Week 7 - Perturbations

Like I said in my last blog, every week is different. This week is another example. After two months of coaching, we had to deal with problems around the first team. In fact, GDM ended the week losing again 1-0 in Chimoio. The team never looked dangerous at any point during the whole game. James, Armando and I already identified what the issues were to make the following weeks better for everyone.

Here’s our thoughts :

1- Illness, injuries & departures

GDM started the first two games with passion, determination and creativity. But then, couple of players left the team to join another for money. Those departures really affected the team spirit. Also, Malaria has made sick almost our entire team since the beginning of our journey here. From one week to another, players showing up for training are different. Each matchday, the team has to face three to four missing players due to illness or injuries. This environment made the team losing his confidence quite a bit.

2- Low confidence

With all those outside troubles, I started to feel a lack of motivation and determination during training. In the last game, my feeling really became reality. No one was asking for the ball, no one was running back to defend, no one was even trying to help his partners and no one seemed to want the ball at all. It’s really complicated to play football if you don’t want the ball. When you’re confidence is low, you’re not doing anything special at football or at work. That’s what happened. No one was feeling confident enough to try something out of the ordinary. And if you don’t try, there are no chances for you to be successful. Our main priority now is to bring that confidence back. The results will come back with time.

3- Lack of team work

One thing that hit me during the last game was the lack of communication and team work. When you’re on the pitch, there is not one moment while you should be silent. You always have to talk to your partners, replace them, congratulate them, high-five them, shout out them, encourage them. You know what I mean. But on that pitch, on Sunday, nada, nothing, rien. Not even someone screaming to encourage the whole team to do something. NOTHING. In addition to this big issue, I felt like no one wanted to do the other one job’s. I haven’t seen once a right wing covering up his right back or a defensive midfielder securing an empty area left by one of his partners.

4- Where is the fighting spirit?

You can have a bad day as a team when everything goes wrong. Someday, there is nothing you can do about it. The least you can do is fight until the final whistle. That’s not what I saw on Sunday and that’s a problem. Too many players were asleep or dreaming. I may sound like I’m the perfect player, which I’m really not and if there is something that I learnt from my personal experience as a player is “never give up, keep trying”. I saw too many players giving up on Sunday. Not even one player got mad or angry for this and that’s the worst part of it. You have to rely on a few players to be the bosses and make everyone work for the others. I didn’t see that on Sunday.

U17's usual match

Anyway, on Saturday we played another match against the U17’s. And the least I can tell is we destroyed them. We really did. 9-0. I played winger at the beginning. And just to do a parallel with one of our first team player, a midfielder that played winger on Sunday, I wasn’t really happy about it. I’m a 10 and I only want to play is that position because it’s natural. But I didn’t make a big deal out of it and played there. Guess what? I had 3-4 very very good opportunities in the first 15 minutes. My point is that you can be unhappy with your coach decision, you have the right to feel that way. But as soon as the referee starts the game, you have to forget about it and play 100%, like you always should. Anyway, I missed all of these chances because I’m not a very good finisher and I can panic when I’m in a good scoring situation. But a couple of minutes later, alone against the whole U17’s defense, I get the ball into the space on the left wing. On my second touch, I cut in and beat the right back. I then do one fast stepover followed by an acceleration to beat the second defender. After it’s only luck or determination, maybe both. Against 3 of them, I decide to cut in again and my dribble bounces back into my feet. My terrible finish comes again into play and my shot gets saved by the keeper. But his save wasn’t perfect and the ball gets away from his hands for a second and with my left foot, scores a tap-in. At the end of the game, I ended up with 1 goal and 1 assist, James with 2 goals and 1 assist, Armando with 1 goal and 4 assists.

#Mozambique