The Football Academy had its second friendly game on Wednesday against the Old Mutual Academy. This is an actual proper academy and quite an organized setup. Old Mutual is a financial services and insurance company based here in Cape Town. Imagine if State Farm or American Express hosted an Academy in Raleigh, that's what this is like. They have beautiful fields built onto their huge campus in the Pinelands area of Cape Town.
When we first arrived I think our boys were quite intimidated, and it showed as we started the game. Their boys have been for a few years and are all true U13s (ours are 1/2 U13 & 1/2 U12), so they were a bit bigger than us. We played so nervously and passively at the beginning and they jumped out to a 2-0 and 3-1 lead. At halftime we talked about us calming down and relaxing and trying to keep the ball more. In the 2nd half the boys played totally different. They played with confidence and passion! They got a penalty kick that we converted to cut the lead to 3-2. Then, a few minutes later we got another penalty. But this time Josh wanted to take it and he kicked it over! Oh no, there goes our chance, but actually just a few minutes later we scored our 3rd to tie the score! So, we ended the game tied at 3.
The point of the friendlies are to play together, try new things, and measure yourself against another opponent. It's really not about the result. But the boys were quite proud of themselves! For our young organization it really was quite a neat moment. Old Mutual has big resources and has been around for 10 years. They have an easier time attracting players at this point. But I think we have shown that in less than 4 weeks we are starting to develop something special. My hope is that the boys will get a confidence boost out of this to realize that they can play with anybody and have the ability to accomplish their goals. But I'm also hoping that it will motivate them to work EVEN harder to get there.
Tomorrow we have our first friendly as a Fish Hoek club. Some of our boys will actually play with the B side so that they can play the whole game. Development is the priority!!
Cheers,
Casey
When we first arrived I think our boys were quite intimidated, and it showed as we started the game. Their boys have been for a few years and are all true U13s (ours are 1/2 U13 & 1/2 U12), so they were a bit bigger than us. We played so nervously and passively at the beginning and they jumped out to a 2-0 and 3-1 lead. At halftime we talked about us calming down and relaxing and trying to keep the ball more. In the 2nd half the boys played totally different. They played with confidence and passion! They got a penalty kick that we converted to cut the lead to 3-2. Then, a few minutes later we got another penalty. But this time Josh wanted to take it and he kicked it over! Oh no, there goes our chance, but actually just a few minutes later we scored our 3rd to tie the score! So, we ended the game tied at 3.
The point of the friendlies are to play together, try new things, and measure yourself against another opponent. It's really not about the result. But the boys were quite proud of themselves! For our young organization it really was quite a neat moment. Old Mutual has big resources and has been around for 10 years. They have an easier time attracting players at this point. But I think we have shown that in less than 4 weeks we are starting to develop something special. My hope is that the boys will get a confidence boost out of this to realize that they can play with anybody and have the ability to accomplish their goals. But I'm also hoping that it will motivate them to work EVEN harder to get there.
Tomorrow we have our first friendly as a Fish Hoek club. Some of our boys will actually play with the B side so that they can play the whole game. Development is the priority!!
Cheers,
Casey
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