Chapter 52

August 22, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written August 23]

After warmups and laps, Coach had Shameka, Hope, and Katie join the seven of us (the six of us plus Abby) to show how Rondo works [see coachingamericansoccer.com/soccer-drills/soccer-rondo-drills/].

“Seniors, you’re in the middle. Your individual tasks are to get possession of the ball while following all soccer rules. The other girls have to keep possession, but with constant passing and keeping the circle in roughly the same place. Since most of you may well have not done this, we’ll allow each offense player two touches each time the ball comes to her. Next week, we’ll change it to one touch. The players in the middle, that is the players on D, stay in the middle until one of them gets control of the ball. If and when that happens, that player switches places with the player that last touched it and enabled the D player to get control. This exercise builds field awareness and quick and precise passing.

“Rhee, get it going. We’ll go three minutes.”

With our experience with rondo, we did not lose the ball before Coach whistled us done.

“As you can see,” said Coach, “even though the defenders are all seniors and among this team’s best defenders, a talented and experienced set of younger girls was able to maintain possession for quite a while, and that with two of the seven being fullbacks and not among the premier team’s best ball handlers. However, except for Civia, all of them have done this every practice day for the past three months, and our last practice day was only 11 days ago.

She let that sink in for a few seconds, then said, “Don’t worry, this set of seven girls does include many of the premier team’s best ball handlers, though not either of the top two. If those two replaced Gracey and Abby, I would put money on those seven being able to hold off any three of the older girls for at least five minutes, possibly longer.

“Because the offense has such an advantage, here seven on three, it is difficult for the defense to get possession, unless the D is very good, or the O is sloppy. Thus, one might find oneself in the middle for a while. However, for the first week or two, Liya and I will put a limit on players being in the middle. We will also make it a little easier on the D, as we’ll set up three sets of six-on-three. Liya and I will wander around watching. If it appears to either of us that an individual set of three girls has been in the middle long enough, we’ll have those three trade places with three of the O players.

“I also want to point out that our three defenders in this exhibition did figure out the most important thing that the defenders can do in this exercise to increase their chances: work together. They just didn’t figure it out quickly enough to make a difference in the three minutes. Please put some effort into this, as great ball handling, great passing, and great defense are what we want this team to have. While most expect the front line and midfield to have good ball-handling skills, I expect it of the whole team, even the goalies; this exercise will help in that regard. I also expect the front line to have good defensive skills. As example, if Rhee weren’t such a superb striker, she’d make a damned fine midfielder, her defensive skills are so good.

“Liya, call off the nine girls whose first names come first alphabetically. When you hear your name, go stand by Liya. Every third girl will start on D.”

Coach did the same with two other groups, though she put ten in the second group, with seven on O. Each group moved to a different chunk of the field, while Coach and Liya wandered around in the no-man’s-land around the middle of the field watching the groups. Of course, I was the third girl in our rondo, so began on D. Heather was the ninth in my group; she, also, started on D.

Coach kept us at it for half an hour, then had us break for fluids. After that came scrimmaging. Coach had a gob of lightweight orange vests that she gave to one team at the start. As she moved personnel around, vests got traded so that each of us knew who her teammates were and, more importantly, who were not. We played for two hours, though with frequent breaks to move personnel into or out of the game or to change sides and/or positions. It looked to me that nearly everyone played on both teams and at multiple positions. Nearly everyone got at least a few-minutes-on-the-sidelines breather at some time. All of us but one.

Civia was spectacular, despite being on the field for the whole scrimmage. Oh, she didn’t have her way at all times, but she burned quite a few of us with her dribbling, and, yes, that included me. Shameka managed to stop her cold once and Gracey stripped her of the ball once. Other than that, when she was pressured, Civia either made a good pass or beat the pressure.

[I did not even try to not include this next bit, because I knew that Rhee and Heather would not let me leave it out. Despite that, they both made sure that I did not leave it out.]

Somewhere near the end of the scrimmage, Rhee, Heather, Civia, Gracey, and I were all put on the same team; I was at center half, Gracey at right half. Shortly after we started, Gracey stripped the ball from one of the girls on the other team and began carrying upfield. She and I ran three straight give-and-gos and found ourselves halfway into the other team’s side of the field. We also ran into more pressure, but Heather had come back to us, and the three of us worked around that two-girl block; we then got Rhee involved. The four of us moved the ball side-to-side quite a bit, but also worked it slowly upfield as we maintained local numerical superiority.

