C.O.E. Senior Tryouts

Tryout time is truly the "silly season" for a club like ours. Its "silly" because the movement of players, the players' uncertainties, and the inter club competition always generates some of the most remarkable, often-times comical statements, conversations and interpersonal dealings. Misinformation is everywhere and, sadly, outright defamation rears its ugly head from time to time. The prevailing practice in the New Hampshire club scene compounds all of this by breaking tryout time into two distinct time frames. June for teams U-14 and below and early November for high school age teams (U-15 to U-19). This year's high school age tryout phase is even crazier because of the recent announcement of an "alliance" between the Bedford Classics and the Phantoms. Senior Phantoms and Classics players face the uncertain prospects of what the new merged "A" team will look like, who will be coaching them and whether they will be on that team or some other "B" level "premier " team.

In the midst of all of this, the COE is, of course, holding its senior team tryouts. Which raises the good question that we get asked over and over again during this time of year -- what's so great about the C.O.E.? Why should a girl consider the C.O.E. over the Classics, the Phantoms, Seacoast or a top club in Massachusetts? In some respects, we can't answer the question. None of us has been directly involved in these programs as administrators, coaches or trainers. We certainly know many of the coaches, trainers, players and teams. They are good to excellent and they've been at it here in NH longer than we have. You can't debate the results that the Seacoast teams have achieved in the NH State Cup over the past few years.

And yet, in all of this, Granite FC is closing hard. Why is that? We can certainly speak to what we do and why we believe that, from a developmental perspective, we maximize what our players have to offer. Granite FC has superb trainers and coaches and they are focused intently on structured, year-round training in a team environment. We begin immediately in November and we continue into July. Throughout this time we strive for a 3 to 1 ratio between training time and game time which is optimal for maximizing development of older youth players. We provide each team full-field, non boarded training and playing opportunities even in the coldest and snowiest parts of winter. Each team works together to develop a thorough and disciplined understanding of each other and the systems of play that their coaches want to achieve. The coaches are in control of all important decisions about the players and their teams without interference from the other club officials or parents. The club is not large which means that players do not fall between the cracks. We know each player, as a person and as a player, and training focus is not dissipated through impersonal and diffused pool training.

All of this has created an environment in which our players have made some remarkable achievements. The rising U-18s, our original group, came together a mere four years ago. The group consisted of a group of girls who had been passed over or never noticed by the name programs. Within a year the girls made their way to the State Cup finals climbing over a couple of the programs that had overlooked the girls, in the past. Other teams more newly formed have advanced to the highest levels of the Massachusetts Area Premier League and have achieved notable successes in high level tournaments around the east coast and in Canada. We are optimistic that the growth and achievements will continue. Coming to the C.O.E. will give each player not only great training and playing opportunities but also the chance to be part of achieving results that no one would have thought possible only a couple of years ago. We hope to see lots of new faces at the tryouts that will start in November.

Senior Girls Tryouts for Granite FC Center of Excellence Teams

U-15 (born on or after 8/1/92)11/3 at 10:00 am -- 11/4 at 2:30 pm -- 11/11 at 3:00 pm
U-17 (born on or after 8/1/90)11/1 at 4:15 pm -- 11/3 at 8:00 am -- 11/4 at 1:00 pm
U-18 (born on or after 8/1/89)11/3 at 8:00 am -- 11/4 at 1:00 pm -- 11/11 at 3:00 pm

All tryouts will be held outdoors at the the Nashua Corp field in Merrimack, NH

Questions can be answered by Steve Hetherington at 603.204.9003

Five Year Anniversary -- A Salute to the Original Wanderers

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The First Wanderers at the First of Many

Seaside Classic Visits

The Club is on the cusp of a significant milestone in 2008-- the five year anniversary of the Center of Excellence teams. It all began with in the Fall of 2003 at the old Soccer Dojo facility in the old Best Ford dealership in downtown Nashua. Steve Hetherington brought a group of eleven U-14 girls together from a number of different town clubs to train and play more intensively.The girls first wore their trademark sky blue and black uniforms and played their first games together in session 1 at Rising Stars and in the Rising Stars 2003 Christmas tournament. From these modest beginnings, Steve's original girls developed to the point that they made two consecutive state cup finals appearances and competed in high level tournaments across the Northeast and eastern Canada.

These girls have always been a happy bunch that, despite their occasional loopiness, showed a real commitment to raising the level of their game from town travel play to premier play. They trained three and four times a week each summer and sacrificed many a nice summer weekend to travel to garden spots like Poughkeepsie, NY and Guilford, CT all in an effort to make a big leap forward in their play. Together, with the help of Steve Hetherington, the girls showed that they had pulled it off when, in their first state cup run, they went to the finals and only there succumbed to Seacoast in a 1-0 loss that was marked by end to end action and wide open play. Never again would the girls walk on the field with everyone asking, "who are they and where did they come from?"

This Spring will be the last run out in club soccer for many of the original Wanderers. Of last year's U-17 team, 10 are high school seniors and U-18 players. Hopefully, they will come together one last time as U-18 players to play together the game they first fell in love with as little girls. Tryouts are in three or four weeks and we will see what we have.

Whatever happens, however, every single COE player -- all 100 of them -- owes the original Wanderers a large debt of thanks. These girls showed us how, through a sense of fun and hard work combined with a love for the game and the undivided attention of a coach like Steve Hetherington, local players' level of play can be elevated considerably. Each group of Wanderers since has reaped the benefits that the original eleven sowed back in 2003.

