Part Four
All Pics courtesy of JP
This is just the first batch. More pics to come.
Er, Riscoh, how does that slideshow thing work?
Mother Nature plays spoilsport
The heavy rains spoiled the debut of defending champions Don Bosco College yesterday, cutting short the match between DBC A(?) and Bright. Hopefully, it will be a sunny Sunday. P.S. It will be interesting to note, how DBC divided its teams for the U12.
Comments
Then create ka ug album, upload ug mga pics dayon buhat ka ug Photo Flick. Kahuman nimo buhat ug photo flick i copy lang ang source link sa imo blog.
try to recall the U17 players of two years back from Sacred Heart, USC, USJR and USP. except for 3-4 players, the others have stopped playing. even a majority of the Abellana and Don Bosco players have stopped.
the demands of school took it's natural toll. some courses doesn't give their takers time for football. like what i said in the other thread, i know several coke go for goal awardees who are no longer playing because of this.
that's why we see a lot of U17 players competing in the U19 eliminations. they were taken in because the teams couldn't form a lineup made up of 18 year olds. Hiroshi/UV took in Springdale players, UC had DBC players, USC had CIS. this is where Iloilo, NOFA and NORFA have a big advantage over us. their U17 players continue playing at this stage and they have such a deep talent pool that any losses to scholastic demands are easily replaced.
for us to compete, we may be forced to keep together a select group of U17 players and keep them together for 2 years for U19 competitions. it's a good concept but it still doesn't address the problem of talented home grown players leaving the sport.
we ought to have a special program for this age-group. perhaps the CFE program - when it reaches this particular age level - will take care of this problem as far as U19 competitions go, but we need to address the fact that many players stop playing when they reach this age group and lose momentum in their development as skilled players.
at 17-23 years old, this is a very critical stage for players since this is when their skills start to mesh with their understanding of the game. unfortunately, this is also the time when education takes priority above anything else.
at this stage, those with money to spare can continue paying for private lessons but what about those who cannot and have no access to training and playing competitively. do we view them as collateral damage or do we take an active part in keeping them in the sport.
i would like CebuFA to address this situation. a special program perhaps that will provide free training for non-varsity players. by having such a program, we not only deepen our U19 pool but also continue developing our home grown players.
some teams may have a problem completing their B14 lineups, some B12 players may be mature and good enough to play in B14. does CebuFA have a policy on this ?
I hope CFA will allow B12 players to play in B14 teams otherwise some if not most schools will have a hard time completing full-sided line-ups.
So lets start it with the current u-19 team, we know that the majority of the team is still eligible to play next year and adding new members form the training pool.
anyway, it would be great watching games the whole weekend. one concren though that i hope CebuFA will address immediately. i hope that we will not have only 3-4 refs officiating the whole day (4-5 games). these refs will tire at the end of the day and will conserve their energy at the start. this means that they will be more concerned about finishing the day standing up rather than on the quality of their officiating. i have witnessed too many game days were there were only 3-4 refs for 5 games and the officiating really stinked.
by the way, where will the tournaments be held ?
that's why i keep saying that for regional and national tournaments wherein preparation is at a minimum, simply send the champion team rather than a team of champions.
i don't know why the schedule of the eliminations and the regionals was so near to each other. perhaps CebuFA wasn't informed on the specific date of the regionals or perhaps the teams weren't ready and may have asked for a postponement. nevertheless, the lack of teamwork is what killed us.
we had a pretty short defensive line and not knowing when to cover when a fullback commits is not an indication that we don't have skilled defensive players. it just shows that they didn't fully know how the other players would react to a certain situation.
this team may well form the core of our U19 team for next year. if their respective varsities allow it, let's keep them together by letting them practice as a team at least 4x a month. lets find a padrino for the squad who can volunteer to oversee their practices. let's have the next U19 tournament just before or after school starts. at that time, the present crop of U17 players would have already tried-out for the college teams and these teams would have already formed their U19 squads. we would then have a deeper talent pool to choose from plus a good 2 months to make that team gel.
getting a team to learn how to play together is dependent on how soon that team can be formed. i don't want to be critical of coach ramirez' decisions but i feel he would have been better off if he choosed more of his own players who have been playing under his system for several years rather than picked-up such a large number of players as reinforcements. in effect, he didn't make his champion team better - he was actually forming a new team of just 2 weeks before the regionals.
Ask NOFA, their U-19 local qualifying, won by West Negros College ended about TWO (2) WEEKS before the 2006 PFF Visayas Regional Mens U-19 Finals which they hosted.
it's not that U17 players shouldn't participate in U19 competitions. the concern i have is where are our U19 talents. there must be something terribly wrong if we cannot find enough talent in our U19 pool that we have to resort to fielding U17 players.
that's basically my point. i have no objection if our U17 talents can more than compete in a higher age-bracket. that in fact would mean we have better and younger players. but that is not my point of concern. i'm simply worried where the hell our U19 players are.
Im not so sure, but I think most of the U19 players played for USC, and UC, which lost in the Cebu qualifiers.
That's just my take, though.
among the reinforcement, ramirez already coached sharpe, batad, soriano, tirol and melgo in the past. canoy, arriola, atillo and bacolod were the only firstimers to his system and tactics.
additionaly - cortes, saranillo, mejaran, arriesgado, sembrano, pascual, sharpe, soriano and batad were part of ramirez' 2006 CVIRAA and Palaro squad. so, on paper, the players should have already been familiar with each other's moves.
well, not really.
again, i don't want to second guess nor criticize ramirez' decisions and tactics, but the U19 team was formed AFTER these players have adjusted to the system of their collegiate coaches. the USC players under coach fegidero and UC players under coach ramos have different field tactics compared with that of ramirez. sure, having played together in the past, they could have re-familiarize themselves with each other - but not in 2 weeks time.
getting used to a new system and then reverting back to a previous one may be easy for seasoned players but not for 15-18 year olds. we should bear in mind that no matter how talented these boys may be, they are still in their teens and to expect them to mentally and tactically adjust like veterans is to big an expectation.
again, let's keep the core of this team together for another run at the U19. with more full-sided tournaments for them this year, we will be better prepared.