As we came into contact with the other team’s fullbacks, including Shameka, we began pulling the whole defense to their right, our left, having made at least 20 passes since Gracey’s first pass to me on the first give-and-go. I had been keeping a corner of an eye on Civia, as after I’d given Rhee the sign, we had purposefully not involved her in the tiki-taka up to this point. Then I saw her coming. She had pulled a Mia and gone missing; no one was marking her and she was hauling to the right downfield of the action. I gave a sign and sent the ball on the ground hard to Rhee who had her back to the goal and had Shameka right on her back. I passed it to Rhee hoping to keep Shameka there. As requested, Rhee one-touched it back to me and then peeled to field left – Shameka following her for a couple steps. Civia cut behind me and headed upfield into the gap that Rhee had created. I sent the ball with my outside right between Shameka and Suzanne Rosenberg to a galloping Civia who split the defenders, leaned to her left to suck the goalie, Hope, farther to Hope’s right, then drilled an outside-right shot just inside the right post for her third goal of the scrimmage.

“DAMN!”

I turned to look at Shameka, who had yelled.

“DAMN! DAMN. Damnit. You did that on purpose, didn’t you, Beth? You passed to Rhee, despite that I had her blanketed, just to freeze me. Didn’t you?”

I smiled at her and nodded my head.

“And then Rhee rolled to her left and that was just enough to get me to take a couple steps that way. Damn. That was sweet.” She turned and said to Civia, “That was a great run and a good shot. And who the hell was supposed to be marking you?”

Though she sounded gruff, she was smiling. She looked at Emma Smythe, one of the many ninth graders at tryouts and who was playing right back for them. Emma looked a bit ... not quite scared, more like strongly concerned. I looked over my shoulder when Coach blew her whistle.

“Everyone, north penalty box, double time!”

Shameka beat me to the punch.

“Looks like we’ll be having a learning opportunity.”

I looked back at Shameka and grinned. I was going to respond, but Rhee beat me to that.

“Oh, yeah. This’ll be good. I suspect that Coach will be making multiple points on this one. Beth, prepare to blush.”

Shameka looked at Rhee, then me, then back at Rhee.

“Why would she blush?”

“Because I would put money on Coach praising Beth in some way, and I’d bet that it will be for her field awareness. Did you ever see Beth look left?”

“No, and I was watching her.”

“There you go.” When Shameka furrowed her brows at her, Rhee finished with, “Just wait. You’ll see.”

When everyone was present, Coach, who had Liya at her side, said, “Who can tell me, raise your hands, what aspects of that play enabled that goal?”

None of the premier team’s veterans raised hands, as we know that Coach asks these sorts of questions to teach newer players, either absolutely or, as here, players new with her. Almost ten hands went in the air and Coach called on Katie.

“The familiarity of most of this team’s offense with each other.”

“Definitely one of ‘em,” Coach responded, then called on Rose Iacobucci.

“I think all that passing lulled the defense somewhat.”

“I agree. The Barcelona men’s team calls it ‘tiki-taka’ and the premier team is proficient at it. It is designed to keep possession, as possession is one of the more telling differences in final score. Not always and not with all teams but wins usually go to the team that controls the ball the most when possession is lopsided.”

When Coach called on her, Jules Paxton in that lovely Brit accent said, “Rhee moving to her left got Shameka to move just enough ... in the wrong direction.”

There was some chuckling, including from Shameka, who was standing next to me.

“Correct. While the play may not have needed that extra space, it certainly was not going to hurt. Anyone else? There were more hands up before. I can only assume that everyone had those three causes in mind. I have two more in mind. Does anyone want to take a stab at either?”

No hands came up, but Shameka said, “Rhee suggested that field awareness would come up.”

Oh, god! I colored a little and began ducking my head.

“Beth Matilda Williams! Head up! Shoulders back! Be proud!”

Shameka lost it in laughter. After 15 seconds, or so, she got enough control to speak.

“Rhee predicted you would blush, Beth. She obviously has your number. Apparently, so does Liya. ‘Matilda?’ Really?”

“No,” I answered with loving exasperation. “Liya picks a random old-time girl’s name for my middle name when she reminds me not to be embarrassed by praise. I’m working on that.”

“Yes,” Coach said, “Beth deserves praise, in addition to the assist, for that goal. The assist is obvious, the reason for praise, less so. Anyone?”

Shameka replied, “In addition to keeping a body on Rhee, I was watching Beth with the ball. She never looked left. That was certainly important, if not critical, to that goal.”

Coach held her hand up to stop Shameka at that point.

“Someone tell me why Shameka’s observation is correct.”

Rachel Beck answered with, “Because Shameka’s always correct.”

There was some chuckling.

Coach smiled at Rachel and gave her the “go-on” motion.

