A tough match overall, similar to a basketball game: constantly back and forth. This time we took home the win. 2 goals from Rocco, with Charlie and Ezekiel chipping in with one each as well. The game showed that we have developed our understanding massively as last time we faced this team it was a heavy defeat. My favourite moment was when we were able to retain possession in the middle of the park from James and go on the counter attack through Rocco, Ezekiel and Louis for Rocco to finish it off with a brilliant finish out of the keepers reach.
My player of the match this week was Liam! Even in games where he is quiet he still has a massive impacts with his decision making and positioning on the pitch. Even with a stint in goal for 10 minutes he was able to get an assist from a long kick!
Last weeks training looked at our speed of play from our counter attacks. The boys looked into supporting angles such as overlaps or underlaps. This was used throughout the game from our fullbacks which was brilliant to see. This week we will be looking at the basics of pressing, and if won, when to retain the ball or when to create.
A really good match with our team continuing their momentum from last game and putting in a good performance. Jake opened the scoring for us then closely followed Kingsley, Teo and Marcelo to round off our 4 goals. Throughout the match we had some good pressing sequences where I felt we forced the opposition into mistakes and we worked hard tracking back whenever we lost the ball.
I’d say my favourite moment of the game was when we lost the ball high up the pitch and I saw each and every player on the pitch work hard to get back and try and defend. I feel this exemplifies the team that we want to be. My player of the match was Jake as he was relentless in winning the ball back, pressing and providing support with his throw ins.
This week in training we had looked at our goal kicks and press to allow us to be able to play out from the back and also being able to stifle the opponent with our press when they are playing out from the back. I think we can improve by making our press a bit more consistent in how we approach the opposition. This would take our game to the next level.
After an unfortunate defeat last week the whole team were looking to bounce back with a positive result and performance. We have been strong at home this year and were looking to continue that run. The start of the game was nervy, with both teams keeping possession of the ball well. Deniro having the best chance for the home team with his shot being held by the keeper. Soon after the away side got their opening goal – a mistake at the back from a goal kick was capitalised on and they were a goal up. Soon after it became 2-0 to the away side, bundling in a goal from a corner kick. The Blooms kept pushing though knowing the next goal to be crucial and it came. Santi, on the right wing putting a great cross in, Bastian at the back post took and touch and then fired the ball into the roof of the net. Game on.
But again our mistakes proved costly at the back – a poor pass led to the opposition being in again and scoring again making it 3-1 at half time. The message was clear, be confident on the ball, trust your team mates and believe. We have come back in games before so they know they can do the same again.
Bloomsbury started on fire putting them under pressure and not letting them out of their own half. Through this pressure Kurt won the ball back and played in Santi who took a touch and fired a left footed shot into the bottom corner. 3-2.
The pressure didn’t stop there and the equalising goal came soon after and it was fully deserved. Joao with the ball in midfield playing it through to Deniro who got past his man, cut inside and fired a great finish again into the bottom corner. It was level and the momentum was with us. Edgar and Kurt then had shots on goal and it looked like we were destined to get the next goal. But with their first foray into our box, the ball was cut back and a Whetstone player curled the ball into the top corner to make it 4-3.
Bloomsbury huffed and puffed and tried to get the equalising goal but it wasn’t to be – and it seemed like all the hard work would lead to a loss. But then…
With one minute to go Kurt picks the ball up in his own half and drives with it, seeing Christian in space on the left wing he plays an outside of the foot pass down the line right into Chris’ path. Without any touch Chris runs onto the ball and crosses first time into the air and towards the back post. Santi runs onto it and puts a bullet header into the roof of the net. Cue celebrations with the whole team in the middle of the pitch. A top 3 Bloomsbury coaching moment for me. A very even game and a deserved final score and result. Onto the next one. #uptheblooms.
Santiago Caicedo was our player of the match. 2 goals, one assist, constant threat! Our focus in training was on passing patterns out from the back – whilst we made a mistake with these on a few occasions the team were always trying and keep working on it We need to make sure to try and cut out the individual mistakes!
The U11 Black team were raring and ready to go again to continue their unbeaten record at Coram’s in the 2023/24 season. And they did it with style – a dominant performance! The team started slow, unable to keep hold of the ball. But, on a counter attack, Lachlan found Fallon who finished into the bottom corner. This calmed the team down and they started to play their football! Out of possession they were in sync, with Marlei, Lachlan and Fallon winning the ball back several times through clever pressing. Lachlan and Fallon both scoring from these regains!
The goals continued to flow with Fallon completing his hat trick within 10 minutes; a clinical finish into the bottom corner! The highlight of the match. Lachlan then added another goal after an excellent pass from Flavio and Santiago added a fifth cutting in from the right and finishing with his left foot. At 6-0 the boys were comfortable and the performance started to drop with players focused on getting goals rather than helping defend. Jarvis was needed to make multiple saves and this led to Camden scoring right on half time.
