Chapter 58

September 5, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

After her mom drove off to work after dropping Civia with us, Civia said, “I can stay over Friday night.”

“That’s great,” Heather responded. “I’ll miss not having Liya and Gracey there, but we’ll have a great time, anyway.”

“What is the bed situation?”

I replied, “We’ll be taking the mattresses from the living room over there. They’re two queens; the five of us have slept in them together on multiple occasions, so they’ll be roomy with only the four of us.”

Civia got a bit bashful, then asked, “Will we be sleeping ... nude?”

“It depends on whether Dad and the Moms are staying here or there. Are you okay with it if we do sleep naked?”

“Though I’m not quite completely comfortable with it, I’m getting there. So, I’ll do it if you do.”

Heather wrapped Civia in her arms and said, “We’re so happy you’re our friend and willing to stretch your comfort zone for us.”

Nira pulled up in front with Gracey and Liya then, so we trooped back out to the street from the stoop. All three exited the vehicle, and Liya hugged her mom.

“Thanks for letting us stay tonight. I really do like spending time with you, but we really wanted to be together before our first day of high school.”

“Don’t worry, Liya. I did the same thing at your age, although I had only one really good friend.”

Gracey hugged Nira, saying, “Thanks, Mom II.”

Practice at the high school consisted of the usual start-of-practice items – stretching, calisthenics, and rondo. Once the preliminaries were done, we spent most of the rest of practice running a single drill: four-on-three-plus goalie, for which Lana had coined the term FOTPIG last year. The area in which the drill takes place is a square 30 yards on a side, almost twice the area of the penalty box, and includes that box and the associated goal.

While I will not say that Coach did not allow our front line to be the four for the drill during this year’s premier team season, it sure seemed that she did not have the starting offense be the four in the last half of the season. If I remember correctly, during that last half-season, no more than two of the starting front line were ever part of the four. Of course, the drill may well have been one of the unsung heroes of our season, as it certainly got all of the backups, front line and midfielders, some good practice at the skills necessary for the offense to “win” the drill.

Coach had her usual way on cookie-cutter, original-version drills, which I remember from my first year on the premier team. Over the three years I’ve been on the team, she has kept the overall design of the drill, but jettisoned most other aspects of it from the drill that she found online, which involved offense vs. defense and defense-as-offense versus offense-as-defense or random allocation of teammates. She began changing it up last year and settled on our current version near the end of last summer. She now runs it as a way to see which sets of girls work well together, for both offense and defense and, more importantly, getting everyone on the team to working closely with everyone else in small-unit tactics, a term that Coach borrowed from the military. That counterattacks usually involve only a small number of players was one justification in borrowing the term. However, the primary justification was that our entire offensive plan was predicated on a very solid, even exemplary midfield and back line containing the opposition, leaving our four-person offense unsupported much of the time. Because this was our team’s primary strategy, Coach often had us running four-on-five or four-on-six drills to get us practice with being outnumbered. Of course, to give us poor, outnumbered offense members a chance, she pitted us against the backup defense, which increased skill levels of all involved.

I understand that I’m going on about a simple soccer drill. However, I believe that the drill played no small part in the premier team’s backup midfield becoming much more proficient on both sides of the ball, as Coach would often use them as a group on one side or the other in the drill. The proficiency of that backup midfield in the second half of the season was a large part in our domination of the league and the state then. Because Coach also tried to get realistic aspects into all drills, she often mixed and matched various personnel, an aspect that may well have indirectly led to Kanda’s first competition goal and first game ball from her experience with drills that involved her with some of the starting offense. [A Tall Young Girl, chapter 1; Beth, chapter 22]

Coach told all of us that if she blew her whistle, everyone was to stop immediately so that Coach could explain something that she saw that was either good or bad. She told those not on the field to watch from behind the goal. At Coach’s behest, Liya selected random girls for each of the slots in both the four and the three. After running the drill for an hour or so with five different sets of offense and defense getting ten minutes each, I found it obvious that Coach had told Liya not to include any of the senior fullbacks nor any of the premier-team offense. An offense set that included Katie and Gracey managed three goals, three other sets got two goals each, and the last set only a single goal. However, that last offense set – Jimena Soares, Jordan Jankowitz, Lucia Jimenez, and Taylor Parker had the misfortune to get set against Katie and Gracey teamed again, along with Jules Paxton. After that first hour, Coach, who had not, yet, blown her whistle to point something out, put Rhee, Heather, Civia, and me together for the four against randomly chosen players among the defenders other than Shameka, Kim, and Rachel. We faced Emma Smythe, Marla Spitzer, and Suzy Rosenberg (right back to left back).