Rachel replied, “If Beth would have looked left, Shameka might have looked that way and seen Civia hauling right and called it out or loosened her marking of Rhee to enable her to slide left if she needed to do so.”

“Got it in one. Directly related to that and part-and-parcel of Beth not looking left was one other aspect of the play. Anyone?”

When no one ventured, Shameka said, “Beth passed it to Rhee, despite that I was draped all over her, just to freeze me in position, keep me focused on Rhee.”

“From my vantage, I would not have been able to say that with certainty, but it’s the kind of thing that Beth does, trying to wring every advantage she can out of a situation. Shameka, are you certain of that?”

“Yes. I asked her that, specifically, because I couldn’t see any other reason for her to make that pass. Rhee just one-touched it back; it got them nowhere. I could easily see a reason for every one of the however-many-passes these girls made before that. On the face of it, this one had no good reason. The reason became apparent to me when I saw Civia slide behind Beth and turn upfield. Of course, I had already taken two steps right to keep Rhee in check, but it was already too late at that point, even had I not followed Rhee.”

“I’ve coached a lot of girls over the years and played with another lot. Of all those girls, I could name very few that have Beth Matilda Williams’s field awareness.”

I blushed, but Coach’s use of “Matilda” kept my head up.

“Beth’s got exceptional peripheral vision and she uses it extensively and with malice aforethought to wring advantage for her team. I’ve coached her for three years now, and I used to ask her about this; I don’t, any longer. Without asking her, I am certain of a couple other aspects that we haven’t mentioned. The first is that Beth kept Civia out of the tiki-taka specifically to see if she could lull the defense into thinking less about Civia, even though Civia had already scored two goals today. She then kept a bit of her attention on Civia, even while she was involved in tiki-taka with three teammates. She didn’t look left when Civia began sprinting toward her because she could see her coming out of the corner of her eye. She then made the pass to Rhee that froze Shameka and got the expected one-touch back and slipped the ball between Shameka and Suzanne as pretty as you please.

“There is one more important aspect, though it has two facets. Smythe, care to take a stab?”

[Because there were two Emmas at tryouts, Coach had asked for and received okays from the Emmas to call them by their last names to reduce confusion.]

Emma’s eyes went wide, but she swallowed and answered.

“Umm, I was staying with Civia, but she wasn’t getting the ball. When Katie came past Civia at a run, I turned my attention to Katie in case she was making a run for the left post. I lost track of Civia in the process.”

“Exactly right, and I don’t really blame you. Had you let Katie go, I’m sure that Beth would have chipped the ball over the top to her and your team would have given up the goal to Katie, rather than to Civia. In fact, at that point, Beth held nearly all the cards. She had a few yards of space around her and she had Heather to her right, and Heather could have made a run at almost any time. However, as Katie pointed out, this group of girls has worked together a long time, and they know each other well and they know how each other plays. Had Civia held off even a couple of seconds, either Rhee or Heather would have made a break, possibly both of them. The combination of the right side of the offense making lots of passes with slow progress toward the goal without Civia’s involvement and Katie’s fake run enabled Civia to go missing. To disappear. She gave it a couple of seconds, then made her run.

“Civia has not known these girls for very long, but she has played together with them quite a bit this month and she’s quite bright and knows the game well. She counted on Beth’s field awareness. She counted on Beth seeing her coming. Beth counted on her making the exact break that she made, because it was the obvious point to make a break for the goal, particularly with Rhee’s move to her left, making that gap a little bit wider.

“This sort of teamwork is what I want to get this team doing as a matter of course. This sort of teamwork requires experience with and knowledge of how your various teammates play and think. It requires thinking ahead of the play, figuring out what the good options are, and taking them.”

Coach looked around at all of us, one at a time, then smiled.

“Now, I’ll come clean. Liya is one of two assistants that I will have this season. Her tasks will be primarily organizational, with a bit of covering for me in some tasks because I can be in only one place at a time. I will have another assistant and I’ll introduce you to her shortly. First, however, I want to talk about Civia.

“We and the premier team have known her for less than a month. However, during that time, she practiced with the team every day that we had practice. Since then and since she was sucked into the menagerie of girls that is Beth, Rhee, Gracey, Liya, and Heather, the six of them have spent some time since the team won the state tournament practicing by themselves, working on skills. She is the best young soccer player I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been doing this for 15 years as a coach. She is capable enough that she taught the entire menagerie, even Rhee, who knows lots of fancy footwork, how to do a Zidane roulette.

“Civia is very good and very knowledgeable about what she does. She will be my second assistant and if and when we bump into skills, particularly ball-handling skills, that certain of you girls may not know, Civia will probably be the one to teach them. That is the price that she’s willing to pay to be able to practice with you girls, with this team. Although she practiced with the premier team, she was not on the premier team. Although she will practice with the high-school team, she will not be on the high-school team. The reason that she will not be playing on this team this year is that Civia will be starting middle school this year because she is just 11 years old.”

