Match report - 19/7/08
Our first match. It's a big moment for all of us and promises to get bigger. The reason, in case you're unsure, is to get the kids some match experience and also encourages them to take the training a little more seriously. This is as they have lots of supporters there to watch them. That's all the pressure they need for now. Winning or losing doesn't matter. They need to feel the fun and excitement of playing and the camaraderie of their team mates.
So off we went to Sekolah Sri Subang on Saturday for a 5.30pm kickoff. Most made it by 5 and the kids had their warmups and got themselves used to the area and more importantly the pitch. Because they train indoors and the floors rubberised, some time kicking around on a grass pitch is good to build up self-confidence.
The opponents had been training together for 4 years on fields around bandar utama and subang. And they were larger than our kids. WE do have the youngest set footballers around hence most of the times, we will be at a size disadvantage.
Coach Simon added Michael, who is our apprentice coach at 14 years old to play with our kids just to add some spine into our side. This will help build the kids as well as they know him. We planned to play 3 periods of 20 minutes each as we still want to have an injury free good time. Scientific tests have show that 20 minutes of cardio requires at least 300ml of fluids to be replenished. The lack of fluids could cause mistakes and injuries follow, hence we decided to be careful.
Thanks to the great folks at F&N, we had loads of chilled !00Plus for the kids and parents. Thanks to 100Plus for their support.
Our fitness coach, Danapal Naidu was also on hand to watch the match and make some notes on the kids. All in all, they had a lot of fun and at this point I would NOT like to single out any kid as they played well as a team. With the changes, we ensured that nearly all played (some were too shy). We have made a note of this and will ensure that in future games they should be ready to play.
Some of the parents noted their kids participation in the game with silence and some encouraging remarks. Kudos to you, make them feel good and let's not pressure them. We believe that the more fun they have, the more they will open up to the game and love it not only for the vigorous exercise but as passionately as their parents do.
The final score was 0-0 and I think it was very fair for our kids. We played well and tried our best in the first 2 periods. There was a lot of hard running and tackling but it was played in good spirits. The last period showed some of our kids lacking in fitness and this will be addressed in the next few training sessions. In our report card for the kids, we will also suggest some "homework" that you as parents can do with the kids to maintain and better their fitness. Hopefully this will ensure a stronger performance the next time around.
Please note that some kids take a little longer than others to acclimatise themselves to games. Be patient, there's no rush and after all they're kids, they need to have fun. Thanks to all the parents who brought their kids and the "fans" out on saturday. Hope more turn up for the next game. We will keep you posted. Please feel free to scan the gallery of pics from the game. If you have some to add, please e-mail me a jmanvir@gmail.com and I'll happily add them.
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