Quick Links to Development Journals
- U12 Girls Development Journal (by Andy Kaasa)
Welcome any and all readers!
I began this website last winter (2006) in the hopes of tracking the development path of my then U13 Bangu Tsunami FC girls team. Back in the fall of 2004, the core group of the current team had set a long term goal of representing Minnesota at the 2007 US Youth Soccer Region II Championships ("Regionals"). To achieve this goal we needed to win the Minnesota State Cup Tournament in May (2007). State Cup is an open tournament to all age appropriate teams in MN regardless of playing level. The girls battled with 16 other teams over a 3 week time frame to emerge at the eventual State Cup Champions in May of 2007. That win saw us achieve our primary goal set three years ago and earned us the right to represent our state at Regionals in June in Des Moines, IA.
Regionals featured the State Cup winners from each of the Region II states; Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio (split into North and South), South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The tournament consisted of round-robin group play, semifinals, and a championship game.
You can read about our Cinderella-type story to the Region II Championship in the 93/94G Journal. Suffice it to say it was nothing short of unbelievable.
Now (August, 2007) I am looking to begin diarying the progress of the new batch of U11 Academy girls (96/97G Journal) as we look to follow the same development scheme that saw the U13s advance to the 2010 Region II Championships. I have also added in a section for our U12 Academy girls (95/96G Journal) that their head coach, Andy Kaasa, will be updating.
I am trying to post as much information as I can here in the hopes that other coaches who deal with young girl’s teams at similar age groups and/or at similar ability levels may find it useful as we all work to elevate the overall level of play here in Minnesota and across the region. With that said though, this website is primarily for myself as I look to chronicle the work which I absolutely love to do so that down the road I may look back on my time with this group and have some real substance to spark memories.
* Important Note for Blog Posters *
I will leave a number of the topics on this website open for reader comments and discussion. I cannot guarantee that I will find time/interest to respond to any post directed at me, but I'm all for constructive debate among any readers.
* Important Note for Haters *
If you have a problem with me personally or professionally, think that I'm some egotistical maniac only in soccer for himself or for the money, take issue with what I or my club stands for, feel that we've brainwashed, arm-twisted, or otherwise coerced families into leaving your club to join our program, DO NOT READ THROUGH THIS SITE! It's not for you.
* The Fine Print/Disclaimer/Note To Readers *
The author, me, does not claim any expert knowledge in the area of creative writing. I avoided all college writing classes like the plague, making it through fours years of a liberal arts education with only one paper to my credit. Thus, readers can fully expect to see excessive and unneeded punctuation usage; run on sentences, pleonasm, speling errors, incorrect noun-verb relationships, frequent and unabashed tense switching, tons of misplaced modifiers, numerous paragraphs starting with conjunctions, and sometimes a general lack of overall purpose or point. Also, I tend to go off on tangents as I can't seem to type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts, and I'm often times working on new thoughts prior to completely recording previous ones. Just a heads up.