Match Report: U12JW 22/03/25

Coventrians U12 2-0 Leamington Lions U12Jw

POM: Avaani

Goals: Alexia

Away at Coventrians today for what appears to be our only meeting this season (until the league realised and put the home game in the calendar, I expect) with a full squad and two (yes, two) professional water bottle holders.

Currently, our biggest problem in the team is how to rotate 14 players in 60 minutes. What a great problem to have. Rob and I now spend quite a bit of the match discussing and scribbling various subs options and position changes to ensure we give the girls enough game time to stretch their experience while not throwing the structure into disarray. All the while accompanied by a chorus of “can I go back on yet” from the subs bench (six seats with integrated storage pockets, in case you’re wondering). This is greatly helped if we have players that can anchor the team in particular positions, and Alexia, Holly and Avaani have started to perform those roles very well.

Avaani picked up Coach’s Boot this week for a strong performance in central defence that allowed us to play with three at the back and four in the middle. This enabled us to to progress the ball into the Coventrians half more often in the second half of the match. It’s been really great to see the four new players integrate so well into the team. A credit to them for their maturity and confidence, and to our original squad for their generosity of spirit, welcoming them in. It was also encouraging to see some of the aspects that we’ve been working on in training coming into the game; particularly playing balls forward to run on to and taking a touch and looking up before releasing the ball.

There were also some great individual moments in the game worth a mention: really positive runs forward with the ball by Sophia, Amelia being stopped by a dubious offside decision, a great reflex save by Sophie in the first half, Eva handling the ball to the face like a real trooper. At the end of the match, the Coventrians coach had lots of praise for the team, suggesting we certainly deserved a draw and he wouldn’t have been disappointed if we’d won, since our Lions played so well. As ever, thanks to Alex for assisting the ref this week.

Final score 2 - 0