward as always to tomorrows practice.

coach BOB

Spiel 3: SG Güster/Breitenfelde - Sv Preußen 09 Reinfeld   2:1   (0:0)   Sonntag, 01.04.2007

Ladies, the good news is that the ship did not sink.  We did take on some water, but managed to get to port successfully.  Now we have to repair the leaks, and set sail on the 15th. to Lubeck. I think three things happened today and I am going to talk about each but not necessary in order of importance.

First we as a team did not mark up the ball handlers on the other team with enough speed and force to cause them to miss play their passes.  Given plenty of time to gather the ball and look up before they were challenged, they made good and sound give and go passes at will.  We did pressure, but nowhere near fast enough as we did the week before against Buchen.

Second their defense was not being challenged for playing field location.  They pushed up and our forwards did not force them to retreat -- the results was that our forwards were playing almost on top of our mid-fielders.  This resulted in a lack of time for our mid fielders to make good decisions and through balls.  A good way to counter this is for the outside mid-fielders to start making runs past our forwards -- this undoubtedly forces their sweeper, and stopper to concede playing field and thereby taking pressure off the mid-field.

Third and I think the contributing factor to the first two was we were struggling to find our purpose!!  Two weeks ago against Zarpen I contributed that finding our purpose to winning the game.  Today we did have moments of what looked like we were on track, but then we would loose it again.  The entire team must be on the same page for a team to be successful, and that starts at practice.  I think all of you have heard me say time and time again, "you will play like you practice", well being we had such a miserable turn out at Wednesday and Fridays practice it is no wonder we just couldn't find our purpose today.  I know there were all good reasons for not being at practice, but come game day - you either are ready or you aren't - today we weren't.

So now that we have talked about the game, let's turn our thoughts to the next game on the 15th. at Lubeck - remember we are at the end of the season and many of these teams know they will not be moving up in the standing, so their purpose is to beat the number one team "YOU".  I would like for all to give every effort at attending Friday's practice the 13th so we can again perform at our best on game day..

Have a good holiday and I look forward with Dawn seeing you on Friday..by the way don't forget it's Kotzi's birthday.

Sincerely BOB

Spiel 2: Büchen-Siebeneichener SV - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   0:5   (0:3)   Sonntag, 25.03.2007

Hello Ladies, we started the game today slow [sleepy] and played the style of soccer we were playing at the beginning of the season.  Shortly after a few close runs by the other team, we began to crank it up and I was very pleased by the amount and quality of through passes made as well as the supporting runs.  This created chances on goal that unfortunately did not score due to some good goal-keeping and a lot of bad luck.  We spent 80% of the first half in the attacking one third of the field, but came into half with only a 1 to 0 lead.

The second half began with what coaches who come home from a dark, cold, wet night of practice dream about!!  Our forwards and mid-field began to pick apart their defense and found open spaces at will.  Then something I really didn't think would happen this early in the season began.  Our defense got into the attack -- Caroline, and Sabrina both collected the ball and then making passes with overlapping runs. See Caroline, the sky didn't fall -- when you found yourself at the other teams goal line, we adjusted and were able to mark up all their forwards.  Flotti and Rike not to be left out began to attack their mid-field and found chances for shots on goal..

Now when you put all this together the results were we were overloading their defense causing their mid-field to pull back and giving us most of the field to work in.  At one time we had three players unmaked in their defensive one third of the field.  The TEAM as a whole took the next step up in their game to truly a higher level of soccer!!!!  Ladies and I mean all, it was a job well done and I am not just making reference to the score..  

A problem I did see is that of when and how to change the field of attack.  We still when starting from the left side of the field, stay on the left side and don't realize the advantage of changing.  We will start to work on "when" to change the field of attack -- which NOW we can do since we are starting the attack from the defense!!!! We will incorporate this into our training on Wed. and Fri. nights.

As a "Side Note":  I really do want to try to start yoga training on Monday night sessions when we get back from the spring break.  For any ladies with lower back problems or old knee injuries, this will make a world of difference in how you feel and perform on the field. Looking forward to seeing you ALL at this weeks training...

Sincerely BOB

Spiel 1: TSV Zarpen - SG Güster/Breitenfelde   1:2   (1:0)   Samstag, 10.03.2007

First let me start by saying I think it was an incredible second half! Anytime a team can come back from being down and really having a challenging first half - there is a lot to be said for the players who make up the team.

That being said, let's talk about the first half. 1.we are so worried about the game before it begins -- I think our play is severely hampered because of it. This was obvious by our quick to make decisions before looking at the field and what the other team was giving us. Despite this mental block, we were able to make a few really good through passes which did result in a chance at goal..

In the second half we came out a different team. We seemed to come out with a true sense of purpose. Players were more concerned with the team succeeding than themselves. We were much more patience with our passes and the results were we really did control what our outcome was to be. Patience is a hard trait to develop and only comes from practice! The more we practice as a team the more we will begin to know which players will make what decisions and react with great accuracy.

The one thing that does concern me from both halves of the game is when a pass was made and the player did not see the need to continue with play -- their job was by no means done! This again will come with continued practice. Over all it is another game done, not our best but by no means our worst. As a team we are continuing to develop and most powerful tool that makes this team stand out from ALL the others in the league, is how hard we work to become better as an individual as well as a team. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO PRACTICE THIS WEEK and I would like every player to attend as many as possible..

BOB