Coaches Cup: We'll Have to Wait a Week

High school fans anxious to see the highly-anticipated match between top-seeded Lenape, a Group 4 school, and second-seeded Group 2 Haddonfield in the finals of the girls South Jersey Coaches Tournament, will have to wait a week. It was scheduled for tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. at Eastern, but the weatherman seems pretty certain that we're going to have miserable weather all day. Plenty of rain and maybe even some snow.

I was critical of Rowan a few weeks back for postponing its game with Stockton because it might snow. But this decision makes sense. From everything I have read and heard, this is not a case of might, but rather, when and how much? It's supposed to be gone by Sunday.

1 v 2

It's the dream of any tournament committee: the first seed plays the second seed in the final. And it's a reality in this Saturday's final of the South Jersey Coaches Cup (officially the Coaches Tournament) when undefeated #2 Haddonfield (18-0) will face top-seeded Lenape at 4 p.m. at Eastern H.S.

Haddonfield made a goal by Kylie Kirk in the 4th minute stand up the rest of the way as it downed a disciplined Paul VI team, 1-0 at Eastern. "There was a mess in front of the net, and I just got the ball in the net," Kirk told the Inquirer. Both teams were missing players with injuries but it didn't show as both went all out for 80 minutes.

The Bulldogs were unable to build momentum off Kirk's early goal and neither team had a realistic threat the rest of the first half. But Paul VI started to dominate midway through the second half and several times it looked as though the Eagles would equalize, only to see a good shot veer wide or be saved by Kellie Riley. “That was as gutsy a performance as I’ve ever seen us have,” said Coach Glenn Gess. “I’m very proud of these kids.”

Top-ranked Lenape advanced to the final by way of a 3-1 win over Timber Creek, paced by two goals from Rachelle Ross.

Welcome, Soren

Scott beat me to it on his blog, but Coach P says welcome to his second grandson, Soren Andrew Partenheimer Chesla, born October 11, 2011 at 12:16 a.m. local time in St. Paul, MN.

And I Thought Forecasts of Snow Made People Crazy

Anyone who has lived in the Philadelphia region for a winter knows how insane people get when it might snow. If a TV weather forecaster hints at the white stuff, that's all people talk about for a week. Tonight, a college game was apparently postponed because it might RAIN! The sad part, for me at least, was that I didn't find out until I arrived at the field. My wife had a meeting tonight, so it was a perfect time to shoot down Rte. 55 to Glassboro to see my five former Xtreme girls play for Rowan University against Stockton. Even better, Rowan coach Scott Leacott and Stockton coach Nick Juengert are friends whom I have not see in awhile. And I looked forward to seeing the parents of the girls. I should have known it wasn't going to be my day when I was driving north on I-295 from Woodbury after a deposition and noticed southbound trafic - on the route I would be taking from home to Glassboro - at a standstill. KYW told me of an overturned tractor trailer where I-295 and Rte 42 come together - just above where I would get on Rte. 55 . After getting changed at home, I detoured over to Rte. 130 south towards 47, only to find 130 backed up in Brooklawn. And of course once on 47 I was behind a guy going no more than 5 mph below the speed limit at any given time. After nearly an hour on the road, I reached the Rte. 322 exit of Rte. 55 for Rowan and figured I would just about make the start of the game, only to find traffic on Rte 322 backed up. I finally pulled into the parking lot by the Rowan soccer stadium 5 minutes after start time, only to find it empty. The school's athletic website tonight says the game was postponed due to "inclement weather" meaning someone thought it might rain. Which it did not while I was there. I don't know if it rained in Camden, either, but less than 20 miles north of Glassboro, the TCNJ women played at Rutgers-Camden (and won, 4-0). The Rowan-Stockton game has been changed until tomorrow night, but I heard it might be windy.

UEFA Tries to Level the Field

Jeré Longman reports in today's New York Times that there is an effort to level the financial playing field in Europe.

Alarmed that more than than half of Europe’s 650 top soccer clubs are reporting operating losses, the governing body of European soccer, UEFA, has instituted a plan known as "Financial Fair Play," in which clubs are permitted to spend only what they take in from soccer revenue. This is intended to eliminate mega-rich owners from pumping their own millions (or billions) into a team - to the detriment of the competition. Such is the case, Longman reports, with England's Manchester City, owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the royal family of the emirate of Abu Dhabi who has

The plan will phase in over two years and is not without its critics. So we'll have to wait to see if it works.