We premier-team girls had added a new hand signal for rocket to our repertoire last week and I gave that signal to Rhee right off the bat. She looked at me with furrowed brow for about a half-second, then grinned and nodded. As I expected, the three defenders sat back on defense, which is why I suggested to Rhee to take her first chance at a rocket, as that would probably get the defenders to come after us in subsequent iterations, which would give us a wider variety of options. In fact, while we all thought that rockets were cool in and of themselves, we all have a preference for fancy; rockets are brute force.

Coach put the ball into play by passing it to Civia, who knew the plan. She immediately sent a leading pass crossfield to Rhee, who sent a rocket a couple yards inside the right post for a goal. Coach got us going again by passing a ball to Heather; the defensive trio immediately came out to us. Heather began slowly dribbling upfield, while I moved to between Rhee and Heather, but trailing a few yards. Heather suddenly put on a burst of speed heading left across field outside the penalty box. When Suzy closed on Heather, we ran a give-and-go, Heather continuing left across the field. As soon as I sent the ball back to Heather, I broke to the right and upfield, as Suzy following Heather so far meant that her part of the defensive space was empty. Marla realized the problem and drifted to her left and let Suzy deal with Heather and Rhee in the middle. It was already too late.

Civia had begun hauling across the field to the right before Heather made the first pass of our give-and-go. While Emma was right behind her, she was behind, and Civia called “Pink.” Rhee went left and upfield into the penalty box but staying downfield of Marla to remain onside. I knew – she probably did, too – that Rhee would not have to truly worry about being offside, as she would be serving only as the creator of a hole in what was to come. My role was as decoy, holding Marla in position to our right of the goal, ensuring that she would not fill the hole that Rhee was creating. As Suzy stayed with and slightly upfield of Heather as she continued left, Civia went by both of them heading right. Heather made a quick drag on the ball and continued left, effectively dropping the ball for Civia, who gathered it up, turned upfield and had a one-on-one with Mila in goal. Emma could not cut the chord on the angle to Civia after Civia’s turn because of the congestion of Heather, Suzy, and Rhee. Coach blew her whistle; we all stopped, Civia managing not to shoot the ball.

“Offense and back line stay where you are. Everyone else, join Mila on this side of the goal.” When everyone quickly got where Coach wanted them, she asked, “Does everyone understand what the offense did to the defense here? Jess?”

In her lovely Brit accent laid over Indian lilt, Jess responded, “The crossing movement of the two wings encouraged the wing backs to follow them, thus putting them in close proximity to each other in the middle of the field. Marla shifted to cover Beth and the left side of the defensive space. When Rhee curled left, she opened the hole that Civia turned into, getting to where she is now, desperately wanting to shoot the ball and make Mila look foolish.”

There was much chuckling.

“Exactly,” Coach replied. “Marla, what happens if, after you drifted left to keep an eye on Beth, you realized what might be coming and slid back right to cut Civia off?”

“Civia taps the ball to Beth, who has the right corner open to her.”

“Exactly right. As Jess noted, Heather’s and Civia’s combined movements coerced Smythe and Suzy to get in each other’s way, a problem to which Rhee added by moving left as Heather approached her. Since Smythe was trailing Civia, once Civia turned upfield, the only defender that might have intercepted her, which was Smythe, was on the wrong side of a traffic jam, with Heather, Suzy, and Rhee between her and Civia.

“Shameka, front and center.” When Shameka arrived near Coach, Coach said, “All of you might remember that I favor teammates teaching various aspects of the game to each other. I feel that such points out that such skill or knowledge is attainable without having my 26 years of experience in soccer. Because Shameka was first-team all-state last year, that means that she is, essentially, the single best high-school center back in the state. Throw in that the center back is typically the best defender on the team and the entire defense’s quarterback, that makes Shameka the single best defender in the state. I can guarantee you that she knows quite a bit about defense in situations like this one, and I will let her explain what the defense might have done better here.”

