He wrote:

“Hi Yuri, I was wondering if you could help me..

I am an 18 year old football ( soccer ) player and would like to improve in my physique and not lose speed..do you have any tips for me?”

Oh, I’ve got plenty of tips for you.

In fact, this is one of the biggest obstacles I’m constantly trying to work around as the strength and conditioning coach for the men’s soccer program at the University of Toronto.

How do you build strong and powerful athletes (in the weight room) while not detracting from their “on-field” speed and performance???

Well, here’s the answer…

Last night, I was at U of T,  training our soccer team in the Athletic Centre, when one of our guys did something absolutely ridiculous!

I confronted him immediately and there’s a VERY valuable fitness training lesson to be learned from this situation.

I put together a little video describing what happened and how you can learn from this BIG mistake.

Watch it here:

In this post, I’m going to give you my perspective of our trip and performances.

But first, I’d like to say that I (and our entire coaching staff) am incredibly proud of our team’s success this year. Considering that half of our team consisted of new players who had to learn very quickly how we run our program, we had a tremendous run finishing 1st in our division (11-1-2 record), second in Ontario (losing only in a penalty shootout in the gold medal match), and claiming 4th place at the National Championships (pretty good considering that there are 42 university soccer programs across the country).

Here’s a great pic of our team that one of our player’s father took after we won the semifinals of the Ontario championships against Western.

Before I get into a recap of our 3 games, I need to say that British Columbia is beautiful. It’s no wonder their vehicle license plates read “Beautiful British Columbia”.

Because it was November, it tends to rain a lot in BC. I mean a lot. I think over the week we may have seen a total of 2 days of sun. But those 2 days of sunny weather were totally worthwhile as BC’s majestic mountains emerged from the clouds and provided an incredible backdrop.

Here’s a picture from our hotel. It was taken from my iPhone so it doesn’t relay just how awesome those peaks really are. Look closely, they are in there somewhere…

Driving to and from Trinity Western University (the host of the championships) I think I nearly drove our van off the road looking at the mountains.

Anyways, onto the soccer…

Game 1 – U of T vs. University of Victoria

At the national championships, the most important game is by far the first one. The reason for this is because if you lose you have no chance of winning a medal and are automatically relegated to the consolation side of the competition.

With 8 teams at nationals, our first opponent was the University of Victoria Vikes. A solid team who had won their conference 2 years in a row, we knew we would be in for a battle.

Here was our starting 11 on a beautiful sunny day…

U Vic also plays a very different style of soccer than we do. They have a lot of big boys and thus opt to play a lot of long balls out of the back hoping for their strikers to run onto hopeful flick ons.

Actually, now that I think of it…most of the teams at nationals played that way except for us and Cape Breton (whom I thought were an incredible team eventhough they finished in 6th place).

This first game saw our boys come out of the gates a bit slow but within a few minutes we switched gears and started to attack our opponents with some swift passes. Within less than 15 minutes we had scored the opening goal on an amazing flank run by our winger who crossed in the ball for a one-time finish from our top striker, Nordo.

We went nuts.

We went even crazier just a few minutes later when our other striker, Rafa (as we call him), slotted the ball home after some beautiful passing at the top of U Vic’s box.

2-0 up against possibly the best team at the tournament! Not a bad start.

Then we hit the post, missed a semi breakaway, and some more chances that I can’t even remember. All in all, we could have easily been up 4-0 at half.

The second half started with U Vic making a few subs who made a big difference in the game. We were totally dominated in the second half and our defense was bombarded with cross upon cross and they did exceptionally well to deal with them.

Eventually, U Vic’s pressure paid off and they pulled a goal back. We continued to defend like champs (there’s a reason we only allowed 3 goals during the entire season) and hung on for a vital 2-1 victory!

It was a physically and emotionally exhausting game…for the coaches.

Oh yeah, our players were pretty beat as well!

But we were into the semis against Laval. A team whom we may have underestimated???

Game 2 – U of T vs. Laval

Laval had been to the national championships every year for the past 5 years! That’s an incredible feat.

But to be honest, we reviewed their first game against UPEI and didn’t think that they were that a great team – definitely not in comparison to what we were up against in our first game.

We met with our team, discussed our game plan, instilled the confidence that this was a very beatable team, and allowed our boys to watch the DVD of Laval’s first game.

All season, the “soccer gods” (as we call them) had been on our side. From clearing up the weather just in time for our games to giving our team an incredible chance to make the national championships by having other top ranked teams knocked out, we thought they would be on our side once again.