The message was clear – focus on defensive work out of possession and limit the amount of shots. They did this really well – with the opposition only having a free kick as a chance which Flávio cleared off the line. The team played much better defensively, only conceding an unfortunate own goal in the second half. Lachlan nearly got his hat trick but the goal keeper prevented him and Marlei numerous times! The only goal for Blooms in the second half was another free kick from Amir. It took a slight touch from the keeper but, nonetheless, a great free kick! Well done to the team! A big performance and another win!
Fallon Miller was our player of the match. Fallon scored a good hat trick with lots of clinical finishes, didn’t stop working and kept closing players down, putting them under pressure. We worked hard at playing out from the back in training. We did this really well with both our centre backs (usually Flávio and Ilyas) and our centre mid (usually Amir). We need to make sure if we are ahead by a lot that we keep on playing to try and get more rather taking our foot off the gas.
Hello darkness my old friend, inconsistency has come to plague us again. In typical Blooms fashion, we backed up our momentous LFS cup win with a load of dross. We started slowly, again; we conceded early, again; we missed open goals, again; we failed to track our markers from corners, again. That’s more-or-less the summary of the match but there were some positives sprinkled in and even more lessons. First lesson took place before the match even started. Name’s will not be named, but the conversation flowed something like this:
‘Who are we playing today?’
‘London Colney’
‘Are we winning?’
‘Yeah, they’re *$^@’
‘Oh, ah, cool’
Fellas, for the last time THERE ARE NO EASY FIXTURES IN WFL. If you go into a match with the attitude of thinking you’ll win, you will lose. This also contributed to a poor start, which we said wouldn’t be repeated after last week’s loss.
Now for some positives: our ability to exploit the weak-side was evident, as were our opportunities to ‘spin’ in behind their back-line. Archie and Eduardo were standout performers in this regard, showing poise, precision and a tonne of bravery in possession to switch the point of attack. Indeed, Archie was my man of the match for this very reason. He made mistakes stepping out from defence, but that’s fine – encouraged, even! The development and confidence he can take from improving his game should be significant! Kezza too, starting on the bench due to a poor attitude at training, was exceptional from start to finish. His warmup was as good as it’s ever been (the bar was incredibly low) and he battled away through injury. Shame about the open goal though, fella.
The next stage will be to maintain this over the course of the full 60 and be resolute in our ability. Having responded well in the first half, we somewhat fell away after missing a string of golden opportunities. Our belief faded, our quality dropped, but let that be lesson #4: be relentless and keep your standards high throughout.
Ultimately, we did enough to win the game and were the better side, but we leave with 0 points and our place in the Spring Cup in jeopardy. That’s on us. Until we consistently approach training and matches with the correct attitude to fight, we’ll continue to be plagued with inconsistency. Mistakes are fine, but not learning from them is not. Let’s make sure we learn from these experiences.
This victory tasted that extra bit sweeter! It was our first CIYFL win of the season and truly shows the levels the the U14 team right now. James had two extremely important requirements for this game:
– Out of Possession, work harder than you’ve ever worked before
– In possession, keep the ball!
And the team were simply excellent on both accounts!
The first goal was an excellent team goal that started from our goal keeper and player of the match, Rishon Nayyar. Rishon played the ball into centre back, Levi Falade, who moved the ball down the left side to Jamie Haley, who, with a great touch and turn sent the ball into Yacine Gharouz. Yacine, operating upfront, played a delightful through ball into Vinnie Maguire who slotted it into the bottom right corner to give the boys the lead they deserved.
The second goal required less passes, but more speed. Rishon launched the ball down the pitch into Yacine, who took on his man before a sharp change in direction sent the defender and goalkeeper the opposite direction, and Yacine with an open goal with minutes remaining! The lead was doubled, and the victory complete!
My highlight of the match was the second half defensive show. Each player on the pitch looked determined to collect a clean sheet. Bodies and tackles were thrown in to stop, block and deflect shots in the second half. This resolute, no nonsense defending is something that the team has showcased well this year!
The player of the match was Rishon Nayyar. A man possessed! His shot stopping was of the highest calibre today, this man set the clean sheet as his goal, and thoroughly deserved it. Incredible saves is something we’ve seen from him, however, his distribution was the best we’ve seen this season as he also got an assist. He set the tempo when trying to build and had excellent decision making throughout. Well deserved!
We’ve had a great start to 2024 and are looking to improve in each match and training session. We’ve struggled in second halves for the last couple of games and we wanted to ensure we were better this game, on and off the ball. That was clear for all to see! We just want to keep improving and to earn any good performance and victory that comes out way. But we know we have to keep work harder to earn it what we deserve!