Shameka did not hesitate, saying, “In a numerical mismatch like this, the main goal of the defenders is delaying the offense in hopes that other defenders can arrive to balance the sides. In a negative numerical mismatch, the defenders should play zone defense, gradually pulling in the perimeter as the offense advances. Suzy, Emma, you would have been better served in not following the wings across the field. Collapsing toward the center, yes, but chasing those wings across the field was exactly what Heather and Civia wanted you to do. Unless you’re given a very good chance to intercept a pass or knock the ball away, your best bet is to occupy defensive space and delay. Realize that you are at a disadvantage and that if you cannot delay enough to get additional help against a capable set of attackers, and this foursome is, indeed, quite capable, they will take advantage of nearly any opportunity that you give them. Delay and maintain your defensive space.

“And, Civia, I sure wish you could play for us this year. You work with these girls so well. You’d be a great asset. I guess I’ll have to come back from wherever I find myself in future high-school seasons to watch you four girls kick some serious butt.”

Civia replied by hugging Shameka, then looking up at her and saying, “Thanks for your kind words. I wish I could play this year, too.”

Coach said, “So do I, Civia. Back to the subject at hand. The entire rationale behind both ball movement on offense and attackers moving without the ball is to create chances, either through mismatches, locally overloading the defense, or creating space, particularly space behind the defense. Having that space, no matter where it is, within reason, is the critical point, a point that I’ll come back to shortly.

“When the offense has numerical superiority, creating chances is easier as, by definition, someone must be open, unless the attackers are too close together, enabling single defenders to check more than one attacker. In this particular instance, the defense has an aditional negative factor while the attackers have a positive: the attackers know each other and their styles very well, while the defenders do not know their teammates at all well, greatly exacerbating the defense’s problem.

“How many of the four attackers made a movement to create space?”

A bunch of hands went up, and Coach said, “Crewe?”

“Three.”

“Does everyone agree? Raise your hands.”

A bunch of hands went up, but far from all of them.

“Gracey, you seem to disagree. If so, what’s your answer?”

“My short answer is four.”

“I’ll bite. What’s your long answer?”

“Every movement can create space. I assume that the answer of three did not include Civia’s movement, possibly because she was seen to take advantage of space created by others.”

“Exactly right, and I’d like Civia to tell us how her movement made space. Yes, Civia is 11 years old, and, yes, she has very good ball-handling skills. However, she is nearly as good, possibly as good, at seeing options and possibilities as Beth is, and Beth is the best at that that I’ve ever had on a team that I coached. So, Civia, please explain the possibilities that you saw.”

Civia looked a bit aghast but swallowed and put on her teaching face.

“When Heather started heading left at speed, I saw a number of options, but all of the best ones had me going toward her. As I was sprinting right and Marla shifted to her left to mark Beth, the options changed, and the best possibility was the one that happened: Rhee clearing out, creating a hole that I could use for a near-certain goal. Either I got the goal, as actually happened, or Marla came back to the middle and I either passed it to Beth, which would have been the easiest option for me, or to Rhee, which would have been trickier.

“Had Marla stayed in the middle, I would have shifted my run from being downfield of Heather to being upfield of her. That change would allow for two options, the easiest of those being that Heather turned to the goal behind Emma and me as we passed her and using us to slice Suzy off her tail. She would have used space that I had created by pulling Emma out of it. That would have given Heather the one-on-one with Mila. The less-certain option, but still quite doable, was that Heather dropped the ball for either Rhee or me, who then passed to Beth who was wide open on the right side of the goal. The somewhat dicey part of that option was the successful drop in traffic.”

“Thank you, Civia. Her words also bring up the side subject of having a backup plan or two once you’ve put yourself in motion, in case someone does something that you don’t expect. While I haven’t known Civia all that long, I firmly believe that she had all of those options in her head once she was in motion and when she saw Marla move. I believe it because I know that Beth does that. I’ve seen Beth suddenly change what she was doing too many times as a result of others’ movements to think that the changes were simply chance.