But it wasn’t the soccer gods that let us down in our game against Laval. Instead, it was our team.

You’d think that the semifinals of the national championships would get you revved up wanting to seize this rare opportunity. But for us, the exact opposite occurred. Our boys froze. They didn’t show up to play. It was one of the most painful matches that I’d witnessed in a long time.

Perhaps they got stage fright. Perhaps the were satisfied with the win the previous day. I guess we’ll never really know.

But I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason and I think that on this day, in which we were embarrassed 3-0 by Laval – the eventual champs, we learned some incredibly valuable lessons.

Lesson #1 – fear vs. pride/confidence

In life, there are always things that we fear. However, the difference between champions and the rest is that champions are able to face their fears head on and take massive action, in spite of how they feel. Laval, with their experience at Nationals, showed confidence and pride. Our young team showed fear.

We didn’t play our soccer. It seemed as though none of our players wanted the ball at the feet. We played a fearful game and we weren’t successful.

Lesson #2 – He who is most hungry will eat first

In nature, animals kill each other for food. If 2 lions battle over a freshly killed gazelle, the hungrier lion will win (assuming all else is equal). In our game against Laval, we were not hungry at all. We went through the motions and were slaughtered by 11 famished lions!

To win at any level of sport (or life) you must be hungry. Hunger or desire compels us forward and allows us to shatter the impossible.

Lesson #3 – opportunity

Opportunity comes to those who work hard and seek the abundance of opportunities that surround them. Unfortunately, we didn’t seize our opportunity of playing our best soccer against Laval. In all fairness, it is tougher for a young team with little to no experience at the national championships to truly realize what is at stake.

The chance to be part of the last 4 teams (out of 42) still playing soccer at this time of the year with the ability to advance to the national final is a huge opportunity.

Perhaps our boys didn’t recognize that. I don’t know. But I definitely know that they’ll recognize the opportunity next year when we’re in the same position.

We can’t take things for granted. When you want something you must go after it NOW, not tomorrow, because in many cases tomorrow never comes. In our case, we’ll have to wait an entire year for another opportunity.

Game 3 – U of T vs. Trinity Western University

We had a day off after our loss to Laval. The team went into Vancouver and then had dinner at the family home of one our BC boys, Lawrence. I stayed at the hotel as I contracted a food-borne parasite (just realized that several days later) from some sketchy food at East Side Mario’s.

I think it was just what the guys needed. Some time away from the pitch and a nice home cooked meal. We had eaten at East Side Mario’s 3 times during the week – way too much if you ask me!

For us, this bronze medal game against TWU was a chance at redeeming ourselves. We could finish our season by showcasing the kind of beautiful soccer that got us to the national championships (and ranked #1 in the nation) in the first place.

Before I forget, here’s a picture of TWU’s field. It was pretty beat up by Sunday after all the rain but it was still a great grass field.

Due to the lackluster performance of the majority of our starters against Laval, we introduced pretty much all of our subs into the starting lineup.

And I can’t begin to explain how incredible they played!

We were so proud of these guys who unfortunately had not seen much of the field over the last few weeks. They came out of the starting gates with a bang. And we made the hosts look like an inferior team at best.

TWU scored to make it 1-0 in the second half off a scramble in front of the net. But with about 10 minutes to go in the match we scored to equalize off a beautiful run and cross from our winger (whom I call “G.I. Geoff”) that was headed in from Rafa.

With just 4 minutes to go, the referee let us know that we would be going directly into a shootout and no over time would be played. We were not aware of this until he told us. That’s pretty bad, especially at a national championship.

So, yet again, we headed into a penalty shootout. Unfortunately, for the second Sunday in a row, we found ourselves on the losing end.

But you know what…

Who cares!

Penalty shoot outs are like flipping a coin. You win some and you lose some.

Yes, it would have been nice to win the bronze medal but we accomplished something much bigger than that.

We showed the nation that our team (which has been on the rebuilding path for the past 3 years) can play and win against the best in the country. We regained our pride and left the field with our heads held high knowing that next year would be a much different ending.

The 2010 championships will be hosted by our school at Varsity Stadium so we look forward to preparing for and winning that championship. The last time we won was in 1988! That’s far too long ago.

Overall, it was an amazing experience for our team.

Most of the teams present at the national championships had been there on numerous occasions over the last decade. They had the experience, the hunger, and had learned the lessons in years past that we learned this year.

