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It seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Play your best.

Surely.

But hold that thought for a minute because a match report is supposed to start at the beginning (or at least somewhere nearby).

For some members of Gröndal Blue Team, we began the day by watching Gröndal White Team, a local derby against Aspudden. A nice game with a lot of chances and in the end a fair draw. Well done White Team! The sun was shining and the (almost) all of kids were happy. However, by the time we reached BrunnaIP3, the sun had left Stockholm (presumably making the sensible choice to be somewhere warmer), and instead we were greeted by grey clouds and a horrible breeze. Thankfully, our hosts were much nicer than the weather, so we reciprocated their welcome by supporting their pop-up café and chatting football. Over the course of the season, we’ve learnt that it helps to chat at length to the other coaches, not only to set the tone of the match, but also to help us to interpret what happens. More on that at the end.

A good sign of growing autonomy today was the fact that the kids pretty much warmed themselves up. And it was another welcome preliminary to the match as both teams lined up on the half-way line and greeted each other. The first-half began positively for both teams, with a lot of good ideas evident in what the kids were trying to do. They were looking for the right pass, trying to push the ball up the pitch, and slowly finding their way into the match. Both teams seemed evenly matched for a while, but then we conceded a soft goal. I think it was a deflected shot that would otherwise have easily been saved by the goalkeeper. And as is often the case at this age, we took a while to recover, while our opposition grew a little in confidence. For the rest of this half, we struggled to do what we normally do well. Playing out from the back isn’t normally something we have problems with (occasional mistakes notwithstanding), but we didn’t really trouble their goalkeeper at all, (although Arameiska kept him warm with lots of back passes as soon as the ball entered their half of the pitch). And then they scored again. We were in shock, but not enough to stop us making a quick break into their half, as we dribbled toward their goal, and suddenly… the whistle blew for half-time.

First half-time: 2-0.

If you recall last week’s narrative then you will remember we held the lead after the first half, only to give up the lead in the second, and come back from behind in the third, but now we were behind after the first, and needing to turn things around in the second, before even getting to the third (if that makes sense). And our kids did the first part of that, with tenacity. It’s great to see how much of their football is happening automatically, like their positioning, and their focus. But their ability to ”up their game” and motivate each other is also improving, as we saw with a concerted effort to break into the opposition half and give their goalkeeper something stronger than a back pass. We fought hard. Then we scored. And then we scored again. Two excellent goals made possible thanks to a concerted effort from the whole team. Arameiska were in shock, and soon after that they failed again to stop us making a break through into their half, as we dribbled toward their goal, and suddenly… the whistle blew for the second half-time.

Second half-time: 2-2.

At this point, as coaches, we were happy (despite the timing of the whistle, again). Play your best (remember that from the beginning of this report) is definitely about individual players trying hard to achieve something for them and their friends. And the second half was all about that. In any normal universe, we would go home after two halves, fully content. Unfortunately for today, the St. Erik’s Cup has three ‘halves’, and this wasn’t what we needed today. They scored another lucky goal, one good goal, and had one disallowed, as the game ended 4-2.

So back to the question. What does it mean to play your best? Sometimes it’s only in retrospect – after the event – that you really understand what just happened. Like parenthood. With this in mind, we (the coaches) would like to share some knowledge that we gained after the match (it pays to chat to the opposition coaches before and after the game). Contrary to the way that they recommend you to coach football at this age, Arameisk-Syrianska have two teams: a development team and the team that we played today, which they told us was composed of the so called best P13 players in their club. We left the pitch with friendly words and some advice: “You should try it. See what happens when you play your best”.

In a few years we may be forced to pick our teams based on some assessment of ability, or confidence, or experience, or whatever is necessary to compete in the St. Erik’s Cup (which will require us to enter different leagues, with varying levels of difficulty, when our kids get a bit older). However, this seems far away, not only in time, but also as compared with our definition of ”play your best”. As such, you may like to tell your kids that today they came up against the best team and that they almost matched them (in terms of the score). However, judging by their happiness at the end of the game, we don’t think this really matters, because today our kids knew that they played their best, which is not only essential for development in football, but also a wonderful reward unto itself.