There was much exclaiming, including many of “No way,” some included modifying expletives.

“We will give Civia the ability to practice with a team that plays at a level much higher than anything that she has played. I want all of you to make her work, make her understand what playing at this level means. In exchange, Civia will probably be teaching new skills to many of you or refining skills you already have. Don’t think of it as learning from a little girl, think of it as learning from, perhaps, a future national team member.

“Civia is somewhat like Beth in not wanting to be in the spotlight, but once she got over her initial fears that she couldn’t possibly teach girls three years older than her how to do anything, much less something specific, she taught very well. All eight of the premier-team members that she taught can now do a Zidane roulette, even though none of them had even heard of it before she pulled one off in practice, making one of our starting halfbacks look, as that halfback put it, ‘foolish.’

“Regardless of what I suggested about future national team members, from here on, I don’t want Civia on a pedestal. I want her to be a teammate. Yes, a teammate that doesn’t get to play in our games, but a teammate, nonetheless. She’ll have to take a bus from her school to this one every day just to be here for practice ... yet she doesn’t get to play in our games. She’ll be taking that bus every day in order to be able to practice with you older girls and to help me teach you the sorts of things that I want you to know, the sorts of things I want you to be able to do, the sorts of things that just might make a difference in a game, in the season.”

Coach called an end to practice. Civia was mobbed. I could see and feel her nervousness, but she inhaled deeply, then exhaled.

“Wait, please, everyone. Shameka, I would like to ask a favor of you. From what I saw today, you are the rock of this defense. You fill the shoes that Ann De Jong filled on the premier team of being the defensive rock and a mentor to younger girls. As Coach pointed out to me in the first minute after I was introduced to her, I’m pretty skinny and not very strong. I’ve been working on that and will be working on that, at Coach’s request. However, she also pointed out to me that I’ve been protected from my own ... physique because the rules for younger ages allow much less physicality in play compared to the older levels.

“The favor I would ask of you is to treat me on the pitch like you would another senior on this or any other team. I need to get used to and understand the limits of the more-physical play of you older girls. I will not complain if you knock me to the ground as long as you don’t go too far over the line of what is allowed at this level without incurring a penalty. I don’t know what I could help you with, but I would greatly appreciate it if you’d help me this way.”

Shameka, who must be nearly six feet tall, looked down at Civia and smiled.

“I’d be happy to knock you around a bit, although we should probably have a little show-and-tell about some of the things we can do at this level that you probably haven’t seen. You know, under controlled conditions. It cannot be today, but if you’ve got the time after practice tomorrow, we could do it then.”

“Thank you, Shameka. Please let me know if there’s some soccer skill that you’d like to learn. I don’t know whether I know anything you don’t, but I’d be happy to help you.”

After that, Civia got lots of questions about how she does what she does, all from the younger girls. However, she pleaded a need to catch a bus and begged off, telling them that she’d be here every day this week. When the six of us were still a few hundred yards from the bus stop, the skies that had been threatening all morning opened up. We ran for the stop, as there is a shelter there. Once the bus dropped us at our stop by the practice pitch, we sheltered at the bus stop for ten minutes or so until the rain slackened enough that we would not get thoroughly soaked on the walk to the house, though we were certainly wet enough upon our arrival.

Once inside the mud room, we divested ourselves of wet clothes and popped them in the washing machine and started it. Civia opened the door to the garage and peeked in, letting us know that only the Trooper was there. Liya announced the shower plan as, with the rain, we opted not to go to the practice pitch.

“Downstairs, Gracey and Liya; upstairs Rhee with Beth.”

After lunch, we talked about the scrimmage, Civia’s request of Shameka, and the next dribbling moves that we would teach Gracey. We decided that Liya needed remedial dribbling and trapping instruction.

Today was one of Sandy’s early days, so at 3:45 when my alarm went off, I announced, “Time to get dressed.”

As she climbed into her freshly laundered practice clothes, Civia said, “I would never have believed a month ago that I could spend over three hours with five good friends in one of their houses, primarily because I had no friends. However, the craziest part of that would have been spending those hours wearing no clothes and taking little notice of that fact. I really like this. Thanks for ... introducing me to ... this way of ... living. I decided last week that I would be naked in my room as much as I could manage. My parents always knock and ask to come in, so I can manage it quite a bit, though I started only Friday afternoon. Last night, I decided to try sleeping ... naked. It was sort of weird, but I think I like it.”