przed

So, I'm wayyy late posting the week's soccer update. I swear things are getting more mental as the summer goes on. I've got a million projects on at work, I'm keeping up with the 6 a.m. Taekwando classes, and I've been scrambling to put together my schedule for the Toronto International Film Fest. We take Ros to the park after dinner until it's nearly dark in a bid to enjoy that last little bit of summer before the weather goes tits up and school starts, and she's been taking ages to get to sleep of an evening. In what little me time I've had, I've somehow managed to finish the first drafts of a vid (for the

takethatslash Reverse Big Bang), and a wee little story that's another fill for my

hc_bingo card. At least I've got no doubt whatsoever as to why I'm tired.

But on to soccer...

It was a really tough match this week. We played a team that's really come along during the season. Both teams were pretty tenacious and did their best. But they were just a bit more tenacious, and we were hampered by having a rotation that put all our most aggressive players on one line, and all our least aggressive players on the other. The one line held their own and scored, but the second line just crumpled every time and let the other team keep it in our end. It took me a few rotations to realize how imbalanced the lines were (I was working on the season end evaluations and letting my co-coach run the lines) and then we spent the rest of the game trying to figure out who to switch out when to get things back in balance and still have everyone play about the same amount of time. We never quite got it right. (I'll be checking our lines before the game starts this coming week.)

In the end the other team won, 4 - 6, but it was still a game our girls could be proud of. They all tried their best, and they tied it up several times before the end.

Now I've just got to finalize my evaluations of the team for this week. Which is proving interesting, since I've realized that there are one or two girls that don't really touch the ball much during actual games. (My co-coach confirmed that she doesn't know where to rate them either.) So I've given them tentative ratings, and will double check them during practice this week.

Evaluations are important since not only does the club use them to invite kids to play rep, but I don't get our playoff schedule until I hand them in. And that's crucial because contrary to what I originally thought, we have an actual tournament-style playoff this year. There's a round robin on the Saturday, and then the semis and finals on the Sunday, so we could potentially play all weekend if we advance at the end of the round robin. On the positive side, this will give the girls a taste of playing a real tournament. On the negative side, at least for me, the tournament is the final weekend of the film fest, which effective removes two full days from my fest viewing schedule. I've somehow still managed to schedule 18 films, though, so that's not so bad.

After posting Ros' soccer pic last week, I started wondering how much she'd changed in the four years she's been playing soccer, so I dug out her old pics.

2010, Under 4s, swamped by her uniform and doing the grimace she was fond of at the time. Also, you can see her cute pink soccer boots. She's had new boots like them every year since.
ros-soccer-u4

2011, Under 5s, the year she got a pixie cut. The grimace has metamorphosed into a bit of a smirk, but the pink boots are still there and the uniform is still too big. I love the Disney Princess bandage on her knee.
ros-soccer-u5

2012, Under 6s, the hair's growing out, the uniform is still big, the smirk is a real smile, and she's started her tradition of pulling her socks all the way up. She's wearing her Hello Kitty Vans instead of the boots because they started doing the pics inside this year after being forced inside the previous year by rain, and the school doesn't want cleats in their gym.
ros-soccer-u6