Welcome to the Under 11 Phoenix team webpage! This page is for the exclusive use by the Under 11 Phoenix team.
Coach: Erik Mueleman 0427 095 324
Manager: Jenny Archibald TBA
Training Day: TBA
Training Location: Mackie Road Reserve - Melway 68 C12
Competition Day: Sunday
Association: VSCA
League/Division: TBA
The official team fixture is available at http://www.vcsa.org.au
Following is the direct link to the fixture - http://www.vcsa.org.au/fixtures.php?age=junior&val=10
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Round 1: Glen Eira U11 Phoenix vs Berwick at Berwick on Saturday 17 April 2010
9:58 or 10:00. All watches are checked. We won the toss and the Ref wants to start. We are missing one player and the Ref suggests to wait 2 minutes because although both Glen Eira watches show the same time, they're two minutes earlier than the Berwick watches. Two minutes, 40 kms East, sun-rise, does it add up? Who cares. Two minutes pass and all the Phoenix team start jumping. Ready to kick start and show what they’ve got; the other kids have no idea what's coming.
Berwick, a fine 40 minutes drive from Glen Eira, and quite a bit more for some due to site-seeing or a major traffic jam. The U11 Phoenix had the opportunity to improve their fitness at Duncan Mackinnon for a few weeks; how smart but boring, until the grounds, materials and light at Mackie Reserve were ready to receive us for kicking the ball. Saturday, four weeks later, it's show time.
Immediately after kick-off the Phoenix dive on their prey, eager, keen, fit and skillful. Bowan scores and Melina misses twice, and then scores twice, one of which a beautiful drop kick shot over their keeper. Adam, our keeper, survives without a chair after a week of illness, and asks to play somewhere in midfield asap please, after every cough and one crucial save. Gander (Alexander) organises defence, not waiting for Berwick at our penalty box but at midfield. Maggie, leftback, shows perfect timing when taking over the ball from the forward and has an eye on her opponent at all time. Geordie, rightback, is never passed by his opponent and after taking the ball he passes it with a good feel further to Harry, right halfback. Harry is everywhere on the right, eager to get the ball and smart playing on. Bowan, right wing, is super dynamic with and without the ball which makes him score the first goal. I saw Johan Cruijff once saying: "The best defence player is Dennis Bergkamp (striker) because he immediately switches from attacking to defending and recovers the ball even before the opponent has the chance to start an attack." Of course we don't have his skills (yet) but our forwards Bowan, Melina (shadow forward/forward midfield) and Hayden are definitely that dynamic. Hayden is everywhere, when needed, along the left wing. David, our center forward, plays his favourite game: chasing the ball, calling for the decisive pass and then immediately looking for the best continuation towards the goal, either a pass, dribble or a good shot. His penalty kick hit the goal bar splashing hard. I just love that sound. I am sure next time he will leave the goal keeper without a chance and the net will bulge. Henry plays left midfield and is really good at defending and passing the ball effectively to David, Melina and Max - In the second half Henry takes up the Goalie shirt and Adam starts running around coughing his way through. Max, our defending midfielder, runs and runs and runs, with a good eye though. At a certain point he is deadish and Gander/Alexander is happy to take over the midfield role for a while. Real team play, and team work, everywhere on the field.
It's fair to say one only needs one hand to count the number of times Berwick made it anywhere near our penalty box. In the second half we played much less spectacularly. Tired?, opponent who got their confidence back?, loss of concentration and not starting from basic organisation??? Who knows, who cares. We played well - can, want and will improve. Thanks to Yilmaz (linesman and previous coach) we got a good start, while improvement on tactics will be easy and further skill development is a joy anyway. This will be a great season. The Ref said: "You’ve got some awesome players."
In the afternoon, I went back to the Berwick pitch and discussed the play a bit more with their coach. He was really wondering where we came from and finally said based on the second half, he was confident for the next game against us. I didn’t tell him that Adam (Tiger) was sick and that our other Adam (Hammer) didn’t even play. Next week we’ll play another Berwick team, they’ll be warned.
Result: Berwick 0: Glen Eira 3
Erik