There's an old saying that offence sells tickets but defence wins championships.
Competing at the U-15 Cup in Calgary, part of Canada Soccer's Toyota Club Nationals, the Yellowknife Bay Soccer Club's U15 girls outfit, the Sundogs, found they had plenty of defence but no offence. Turns out there's an exception to the rule after all.
photo courtesy of Ollie Williams
The Sundogs played their final match early Monday morning against the Whitehorse Selects from Yukon. Unfortunately, Whitehorse got the better of the Sundogs 2-0 in a game that head coach Joe Acorn called “frustrating.”
“It was a downer, that's for sure,” he said. “We had probably 75 per cent of the possession in that game and when you have the ball that much, you usually win.”
The Sundogs did have a couple of good scoring chances in the game. The first came during a free kick but the ball was cleared off the goal line by a Whitehorse defender.
Acorn wasn't so sure about the ball not crossing the line and he may have a point. If you see the video, the defender's foot is behind the goal line when the ball is cleared.
“The referee wasn't in the right angle to call it,” he said. “But that goal would have changed the complexion of the game. The girls would have been able to settle down and some of the tension would have disappeared.”
The girls didn't do themselves any favours by missing a penalty kick, either, but that's just the type of game it was.
Besides the Yukon defeat, the girls played in four other games, beginning with the round-robin on Oct. 4 and 5. First up was Newfoundland and Labrador and just like the Yukon game, the chances were there, especially in the first half, where a free kick from Wren Acorn managed to elude the opposing goalkeeper but not the crossbar.
Newfoundland and Labrador scored the game's only goal and coach Acorn said that would have been an eye-opener for the rest of the field if the result had gone their way.
“That crossbar would have been the opening goal and that would have given us some momentum right off the bat,” he said.
A 4-0 loss to Manitoba in their next contest meant it was off to the seeding round, where they would play Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick along with Yukon. Again, there were chances to win it, especially against New Brunswick, which ended in a 1-1 draw, but it just wasn't meant to be.
“We were a very competitive team,” said Acorn. “Teams look at us and usually think they can run up the score and play keep-away but this was one of the better results we've had at a national championship and the girls should be proud of how they played. We took a lot of the teams by surprise because they were certainly expecting to blow us out.”
This was the first time in several years that a girls team from Yellowknife had made the trip to a national championship and the first under the newly-restructured Canada Soccer age groups. The old format saw U14, U16 and U18 but the country's governing body did away with the older division and made the ages odd instead of even.
For the future, Acorn said working on the offensive side of the ball is the key because the defence is already good.
“Once we figure out the offensive third of the field, we'll shoot up the standings,” he said. “We may have finished 12th overall but those teams that beat us earned those wins.”