Friendly Tomorrow

We play our first of our friendlies tomorrow. Some IMPORTANT notes

1. Shin guards are MANDATORY – you cannot play without them. No jewelry. Leave it at home or it ends up in my pockets and through the wash.

2. Wear blue shorts, socks, and uniform. If you are on the Varsity match day squad, wear varsity gear.

3. We begin warm-up precisely at 5:00 PM. (Be there at 4:00 for walk through – a little different than yesterday – and to support the WAGS.)

4. If you are golf or XC, please let me know when I can expect you. If you are not there by 5:00 PM – I will need to start players who are and then work you in. Shoot me an email with your expected arrival times so we can know who we will be starting with.

5. All scrimmages, practices, games are mandatory and only excused absences (family, illness, golf or XC, etc.) are legitimate reasons to not be there – and who would want to miss a soccer game!

6. Play hard tomorrow and we are grinding that winning culture and mentality. Win your own battles. Positioning, taking care of the ball, smart defensive fundamentals. Lots of little victories result in a team victory. Play your role.

7. The principal goal tomorrow is to see and observe the team and begin to make refinements.

That said. WE ARE PUMPED! Let’s go WARRIORS. See you tomorrow. Varsity game day roster to be posted later tonight.

Pictures and Respect

Pictures went great! Those of you who could not be there, we will see when a make-up can be taken with the whole team again later in the season along with individual shots. Christmas City was prompt and efficient. Great job!

Our walk-through was unfortunately slightly tempered by a lack of listening/respect. Our second word of our core theme this year is HUMBLE. Good players hang on every word their coaches say in order to listen to how to be better or most importantly – how to be a better player for the TEAM. Would a college coach want to see players sitting plucking at the grass during a walk through? Would a community coach? Make your best impression every day. We have so many players who listen intently and want to be coached. If you were one of those parked on the grass, shoot me an email and apologize. We all make mistakes. Boys to men. I love you all and I want to see us win these victories over ourselves. These are life lessons and I’d be a lousy coach if we lowered our standards here. Our coaches love the team too much, have accomplished so much as players and coaches, and know way too much soccer to have anyone tune them out.

On Monday we will do the walk through again (We will report at 4:00 PM for this, earlier than the 4:30 PM time I had originally planned). Hopefully this time with EVERY soul all in – with ears, heart, and humility.

Looking Ahead:

Monday 8/18 Friendly – Pocono Mountain East (WAIS) – Wear BLUE home uniforms

4:00 PM Report and Walk Through

4:30 PM Support the girls soccer team

5:00 PM Warm-up

5:30 PM Varsity Scrimmage – We will either work in JV players as the game continues or run a separate JV scrimmage. I will need to see what the PM East coach says when I see him.

Tuesday 8/19 Practice

3:00-4:45 PM

Wednesday 8/20 Friendly – East Stroudsburg North (WAIS) and Dieruff (Tri scrimmage)

3:20 Report

3:30 Warm-up

4:00 Varsity Scrimmage and same thoughts as Monday on JV

Thursday 8/21 Light Practice

3:00-4:45 PM

Friday 8/22 @Kutztown 3:00 PM

Departure time from high school 1:30 PM

TOUGH – HUMBLE – TOGETHER

Evening Update:

Our Varsity Letter Point Leaders:

Nolan Browne – 50

Justin Hetrick – 50

Jeff Sunderlin – 50

Andrew Bleice – 48

Keep in mind, the fitness classification is weighing heavily in the early week.

Wear BLUE (Home) uniforms for pictures and if you have BLUE socks, bring them TOO!!!!!

8:00 AM Pictures at WAIS

Practice will be light and wrap by 9:15-9:30 AM.

First Week Done!

After a slightly sluggish start, we woke up and had overall a strong practice. Our practice player of the day was Steven Barba! Great job Steve.

Our Premier League Fantasy Join Code: https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/xhnwk7

Tomorrow is pictures at 8:00 AM with Christmas City at Wilson Area Intermediate School. Please be there a bit early in blue uniform. If you have blue socks from last year .. please BRING THEM. If you don’t I scrounged up every set of blue socks I could find in the high school dungeon and I will bring those. Players who are double rostered, please bring BOTH Varsity and JV uniforms to be in both team pictures.

We will practice for a short time after pictures and be done by 9:30 AM.

See you tomorrow!

Rosters, Uniforms, and Pictures

Emails have been sent out to our players regarding your rostering. We are excited to have such quality players – every player is as important to us as the other and we all need each other.

We have had a few players skip practice for a few reasons – just a reminder that unless I know AHEAD of time you will not be there, it is an unexcused absence.

Uniforms will be handed out tomorrow however socks have still not arrived. Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with the ordering and there is nothing I can do but wait. That said, I have asked the AD for guidance regarding pictures as we do not want to do it without the complete uniform. Be alert for messages.

As for ordering pictures, you can preorder your pictures at a discount if you use “wilsonfs25”

https://www.christmascitystudio.com/vieworder

The last time I coached we used Fisk so the online ordering is new to me. Athletics will send out a flyer hopefully tomorrow with more information. I will pass along as soon as I get it.

Nolan Browne is practice player of the day. Great job!

Alumni Game

Spread the word. The alumni game is a voluntary event I like to run to bring back the “old-timers” to play against our new squad. We will play 20 min halves with water break at 10 min intervals for the old guys. I will referee the contest. Both of my coaches are alumni so they will be playing also. The game if for fun and designed to connect the generations and give us a brief informal scrimmage.

Time: 11:00 AM-12:00 PM

Where: WAIS Game Field

Players: Yellow Pinnies

Alums: Blue Pinnies

Coming Together

Another hot grind in the sun. We…

  1. Worked on pressing and beating the press
  2. Worked on sending and receiving long balls
  3. Worked on reducing touches and moving the ball more quickly
  4. Worked on our shape and letting the ball do the work
  5. Worked on finding the best roles for our talent
  6. Worked on communicating with each other

A long way to go yet but I saw a glimpse today of something special.

Reminders:

Varsity and JV Team decisions will be done Thursday night and will be sent via email

Uniforms Friday, Pictures Saturday at 8:00 AM. Show up in blue / blue and gold uniform.

Recognitions:

Dillard and Rocco are our practice players of the day. Great job boys. Two more signatures for our trophy.

Big thanks to Kaarsen, Yahriel, and Keerat who grabbed balls to clean up and Steve P for helping with practice all day today. It does not go unnoticed.