A few changes in player personnel had to be made for yesterday’s crucial league home game against Wodson Park FC in the Spartan South Midlands Football League D1, which goes without saying from the back of last week’s heavy defeat. We had the opportunity to reverse our fortunes but it didn’t quite go according to plan. Before I proceed to the game report, the club recieved the formal match report from the league regarding last week’s league game.

As expected, the ramifications from our exploits were swift and uncompromising. The club was heavily fined for failing to control our players resulting to two red cards shown by the referee, including our head coach being sent off as well. We as a team had an honest and transparent discussion and to learn from this particular experience. As a team, we decided to take responsibility and collectively contribute to paying off the fine as a reminder of the commitment and high standards of morality and gratitude expected from each individual to the club, and as agreed so shall it be done.

Mid week training was a better turnout but far from ideal as we were missing key players, well in my case my goalkeeper Luis Silva for the second week in a row couldn’t make training day due to personal fitness reasons. As a goalkeeping coach it gets very frustrating because after coming off the back of a heavy defeat at the previous game ( 5 – 0 to bluntly state it 😞 ) I was eager to go through with Luis the goals conceded and what actions or decisions he could have implemented that could have prevented the goals. As a goalkeeper and coach ( expected from any goalkeeper/coach ), my priority is to reassess every action and decision making after every game in order to improve my development of the game both physically and mentally, and training days present the opportunities to address these issues. I had my concerns about not having the opportunity to tackle these issues that could defy the proceedings in the following game. These concerns were mainly about leaking goals and goalkeeping technique adjustments that needed urgent attention, and that was resoundingly evident in yesterday’s match as once again the scenario became a struggle between decisive action and deployment.

.. 10 minutes into the game we found ourselves a goal down, after some clever interchange play from the opposition resulting from a top right corner curler shot from the left corner of the 18 yard box. I’m a great believer in saving majority of shots fired towards goal as long as the goalkeeper has got these key elements in place –

• Set-positioning
• On one’s toes ( a must if one is to make scalable shotstopping improvements )
• Self awareness and belief

Unfortunately Luis was out of position and flat footed and the ball sailed into the back of the net. We equalised soon after once we were able to find some form and through some sleek interchangeable midfield play from Moises Roka, Kofi Appiah and Francis Williams with Moises firing home the drive leaving the goalkeeper no chance and the scoreline remained 1 – 1 till halftime, although we had the opportunities to be ahead if not for our re-emerging lack of composed finishing in front of goal. Second half started brightly but we fell a goal down again when we again fail to deal with a defensive clearance and subsequently got ourselves in a muddle, which the opposition capitalise on and scrambled in the goal, making it 2 – 1. Credit to the boys we didn’t lose our composure and moments later we forced the opposition into a similar defensive mistake which we capitalise on, courtesy of Riccardo Price to make it 2 – 2. Then for the first time in the game we took the lead from a thunderous 30 yard strike from Francis Williams that nearly burst the net! That surely was a statement of intent bearing in mind that he missed two clear cut chances in the first half. We seem to be heading for a victory on face value but I wasn’t convinced and my fears were confirmed as 10 minutes later the opposition equalised via a lack of communication between the defensive line and the goalkeeper. This has been our Achilles heel and the sooner we admitt this problem and dealing with it appropriately the better. Over 60% of goals we’ve conceded has undoubtedly been due to lack of communication and I would be the first to admit that I’ve got a lot to do on this particular issue as the goalkeeping coach. Predictably, the game petered out to a 3 – 3 draw which was a fair result logically, taking into account the factors and key moments that would have been defining. Back in the changing room, we felt like we lost the game which reflects the true essence of the opportunity lost in grabbing 3 points.

Finally, Luis informed the coaching staff he wouldn’t be available for training next week as he’s got some work commitments to attend to. Now that’s 3 weeks in a row without training and conceeding 9 goals in 3 games. There are things and commitments in life that comes first and cannot be compromised, which I completely understand but the fact remains the statistics will continue to produce what it’s being fed, mediocrity performances equals mediocrity statistics and that isn’t going to change in an instant by the snap of one’s finger..

You Are The Ultimate Keeper Of Your Destiny… ULTIMATE KEEPER