Juventus Players and Parents,

It looks like we will have our second practice this week on Thursday instead
of Wednesday. Jack or I will keep you posted. In addition to the Thursday
practice I would also like to have an additional (lighter) practice on
Friday 6 - 6:30 pm at LCC to practice some set plays etc. I expect everybody
to show up but understand if you already have plans and can't attend.
Please let me know if you cannot make it.

I would like to inform you that I am in the process of enrolling the
Juventus for the OPL Director's Cup. The games for the Director's Cup will
be played during the first weeks of November.  This tournament is geared
towards teams in the First and Second Division of the OPL League and would
be a great season ending event for us. Although our record doesn't quite
show it at this point, the Juventus has the potential to be quite
competitive in the First Division and we should be able to have a good run
in the Director's Cup.

I also would like to touch on our performance at yesterday's game. Again we
are able to play quite well for the first half of a game and the boys worked
hard to create passing opportunities and angles, made runs off the ball etc.
We also looked pretty decent defensively, not just in our third but also in
midfield and higher up the pitch. All in all we had a well-deserved 2:0 lead
by half time. The second half was a whole different story altogether, we
looked lackluster, our mobility and effort defensively and offensively was
lacking and we came under quite a bit of pressure throughout the rest of the
game. In all games this season, regardless of who we played, we were very
much in the game during the first half (typically tied at 0:0) and then
broke down and gave it away in the second half of the games. I am not quite
sure whether we are dealing with mental attitude or some lack of
conditioning or a mixture of both, but we will need to make sure that we can
play the 2nd halves a lot stronger and with full concentration in our
remaining games. To that extend I will work to make sure we are creating the
proper training environment to be able to overcome our "second half
fatigue". I also would like to make sure that I know where we are in terms
of our conditioning and to test for that I would like everybody to bring
their running shoes for Thursday's practice to conduct the Cooper test (run
for 12min and see how far you get).

This week we will work on combination play to improve our ability to get
behind the defense as well as improving our ability to score. See you all
tonight,

Sven