World Cup: Arrggggh!!!

All the cliches of coaching came true in yesterday's World Cup final:

"That's why they roll the ball out there."

"Let a lesser team hang around long enough they believe they can beat you."

"You've got to put the ball in the back of the net to win."

The United States let Japan hang around too long in yesterday's World Cup final and it cost them the title they had dreamed of and had been favored to win. Japan may not have been the better side, but they clearly deserved to win.

In the early going it looked as though Team USA was merely adjusting its sights as it pressured a disorganized Japanese defense. Lauren Cheyney, Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe all had near misses in the early going. As the half wore on, time and again fans were asking, "How did that not go in?"

After more chances in the early part of the second half, the first goal finally came in the 69th run on a perfectly executed pass by Megan Rapinoe, who had set up Abby Wambach's miraculous game-tying goal against Brazil, to Alex Morgan, who beat the defender, touched it with her right and fired into the goal with her left. At last USA were on the board and more goals would surely be coming momentarily. Not.

With the cup just nine minutes away, Rachel Buehler could not clear the ball and it went off Ali Krieger who likewise could not get it out of harms way before Ayi Miyami jammed it into the net to tie the game.

It looked like the U.S. would win when Abby Wambach scored on a header shortly before the end of the first OT to make it 2-1. But again Japan, to their credit, refused to let down. Homare Sawa, the leading scorer of the tournament, won a corner kick and deflected a ball off Wambach for the tying goal just three minutes from time.

You knew it wasn't going to be the American's day when keeper Ayumi Kaihori made an unbelievable kick save on Shannon Boxx's opening PK. Carli Lloyd shot high and Tobin Heath's kick was saved by Kaihori. Japan converted two of its first three, so Wambach's tally to start the fourth round was too little too late. (Had Wambach missed the game would have been over.) When Saki Kumagai scored on the next ball, Japan had the cup.

In my view, the U.S. did not play a bad game. They just couldn't score and Japan did not give up. Nothing for the Americans to be ashamed of for sure.

Walk Down Memory Lane #7 - Carli vs. Sweden

When I first met Carli Lloyd, she was in 8th grade, not much over five feet tall and playing for the U-15 Medford Strikers, New Jersey team I had just joined as an assistant to Joe Dadura.

Today Carli is playing for the World Cup. She’s grown to about 5’-8”, wears the USA logo instead of the Medford Strikers or Rutgers University.

We won the State Cup that first year I helped coach, in a shoot-out over defending champs Voorhees. Carli wasn’t the best player on the team, but was very good, with a magic touch on the ball. She did not take one of our five penalty kicks that day in the Spring of 1997, and in fact she was never one of our PK shooters, which went on to be a running joke among us for years. So I was happy to see her make one of the kicks in the dramatic shootout over Brazil.

We had a lot of good times on the Strikers team – two NJ State Cups, a Dallas Cup, a JAGS championship, and many other victories. I watched Carli play a number of games for Rutgers and also saw most of the other team members play at least once in college. Many of us have stayed in touch over the years, at least on Facebook, and had a reunion two years ago, which Carli attended. (See the post from 9/7/09.)

Which brings us to Memory Lane. I knew Carli had played many times for youth national teams and was hoping she’d get a crack at the full national team. She finally made her first appearance against Ukraine on July 10, 2005.

A year later Louise and I went out to Minnesota to visit our daughter, Kirsten. It just so happened the U.S. team had a friendly against Sweden in Blaine, Minnesota and Carli was kind enough to get four tickets for us – in the shade. It was in the mid-90s all day and still about 90 at game time at 5 p.m.

It was, as a good friend described it, a “lump in the throat” moment seeing Carli marching out on the field and standing there during the National Anthem representing her country and the dreams of who knows how many thousands of girls who want to be just like her. To anyone who knows her, she also represented what pure hard work will get you.

The United States won the game in dramatic fashion in the closing seconds and afterwards Carli told me it was the hottest she’d ever been on a field. Since then, Carli has been capped more than 100 times (the Sweden match was her 10th cap), has scored the winning goal in the Olympic gold medal game and played in two World Cups, with hopefully a championship today.

I’ve seen Carli play three other games for the national team and many times on TV. But the first time was the most memorable.