Directions

The visions of the team are shared by everyone who voiced out on the Sunday night team dinner/ meeting.

They can be summarised by 3 keys words : Win, Enjoy and Team


Nobody in the team likes losing. Everyone wants to feel like a winner. Even as semi-pro, even as a recreational player. The team is losing its unified goals and directions, losing focus and forgetting how to win.

We attributed the key to winning under 2 aspects : 1.Physical 2. Psychological

Physical:

1. Fitness - Do we play to keep fit or keep fit to play? My advice is.. if you keep yourself fit, you will find it easier to play. You can think better, react faster, stay longer and most imptly focus on how to play at an optimal level. Work commitments, school commitments, Spouse commitments. These are just excuses and you know it better than anyone else. I am not asking for everyone to be incredible fit, but it takes more than lasting a game by walking through, its abt being able to run with the ball and able to still react without being "Shacked, cannot think"

2. Training - Being a recreational team makes it more difficult to conduct proper training. Equipment wise we are still doing fine, but its the facilities (field) and time commitments that are problematic. Since we are not professionals, I don't pay u to attend trainings and games and we have our full time work, lets be realistic.

Suggestions being brought up include : 1. Meeting earlier before games for simple team warm up and trainings 2. Meeting on sat to play training match within our own team.

Areas we have to work on :

-Tactics : We can arrive 15 mins earlier before warm ups for changing of gears and for tactics briefing with the aid of a sketch board.

-Shooting : Proper shooting exercise can be done during warm ups ( not dead ball shooting)

-Set Pieces : Corner kicks and free kicks drill ( who, where and how to move and to familise with the taker's range) can also be done during warming up

-Off the ball movements (how to make off the ball running to draw defenders, to creat space for team mates to shoot or pass) Certain small details can be gone through and for individual to keep in mind the match.

-Crosses : Same as the set pieces drill, we have systematic crossing exercise (i.e 1-2 crosses, high/low sharp crosses)

-Passing : Long, short passing , 1 or 2 touches between 3 to 5 guys

-Close Control : can be honed with the passing drill

The whole of warming up can be done in 25 mins. - 5 mins for stretch and light jogs, 15 mins to do a combi of shooting, crossing, set pieces 5 mins for passing exercise.

we can re arrange the sequences for the warming up drills but tactics briefing is a must from now on since alot of us are lost about our game plan during the match.
So i suggest we arrive 30 to 45 mins earlier before the proper kick off.

To encourage everyone to keep on time: we will devise a pts awarding system for all time keepers
Failure to do so will result in a fine.


For the awarding system, I suggest a pt allocation system where a scorer gets 5 pts, an assist 5 pts, a clean sheet will have 5 pts for the Gk and defenders.

A foul throw will have 1 pt deducted, a yellow 2 pts and a red 5 pts off. Late comers will be fined and have 3 pts deducted.

We can work on this system and your suggestions are more than welcome but pls try to be constructive and more concrete with your ideas.( Try to jot them down so that i can organise it)

We can come up with monthly winners and annual winners and prizes such as a trophy, a voucher or even a football jersey can be awarded thru the contributions of a team fund.

Psychological-

To be able to win, mentality we must be prepared.

Even if we play unknown opponents every week, we must approach each game with our full concentration. Like I said, we only get to be footballers once every week, so we must be professional.

Full concentration meaning - to be constantly aware of the team's tactics, to be aware of team mates movement. A small slip can lead to conceding of a goal or a extra sprint or movement can result in a goal for us. So we must not switch off and let our minds wander.

Trust - This is a big word. But I am sure everyone understands its importance in any group, team or organisation. What we want is to be able to express ourselves , our skills without being reprimanded heavily if we screw it up. To be able to achieve that, I suggest the screwing party and the receiving party keep these few pts in mind :

1. Responsibility -

Picture this, you chase after the opponent long and hard and finally put in a smart tackle or timely interception in our own half. you move the ball quickly and made a beautiful long range pass to an unmarked teamate who can a quick pass to the strikers and counter hit the opponent. This team mate decide to take on the defence himself and being heavily hounded by 2 -3 defenders, loses the ball and from which the opposition counter us and scold.

You: feel Angry, wasted, disappointed and wary of passing the ball to that team mate in the future.

Your team mate: Disappointed with himself, feel blamed and unhappy with losing the ball.

My pt is simple. Nobody does anything stupid on purpose to make our team lose. I didn't try to mis control the ball or mis pass the ball to let our team lose.

What we can do in this situation is :

Trust and be responsible

Trust- learn to understand everyone has their own strength and weakness. I can't shoot but i can run at the defence. But if i am in a better position, you should at least let me try to take aim, who knows out of the 10 times, I can get it hard and strong shot in.

But keep in mind, trusting doesn't mean you don't support your team mates. When he is holding the ball, make spaces for him so that he can pass to you if need be, watch his back and be prepared to fill in his position until he moves back.

Most importantly, learn to understand the difficulties of your team mate and trust his intention. Instead of sniggering, despising him, learn to accept and try to cover his weakness for him. For he will do the same for you.

Responsible - Learn to accept that sometimes we can't improve on our weakness overnight. It takes time. If you are the one witnessing your teammate losing the ball away, you wun feel too happy about it as well. Therefore, learn to accept responsibilities. If you want to shoot, dribble.. be very sure not to screw it up. But if you screw it up, try to understand where the frustration of your team mates are coming from. If you get a negative response, be responsible, accept it, move forward and try to win the ball back or make better decisions next time. DO not be afraid to play confidently but remember we are a TEAM and we are responsible for another.

Keep this in mind, its part of the emotions in the game. At the end of the day, after the match, We are not only team mates., we are still FRIENDS.


Change of positions and substitutions

There was a mention of the desired change or adding of positions to many players. We can make experiments but not at a over haul extent. Making some changes and try outs during certain games or during training matches within ourselves can definitely be done.
Regarding the substitutions issue, I am sorry but in every game there are bound to be some stronger and weaker players. But it doesn't mean it stays the same everytime. Nor it means the so called weaker players cannot get to play or start. It all depends on the tactics, the turn out. Like I said before, no one is indispensible.


Therefore I urge everyone to try to understand and be patient. For now, the main aim of the team is to improve and move forward together.

Yours Truly,

Junqiang