# of players: 16 ( 8x8 practice ), 3 non-dragons.
Field condition: wet and slippery.
Lighting: excellent.
We had our first team practice and it went pretty well. Players
are able to make their time and we splitted the team in offense and defense.
A lot of passing and positioning play especially after the first water break.
Lots of running without ball. We had far more touches on ball and played team
defense and offense. After the practice, we are all tied but the spirit is high. All agree
that it is fun to passing the ball around. We shall keep up the good work for the rest of the season.
Here are a list of things we could improve:
1) Defense marking: needs to be more tight. We did a better job yesterday in terms of team defense.
We were able to hold our defense line for a while without any holes for the offense
to break. ( balls passing in the peripherial with no penetrating attack. ) But we still
need to improve our one on one marking, especially the mid field players needs to find
an oponent player and mark him.
On the other note: when marking , be sure to behind him and tight. Anticpating the ball
passing to him and immediately step up to close the gap, leaving him only the choice of kicking
the ball back. ( Do not give him time to turn around and face you !!! )
2) Defense protection / cover up : Good but still under-par. When the marker or sweeper comes out on the ball dribbler, left/right defender
should ASAP cover his position. Chen Jun did good on this. Defensive protection is the key to
successive defenese. You create multiple lines of defense. It's easy for Dick to break one line of defnese,
But I doubt he could break two or even three lines of defense. ( no offense, Dick :-) )
3) Offense : We have seen fowards passing ball back to gain support from behind. It is very important that you do not launching an offense on your own, unless
you are Michael Owen, or you are close to the shooting range.
When you have the control of the ball and seeing no team support on the offense ( over-maned by the defenders ), please protect the ball well and gain some
time for your backup by passing the ball back to the mid-field or even defenders. One or two forwards does not make team offense. The whole team needs
to push up to show their support, especially the mid-fielders and possibly the two left/right wing defenders. ( You can not imagine how much a difference
a wing defender makes to the offense , just look at Sun, Jihai of the Chinese National team. )
4) Physical Endurance and quickness: We have an average mark on that. Lot of players are either aging or out of shape, including myself.
Please do your homework and impove the fitness. After all,
without phsycial strenth, all technics and strategies are only hot air. ( Zhi1 Shang4 Tan2 Bing1 ).
Li, Huan is a our example. Just look at his running yesterday. My hat off to him.
5) Mid-field: Honestly it is the weakest link in our team. Forwards are our fists and defenders are our legs. We need a strong back to make us a real fighter.
mid-field glues the fowards and defenders seemlessly . They involves both offense and defense and have the highest requirments of phsycial endurance and
skills.
The guys running most in a game is the mid-fielder. Our mid-fielders have the skills but significantly lack of running. This is something we can impove
in a short time of period by diet and workout. ( Pls do homework, can't rely only on Wednesday and Sunday's practice. )
Overall, we did good on our first practice. And I am pretty confident we will do it better and better. You will
see a different team in a couple of months. Please voice your opionions to impove our play.
-Scott
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Scott Bao | | fax: 469-255-9490
Cisco Systems, Inc .|||. .|||. voice: 469-255-4176
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