Clark's Crossing is open, so we'll be there for practice tonight from 5:30 - 7:00 pm. 

We need to get a team photo tonight, so if you can have your player bring or wear their game jersey, that would be great. If we don't make it happen we'll try again Thursday night. 

Thanks!

 

Game Day Arrival

Please arrive at the field 30 minutes before our scheduled game time to allow enough time to suit up, warm up and get organized. For our game this Saturday at McLean, please arrive at 12:45pm. 

Game Uniforms

On game days, please make sure your player arrives with:

• Vienna game uniform jersey and shorts
• Vienna practice pinnie in case of uniform conflicts
• Socks should match our uniforms if possible (blue, black, gray, white)
• All of their equipment including mouthpiece and protective cup

Playing Time

Our goal is to provide all of our players with equal playing time to the extent possible. We will try to have a balanced team on the field at all times and use frequent substitutions to keep players fresh. As such, we ask all of our athletes to play as hard as they can while on the field, knowing that they will have a break soon enough. 

Spectators

Let’s make sure our players hear as much loud, enthusiastic, positive support as possible while they’re competing this season. Our players, coaches, parents and spectators are committed to honoring the game by respecting the ROOTS (Rules, Officials, Opponents, Teammates, OurSelves). 

Parent Volunteer Roles

For each game day, we’ll ask for one parent to volunteer to bring a snack for the kids to share after the game while we celebrate our collective effort. When we’re the home team, we’ll need additional volunteers to staff the roles of scorekeeper, timekeeper and field commissioner. We will sort those roles out each week as we approach game day. 

Team Managers

Our Team Managers, Jacqueline Dadiani and Samantha Durso have volunteered to keep us organized this season. Be on the lookout for game reminder messages from them with information on signing up for a volunteer role, game logistics, etc. via TeamSnap. 

 

Last night after practice, during our usual review of our plan for becoming a winning team, we gave ourselves some clarity on what it means to win. Please help us forge a winning mindset by reinforcing these ideas at home whenever you're talking with your player about success on the field and off. 

There are two types of winning: 

• Focus on the Scoreboard (aka the win at all costs type)
• Focus on Mastery 

While it's always fun to win a game, tournament or championship, our approach to achieving on-field success will be to focus on team and individual Mastery of the game and the skills to play it correctly. If we do that, the results on the scoreboard will come. Specifically, our approach to practicing and competing has three focus areas:

• Effort
• Learning
• Mistakes are okay!

If we compete against a stronger team during the season and come out on the short side of the scoreboard, we will still have plenty of wins to reflect on after the game. Giving our best effort, showing off improved skills and knowledge we've learned and taking risks by trying new skills and tactics whether successful or not are all huge wins for us. 

As if we needed further evidence of our players' collective genius, every one of the specific commitments we made on day one of practice fits neatly into either or both of Effort and Learning.

Thank you for your support nurturing our winning mindset!

 

10U MF2 2022 Season Plan

Our players are brilliant visionaries! At our first practice, I showed them a blank whiteboard representing the season ahead and asked them what kind of team we want to be. Their immediate, unanimous reply was:

A Winning Team!!

Throughout practice we took a few minutes here and there to brainstorm a plan for how to become the winning team we envision, and we ended up with a workable plan of attack that we'll execute, review and improve as the season progresses. The high level milestones and commitments we've set for ourselves are:

• Practice hard and work hard
• Go fast / hustle
• Keep our eyes on the ball
• Play smart 
• Be on time
• Know the rules
• Shoot hard
• Participate 

The coaches and players are all committed to holding each other accountable for making sure the time we spend on the field is focused on meeting these commitments to become the best we can be. Further, we agree that we will approach this season on and off the field in accordance with our three core values:

Sportsmanship, Integrity and Teamwork