A Prayer for Air

TS, Once Reluctant, Now an Enthusiast!

JC and AW Showing How Dangerous an Air Ball Can Be

Play the ball in the air! Don't let it drop! If you've heard this once you've heard it a thousand times. It an important phase of the game and its one that many female players at the younger ages seem to struggle over. U-12, U-13 and even U-14 girls, even some of the most physically aggressive, shy away from rising to drive away a midfield punt or rocket home a beautifully served cross. Failure to play that ball in the air squanders gift wrapped scoring opportunities -- and at the higher levels of the youth game, we don't see so many of these opportunities that we can be throwing away 10% or 20% of them. The Bangu Tsunami U-13 girls (Minnesota State Cup and Region 3 champions this past year) kept statistics that showed as much as 50% of their goals were scored in the air. Perhaps more importantly, failure to play the ball in the midfield and defending third of the field puts the team under unnecessary and often dangerous defensive pressure.

You will hear a number of purists drip with disdain when the topic of long and lofted balls comes up. We would agree that, over reliance on long balls to target players results in ugly and predictable soccer that good teams can easily read and defend -- the USWNT's recent run in the World Cup is living proof of that. Yet its still part of the game and, much as some of the "blue noses" might like otherwise, its not leaving. A long and lofted attacking ball from a wide and deep position is an incredibly effective attacking option. Moreover, many an opponent will play this way even if your team plays like Arsenal of three years ago -- intricate build up and gorgeous, "play to feet" soccer. In fact, that Arsenal team was not too comfortable in the air and Bolton's coach, Sam Alardyce, chose to attack Arsenal that way back in their Thierry Henry glory days and he and his players had a measure of success against Arsenal when everyone else failed.

So, our girls must be working to add this to their personal bag of skills. We spend time on this phase of the game in training but, just as with foot skills, our players need to work on this at home. Unlike with foot skills, however, they need help from a parent, a sibling or a friend. Drive 50 balls to them a couple of times a week. If you can't kick a ball with accuracy and some power and loft, throw to them 50 times. The important point is to have your daughter getting used to the mechanics of heading and the physics of intersecting with a lofted ball. Also, the practice will get each girl comfortable with the notion that the ball won't hurt them. If your daughter is really fearful of being hurt, you might consider headgear like that sold by Full 90. While there is no evidence that headgear is necessary from a safety standpoint, some very able coaches have observed that it seems to make girls play in the air with greater confidence. Yeah, the likes of Len and Steve frown but they would concede that there is no harm and, if it make an aerialist out of a player who has been shrinking from this part of the game, go for it.

The bottom line is this -- the sooner a young girl gets comfortable with the aerial phase of the game, the sooner she can play effectively at the highest levels available to her.

Why Travel for Tournament Play?

MN and EA celebrating MN's spectacular, game winning

goal against South Central Premier

This weekend Len's U-12s travelled to Rocky Hill, Connecticut to play in the Connecticut Football club Columbus Day Tournament. The question arises many times from many quarters, why travel two hours to play tournament ball when you can stay in town for the Nashua Columbus Day Tournament or go just down the road for the Seacoast tournament? These are good questions and highlight the tension between keeping costs and family time commitment down as much as possible while assuring high quality and interesting play for the girls. We are always trying to balance these competing interests without compromising our core goal -- high level development.

Developing young players to the highest standard of play that they can achieve (some call it premier club soccer -- although we don't like the term) ain't cheap. It requires lots of training sessions, professional training and coaching, a close to year round commitment to training and play, and play against similarly geared teams and programs. On that last score, there simply are not that many teams in our neck of the woods. There's Seacoast, for sure, the Classics, most of the time, and perhaps a dozen or so clubs in eastern Massachusetts. Between state cup, MAPLE and a couple of area tournaments, you begin to see an awful lot of the local rivals. To keep play fresh and to keep exposing the girls to different styles of play and new challenges, some travel is required.

I'm happy to say, the CFC tournament delivered the freshness and new challenge that this team needed. This past weekend, the girls encountered two sides -- CFC Wolves and South Central Premier -- that played in full out attack mode from the first whistle. Both CFC and South Central committed numbers forward in a way that the girls had not seen all Fall. It clearly stunned the girls a bit in the first few minutes of each game. South Central combined the all out attack with clever quick starts on direct kicks and throw ins and rapid short play on corner kicks. CFC had a handful of athletic girls that were extremely well suited to this style.

After the girls' recovered their footing, they began to learn a valuable lesson about playing teams so committed to attack -- they leave themselves exposed at the back. The girls started counterattacking quite well and great scoring chances fell to the girls. They were not as economical with those chances as we might like but the girls saw that they could absorb the pressure, entice their opponents even further forward by being patient with the ball in the deep midfield area and then springing fast counter thrusts.

The result was two very entertaining games with wide open play and end to end action. It was fun to watch and the girls held their own beating South Central 2-1 and then dropping one to CFC 1-2. More important than the results, we saw some passages of play that suggested to us that the girls really are developing. This development is best demonstrated by the second goal scored against South Central. The girls worked a nice series of link ups which ultimately found KS low and in the right corner. She whipped in a gorgeous cross which found two of the girls attacking the box with force -- EA and MN. EA's run drew the keeper and the defenders and left MN alone steaming toward the far post. She attacked the cross on the bounce with her head and drove it convincingly into the upper left corner. The most beautiful goal of the year for the team. Two months ago neither girl would have been making the runs that enabled the goal to happen. That's development!