Match Report - BOGNOR U12 GREEN BOYS - 20 Jan 2024

With a weekend off from league fixtures we were able to arrange a friendly with Andy Weirs tabel topping county cup semi finalists to give us a different challenge facing a quality brand of football.

With only a ?? 11 until Sophia finished training, we went with a new 3-2-2-2-1 formation with a box (square) midfield and Wiz and Chloe out wide (creating hexagon) and Ava up front (Angel on top of the Xmas tree)

The boys moved the ball around confidently from the start and we were chasing it all over the park. A new experience for us being out of possession for so long as they knocked out around at the back and then broke at pace and scored an early goal on the break.

We were puffing all over the pitch and Alessa wanted to come off for air, but with no subs she soldered on. Lots of lessons to be learned on how to slow the game down, but it was all a bit new to us, so the referee resorted to giving a lecture about the art of lines keeping in order to buy a much needed breather. We battled hard and although struggling to get hold of the ball had three good half chances as Wiz, Vee and Maria all made interceptions. Ava was working particularly hard up front to close down but too often a lack of communication led to two or three players chasing the same ball only for the boys to play it back into the spaces they vacated. It was an education watching the way they controlled, passed and moved all over the pitch, but credit to the girls, despite being given the run around they kept their heads and kept applying themselves and Katie was able to come out and snaffle up most of the long balls that ran on with the wind.

Alessa succumbed to the need for more oxygen as she started feeling dizzy and seeing stars and Sophia came on. We needed a little more strength and composure on the ball at times to give us some respite and the boys went through to add a second but to be honest 0-2 at half time against the wind, with Katie making a brilliant diving save low to her right at the end, was not a bad effort.

The boys scored early on the second half and make the game safe with a fourth soon after, but we played much better. We were able to put more passes together, began to understand about how and when to press and when to drop off and keep shape and how to stay with our players rather than all being sucked towards the ball. As always however the communication and help to reach other could be developed.

Maria led the fight, going up against the big number 8 who had been dictating and applying some crunching tackles. Issy, Katie A and Sophia stuck to their task well in defence and Natalia who had shown the most composure in defence first half, began communicating a bit more in midfield. Wiz and Chloe worked hard down the flanks and Vee was finding space in the inside left channel, and we could have exploited this more, using the wind more to gain yards, turn the boys defence and give ourselves a breather and playing our football in their half, rather than inviting the boys press with a short game.

The boys added a couple more but we showed our character and kept going right till the end and began to get better at keeping our shape, playing 'man to man' and working as a unit. As the ref enacted the 'next goal wins' rule to wrap up the match, we were rewarded by dominating the last 5 minutes, forcing several corners, a free kick on the edge of the box and then in the final minute, Maria won a challenge on the edge of their box and Ava teed up Molly who smashed the goal of the game, on the volley, from long range into the roof of the net to give us an unlikely 1-6 victory??