In July I had the honor to bring a very special elite group
of girls from Tyreso to the Gothia Cup! The Gothia Cup is literally the youth
world cup. We were chosen to be in Girls 17 elite, the best in the tournament.
Our group stage we faced the best of the best; PSG from
France, St. Gabriel from Spain and Hovas Bildas from Sweden
We made it to the B quarterfinals and faced Eskilstuna
united.
I love these games “win or go home” In my pre-game speech I
wrote four things on the board.
TECHNICAL
TACTICAL
PHYSICAL
DORIS!!
In this part of the season, in this part of the tournament,
it is not about the technical, it is not about the tactical, it is not about
the physical, it is about who is willing to go that extra inch, to give
everything they have, to sacrifice for the team. It is about having the courage
to take the risk and having the heart to go all the way. Everyone has the
technical, tactical and even physical but what separates the good from the
great is what you have inside…
DORIS
Doris (aka Dory from finding Nemo) is my favorite character
and to me she is the smartest character maybe ever created. When something bad
happens she thinks about it, forgets in the next second and “just keeps
swimming” When something good happens, she forgets and “just keeps swimming”
If we score a goal we celebrate but then we have to let it
go, “just keep swimming” and focus on the next task. If we get scored on we
need to regroup and “just keep swimming” and get that goal back.
When we got to the field and started warming up. The focus
my players had was incredible. That went for every single player, whether they
were starting or not. The game started and we completely dominated; the soccer,
fight and play itself was out of this world and probably one of the best youth
soccer games I have ever seen.
We had chance after chance but couldn’t find the back of the
net. In the second half Eskilstuna got a breakaway and put it away. Every one
of my players heads went down and I started screaming from the sideline “DORIS,
DORIS, DORIS” They looked at me smiled and “just kept swimming”
They continued to attack, continued to fight… The final
whistle blew it was still 0-1 and my players collapsed. Almost everyone was
crying. We helped each other up went into the locker room. I looked around and
I was about to cry myself, not because we lost but because I have never been so
proud to be apart of this special group, this special team. I have never been
so proud to wear Tyreso on my chest. In my eyes we won that game. We left that
field and the Gothia Cup as a CHAMPION.
