A little about growth, part I

Forester Kryptonite stored here

At the beginning of the season, within a day or two really, the coaches saw something special in this group. We had some kids who could score, some who would never stop working, some who showed good skills and coachability, some excellent on-the-ball defenders, some athletes, some speed, some upperclassmen with experience, some rookies with swagger. All of this was spread out over 25 players, which also meant that we had more depth than we'd had in a while. After a few days hashing things out in the office after practices we decided to gamble and try something (part formation, part concept) that we had never done before. It did not work out. In fact it crashed and burned pretty gloriously in our first game when we gave up 5 goals to a team that was in no danger of competing for a National Championship. Needless to say the experiment was quickly abandoned.

A return to a more common formation followed  and we spent the next couple games trying rookies and veterans alike in different positions, trying to find a mix that worked. Two solid performances in Kenosha, WI seemed to point to the fact that we were on the right track. And then we travelled to Madison, WI for a midweek tilt and churned out one of the most listless performances in recent Forester history. It was awful. I was disgusted, discouraged, and completely pissed off. In my mind, we were far too skilled, too fast, too experienced, too energetic, too talented, and too deep to play like we absolutely hated soccer but loved standing around a grass field in the all-black outfits TR handed out. Look, they even have numbers on them!

As usual though , a night of tossing and turning lead the coaches to calm down regarding the loss and come up with a small, but ultimately important line-up change. We moved one of our best scorers from the central midfield to sweeper. Suddenly everything seemed to click. It's actually a great coaching lesson-- sometimes the easiest solution to a horrible game is extremely simple. Or as my AP History teacher used to say, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

We never looked back. We went the next 10 games without losing. We scored goals, we played defense, we made big saves, we laughed, we had fun, we yelled at each other, and we won and won and won and won. In fact, our third game following the final formation change was one of the best games I have seen from Lake Forest athletes in my eight years with the program. We beat Lawrence at their place by playing some of the most dynamic soccer I've ever seen at this level.

That game seemed to propel us forward into the rest of the season. We had suddenly understood the kind of soccer we were capable of playing, and the intensity and effort we could show in practice,  and over the next few weeks we tried gamely to get there again and again and again. We weren't always totally successful, but our efforts were always enough to get us a victory (and one hard fought tie). That is, of course, until the last weekend of the regular season when we travelled to a teeny little town in downstate Illinois and came face to face with our biggest enemy: ourselves.

TBC.