Passion...We Need You

Last night we played a game against SAL Engineering and we ended up losing 3-2. We scored within the first 3 minutes of the game. Then they scored a nice goal off a free kick and went up 2-1 when they scored on a breakaway. We managed to tie it up in the second half but a late header goal off a corner kick gave us the defeat. The first half was terrible. The second half was great and our team played hard. The problem is that we need to play that way for 90 minutes, not just 45.

It was too bad because that team was not good. We killed them the last time we played them. Some of us went for drinks after and talked about the team and I've decided to post one main thought that came up. There seems to be no passion in some of the players. Now this is obviously not everyone, but where is the fire in our team's eyes. When a player steps on the field it is time to go to war. If you get beat you need to bust your butt to make up for that. If you are continually making mistakes and someone starts to harp on you and tell you to step it up, don't get mad at them because they are right. You do need to step it up.

Playing well is about respect. When I coach my youth teams the one thing I want from them is to be competitive. I don't care if we win or lose the game, but I do care if we gave it our best and made it a game. Bad bounces and bad calls by the referee can cost you a game sometimes and you can't control that, so if you only base things on wins and losses it is not a fair picture. When our men's team plays a game, whether we win or lose I want that other team to know they had a game on their hands. That way they have respect for our team. It even goes down one more level to the individual player. If you want people to respect you as a player, you need to show some passion out there. You don't need to be an amazing player because if you show true passion out there and work your butt off, people will respect you.

Now for anyone on the soccer team reading this, don't get too caught up in whether or not you are one of the people I'm talking about. Honestly, I have no one in mind when I write that, it just seems to be more of a generic thing . I think our whole team needs to bond together, each player focusing on himself playing well, and this ship will turn around.

In order to turn the team around, I've decided (with input from the other people at Athena's last night) to change the focus of the team from wins and losses to something else. I guess you'll have to come out and watch next Wednesday night August 2nd at 7:00pm at Umea Vast (behind Lawson Heights Mall) to find out what that is!