Sometimes not achieving your goal is your destiny.

I think that not winning the whole thing this year is a blessing in disguise that will help our players develop even further for the coming years!

The Last Supper

On Sunday night, when everything was all said and done, the coaching staff was treated to nice dinner at the Keg. Boy was it a nice change from the previous meals during week. We ate, we laughed, we toasted to a great season, and we were optimistic from the great successes that will be coming our way in the coming seasons.

Here’s a pic from that dinner (there’s me on the right).

It’s a bit blurry – that’s the waiter’s fault (who took the picture) not the wine.

It’s going to give me a heart attack.

We’re here in Langley, BC for the university soccer championships and we just finished our first game – what a heart wrencher.

We (University of Toronto) played the University of Victoria Vikes (the Canada West champions) and earned a huge 2-1 victory. In all honesty, we should have been up 4-0 in the first half but with a 2-0 lead at half we knew that they would come after us.

And they did.

UVic played a great 2nd half as they continued to pump balls into our box. They finally pulled one goal back in the 70th minute to make it 2-1.

But our boys defended like their lives depending on winning this game and we emerged victorious.

Now, we move onto the semis against Laval tomorrow.

This year, some of the things we’ve really hammered home with our team is having a “do whatever it takes” attitude and having the tenacity to “never give up”.

Our last 3 games have been absolute battles and our boys have endured the hardships and glories of top level soccer. And me and the rest of the coaching are so proud of our team’s ability to get a result playing our style of soccer and fighting for the win – no matter what!

Tomorrow’s another huge game and we must WIN in order to advance to the championship final on Sunday. I’ll keep you posted.

If you want to follow any of our games you can do so through www.ssncanada.ca to see all the games that are being streamed live via webcast.

After finishing our regular season with a 11-1-2 record and being ranked the #1 university soccer team in Canada, our University of Toronto men’s team fell victim to the biggest defensive wall I’ve ever seen.

We played unranked MacMaster University in the provincial finals and after having squeaked by their previous 3 playoff games in penalty kicks, they did the same to us – winning 5-4 in a shootout after an intense 120 minute game that ended 0-0.

I have to say that MacMaster was by far one of the weakest teams that we had played all year but boy did they put up a fight. From the opening whistle, they lined up 4 defenders outside of their box with 2 holding midfielders to further solidify their defence.

In essence, they were defending with 6 guys!

It was like trying to break down a bloody brick wall. As good as our attack has been, we just couldn’t find the back of their net.

Less than 24 hours before this game, on Saturday, we had just beaten the Western Mustangs in a crazy shootout that would send us not only to the provincial finals but also to the National Championships in BC this coming week.

After a 2-2 game and 120 minutes of end to end action, our boys dug deep and dig whatever they could to win the game. And it was a nail biter all the way to the end as our keeper needed to save Western’s final PK in order for us to have another chance to shoot.

Miraculously, after having dived the opposite way on the previous 4 shots, he saved the 5th and then game winning 6th shot.

We obviously went nuts!

Our goal of reaching Nationals was now a reality.

After much celebration, we regrouped and reminded the team that we were playing for gold in just under 24 hours. So we needed to refocus, recover, and get some much needed rest.

It was one of the most memorable games I’d ever experienced. After all, we were hosting the provincial (OUA) playoffs and we had such an amazing turnout from our fans and alumni. The crowd and the ambiance was amazing. A truly unbelievable way to claim a spot in the National Championship, especially considering that this very game last year saw us lose 2-1 in a heart-breaking match against the eventual National Champs, York University.

So even though we lost the OUA final in shootouts to a mediocre team, we reassured our team that they had done everything we had trained and everything they could have humanly been done.

Sometimes, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

After all, when you get into shootouts, it’s anyone’s game. You might as well just flip a coin.

Sure it was a heartbreaking loss but after our coaching staff had said their final words to the team, I left the team with a bit of inspiration (at least I hope I did).

I referred them to the one of best quotes of all time that comes from the movie Batman Begins, where Alfred (the butler) says to Bruce Wayne…

“Bruce, why do we fall?…So we can pick ourselves up again.”

I love that quote because it really hits home the idea of never giving up and understanding that no matter what happens in life, we need to keep on trekking.

So, tomorrow we depart for Vancouver, BC to compete in the university men’s soccer National Championships and we’ll see just how resilient our boys really are.

I’m predicting that we’ll win the gold.

I’ll keep you up to date with what happens.