We travelled to JFS in Harrow on Sunday for an afternoon kick-off, where we met a Division 2 Hendon United team in the group stages of the Spring Cup. The team looked to continue their run of strong results and performances. Bloomsbury started the game well, keeping possession and moving the ball. A big shout out to Alex Dhoot, who did well to regain his composure after dealing with a difficult back pass early on in the game. His confidence and ability to distribute the ball helped us to get a foot hold in the game.
For the past two weeks, we have been focusing on playing through the thirds in training, in particular when and how to play the forward pass. The boys showed some promising approach play, notably with Luca Dawber and Jack Orbell combining well on the left wing, playing some excellent one and two touch football to play through the opposition press and progress the ball to our forwards.
However, as the game went on we found it difficult to find spaces in midfield to circulate the ball. This was in part due to the small pitch that we were playing on but also huge credit to Hendon, who were very well organised and up for the fight. The score line at half time was 0-0 and the team were encouraged to focus on their own performance, keep on doing the right things and not to get distracted by elements that are out of our control, like refereeing decisions.
The second half performance was less good as Hendon took control of the game through a series of well taken counter attacking moves. Bloomsbury had chances to score through encouraging performances from Yacine Gharouz and George Frimpong, The latter making his second debut for the team. Unfortunately, things did not go our way and we struggled to break down a compact Hendon side, who were giving everything to get the win! The game ended 3-0 to Hendon and the boys were rightfully disappointed not to get the result that we wanted.
After the game, we discussed how best to deal with referee decisions that we did not agree with, how to remain composed in the match and focus our energy on putting in a performance that we can be proud of.
The team has had a fantastic start to 2024, winning five games out of six and drawing the other one, including our first win at Market Road in the Challenge Cup. This has been an incredible turnaround from the end of 2023 and the boys deserve huge credit for their hard work, dedication and strong performances. One bad result does not undermine the good feeling and team spirit in the group at the moment. However, it acts as a useful reminder that there is still more work to be done!
Ayal Schwartz put in another brilliant performance, winning tackles, interceptions and aerial duels throughout the match. Ayal has really kicked on recently, taking his game to the next level and is starting to lead by example on match day. He has a fantastic attitude when it comes to competing and is an excellent example of how the team should approach training and matches on a weekly basis.
With only eight players available for the match, the girls still seemed confident and in bright spirits before the game. Farah made her return to the side on her birthday and promised to deliver a good performance. Shola from the U14’s played in goal, and we couldn’t have been more grateful to have such a good goalkeeper. She was constantly anticipating danger from the back, communicating with the defence and coming off her line to snuff out the route one tactic. We were also fortunate to have two of our best defenders in our reliable captain, Hannah, and Nina, our last player of the match, working in tandem at the back; a risky approach, but we had full faith in their defensive capabilities for this game. Laura and Farah controlled the midfield, Caroline and Emily caused constant threats out wide on either wing, and Tabs was our striker, who in the second half played the best football I’ve seen from her since her injury in October. We had a good team, so the belief in the camp that we could get something out of this game was very much alive. It was just a shame we were a player short with no subs, as it did feel like we turned a corner last week with 13 available players.
The girls took a few minutes to settle into the game as the opposition were full of energy and with an extra player, made it difficult initially for us to be comfortable on the ball. We started to find our feet after the first five minutes, and were able to combine better and drive up the pitch. Farah certainly delivered on her promise, as she came with flair, fancy feet and direct running that made her a serious problem for the opposition, often taking two or three defenders to stop her runs. This naturally freed up space for Laura, Emily, Caroline and Tabs to make a difference. As if galvanised by Farah’s birthday performance, one by one they all grew into the game, becoming more confident with the ball at their feet. This made for some brilliant attacking football at times. We were slightly exposed at the back being a player down, and the opposition began to launch a barrage of long balls over the top as the game went on. This was dealt with expertly by the defensive duo, but was often aided by fantastic tracking back from the likes of Laura, Emily and Caroline
We came close to goal on a number of times, but for sure the closest either team got to scoring was late into the second half. A long ball over the top caught the wind and flew over our defence, bouncing kindly to an attacker who was through on goal; out came Shola, making herself as big as possible, and somehow got the faintest of touches off her right boot which send the shot skidding past the right post and out for a corner.
As the game went on both teams grew increasingly more tense as both so desperately wanted to win, and it led to some claws coming out from both sides. The challengers flew in harder, the duels were contested more fiercely, and there were maybe too many words being exchanged, but to me it was fantastic to see this much passion from the girls, and that all came from the belief that we would win! With a full squad we would’ve taken all 3 points, however a draw with only eight players is a great start, and no doubt in my mind we’ll get to winning ways in the coming month.
