Footy Stars

Still trying to remember that soccer is called football (aka footy) here. :) The girls were so anxious to play and we were excited to see them play! The season started back in the middle of March and just ended at the end of May. Boy were those couple of months busy! Avery had games on Monday, Allie's games were on Wednesday and she had practice on Thursdays. There were also a few games on Saturday. On practice/game days I would have to pick the girls up from school and go straight to the base that the game was being played at that day......so super long days for the girls! Derek was able to be an assistant coach on both teams. If he wasn't a coach for Avery's team I don't know if she would have played. For as aggressive as she is at home, I was so surprised at how reserved she was on the soccer field! Although when she is playing with us at home she is not like that at all. They both had a great season.....and, of course, amazing coaches. :)

{Red Eagles}

Allie's team was pretty amazing for 7-8 year olds. Both coaches really knew the game and the kids picked up on how to REALLY play as a team really well. There was so much improvement from start to finish. I especially noticed this with Allie. Right in the middle of the season Allie and I worked on shots on goal and staying with the ball. I don't want to take much credit but after that practice is when we really started noticing her MAD skills! :) Allie ended up scoring 3 goals. She scored the first goal and last goal of the season! And then the other goal was actually not for her team. It was during Avery's game and the team that Avery was playing didn't have enough players so she volunteered to play for them and scored right away. I think she gained a lot of confidence after doing that......and that just so happened to be right after her and I had that practice. :) haha. After Allie scored Avery wasn't very happy. She hadn't noticed that Allie was playing for the other team and did not like that her sister scored against her.......so she let her know how she felt and called her a "poopy head." It wasn't too long after that that some more players showed up. Allie was bummed but was happy to have scored on her sister (who was on defense).

 

Parent vs Kid Game

 

 

Celebrating one of her goals!

 

{Red Bulls}

Avery's team was still kind of young....so they were a bit tougher to coach. The head coach did not know much about soccer and was really quiet so Derek pretty much took over. Lots of bumble bee soccer at this age and they had a hard time getting away from that but we really noticed such an improvement especially when going back and watching the video I took of their last game. They stayed in their positions so much better than the other team. So I think the season was a success. Avery, like I said earlier, wasn't very aggressive. It didn't help that she got hit hard in the neck by the ball during the first game. She was so afraid of the ball after that. There were at least 3 games where she got hit by the ball and came off the field crying saying she was never playing again. Luckily she did continue to play and in the 2nd half of the last game she finally agreed to play forward! Before she always wanted to play defense because she thought she didn't have to do anything on defense. I think she realized that there is less chance of getting hit if she's a forward....and more chance to score! Maybe she will still be up for playing next year. We will see.

 

 

 

I can't leave Blake out. Here are some of him and his shenannigans while the girls were playing.