My favourite moment besides Shola’s incredible save, was in the second half when Laura won the ball back in midfield, played it to Emily who found Tabs on the left with a good pass. Using her speed, Tabs breezed past her defender and into the box, where she combined with Farah really well in a tight area, before setting the ball back for Farah on a plate by the penalty spot. The stage was set for what would’ve been not only a fantastic team goal, but potentially our first 3 points, but fate had it that the defender marking Farah managed to block the shot just in time. Although we didn’t get our moment, you could tell by the emotions on their faces how much that goal would’ve meant to us all.
Emily was our player of the match due to her work rate and effort in both attack and defence. She covered more of the pitch than anyone else, constantly trying to get on the ball and advance the attack, yet routinely tracking back to help in defence. We even got to experience a more vocal side to her game with praise and words of encouragement for her teammates as we sensed there was something in this game for us.
We only had one day of training as a team on Monday, six days before the game, as Acland Burghley school was closed on Thursday. This meant we didn’t get a chance to reinforce the things we spoke about at training. Lack of player availability has been a reoccuring theme for us on matchdays. Fortunately we’re going into half term for some much needed rest, however, I expect everyone to hold high standards for themselves and for each other. We spoke as a team about “training how you play”, and it made a big difference from last week compared to this. We’ve set the bar now we must strive to raise it as high as possible.
Playing in unusual circumstances against 8 players, the BFA U15’s stuck to their playing principles against a stubborn Borehamwood Youth side. With player availability being a struggle for this team in the last couple of weeks, this fixture presented a rare opportunity to be on the other side of what should be unavoidable issues surrounding player availability. With the 5-0 loss in the reverse fixture fresh in the minds of the 14 available for selection, BFA quickly set off on the front foot, looking to exploit Borehamwood where possible.
Close to 10 offside calls later, and almost 30 minutes into the game, BFA had their breakthrough via a trademark Aaron 1v1 success from the left hand side to which he beat their defender for pace and slotted into the far corner. 5 minutes later and it was 2 with a calmly slotted penalty being dispatched by Ebenezer after good play from Mark to win the spot kick. Ebenezer and Mark linked up again to make it 3 seconds before half-time, with the latter chipping the keeper smartly after a clever through ball from the former. Half-time 3-0 BFA.
Borehamwood still put up a fight, and with a rare foray forward that shifted away from the 1-3-4 formation that set the tone for the match, they scored a consolation goal, with a poorly timed tackle allowing the opposition to find space in the BFA penalty area and square for a teammate to score a simple tap-in. Although impressive in retaining possession in the first half, BFA struggled to make inroads without being flagged correctly for offside, however, the consolation proved to be a wake up as the rest of the game was duly dominated by BFA as they soon figured out that the key to chances and goals would be utilising overloads all over the pitch due to their 3 man advantage.
This was rewarded with 2 carbon copy goals in the form of a Goncalo tap-in and an own goal as a result of 2 v 1’s being created on the left hand side via Aaron and Leo for Goncalo to ghost in from the back post. Impressive in spells against a depleted second in the table.
Assistant coach Amrit’s key message at the interval was to create overloads in wide areas as we consistently create opportunities week on week in those areas, so to see this come to fruition was really pleasing. Maxwell was our player of the match. Making his debut, it was key for the team to keep things simple although the opposition had a numerical disadvantage. Maxwell had the perfect mix of keeping it simple to retain possession and keep the ball moving, as well as knowledge of when to play the more complex pass to open up the opposition. A promising start to his BFA career.
To improve we need to identify where we achieve success, why we achieve success there, and consistently seeking to continue that success.
Following on from our opening 20 minutes against AC Finchley last time out where we were careless in possession, giving the ball away far too often. The opening 20 minutes of the encounter this time out saw us playing a bit too safe, scared to give the ball away and as a result, could not break into midfield. Once we finally settled, the breakthrough came courtesy of another piece of magic from Eliot Hyseni, firing in off the crossbar in almost identical fashion to a previous goal of his. 1-0 BFA at the break.
The second half was a completely different affair. Jack began the scoring with a calm finish for his first. He then scored a header for his second of the match, before crossing for Ned to nod home at the back post for his first goal. Jayden Irish rounded off the scoring, heading home resoundingly from an Alexey corner! 3 headers scored in the match and a really controlled display in the end.
Mi highlights was when the entire team mobbed Muhanned ‘Ned’ in celebration of his first goal! What a moment! Jack was our player of the match with 2 goals and an assist in his 60 minute cameo. Easily his best performance of the season! In training we focused on retaining possession under pressure. We are now looking to improve playing between the lines using up-back-through as a means to progress.
IMPROVING EVERY WEEK!
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