Coaches Comments

US Women Deaflympic Taiwan 2009

"I had always felt privileged to have been associated with both the Women and Men’s teams. The women’s team gave me my first taste of international deaf soccer in 2003 before I moved on to the men’s squad. Little did I know that circumstances would once again bring us together.

The US women’s coach quit the team only 6 months before they were due to go to Taiwan for the 2009 Deaflympics. I was told the whole set-up was in disarray and would I be willing to try and turn things around. The men’s team hadn’t qualified for the Taiwan Deaflympics so I accepted the job and set up a camp within a month of taking over. I soon found out most of the 2005 gold medal winners had quit because of the lack of direction since 2005. So I was confronted with almost a completely new group of players apart from Reagan Anders, Katie Romano and Victoria Keeler. Only 15 players showed up to the Pensacola camp. I was pleased with some of the new girls but it was obvious there was no team spirit or understanding in the squad. I brought in Erin Hirsh as my Assistant Coach.

We managed to get in one more camp in Pensacola. Over those few days these incredible young woman amazed me with their willingness to work and eagerness to learn. This second camp gave me hope that we may do something in Taiwan. I brought in Megan Johnston and Betsy Hoerner from the 2005 team to make up a squad of only 16 players for the trip to Taiwan. All other countries would have squads of 23 players.

As I was focusing on developing the women’s team with the help of Women’s Rep Meg Smither, I was suddenly contacted by the ICSD (International Committee of Sports for the Deaf) offering me the chance to enter the men’s team into the Deaflympics to replace a team that had pulled out. I was told by these Olympic officials we were offered this chance because of the positive impact we had made in Greece the previous year. So now I found myself Head Coach to both the Women and Men’s teams and Terri McDonald now Team Manager to both. Unfortunately over half of my starting line up from the men’s team who played in Greece could not go to Deaflympics because of college or lack of funds. This lead to us taking a much weaker squad to Taiwan.

Now back to the ladies.

A week’s preparation in southern Taiwan before the Opening Ceremony in Taipei was a great bonus for the Women’s team. I had time to work on team shape and understanding and intentionally made them play against the men’s team in a full 11v11 at every afternoon session. This would improve their speed of play, speed of thought and match fitness levels. Erin worked hard on technique with the players too. By the time the first game came along I knew we were ready. A win over Germany gave the women a great start, but strangely enough I felt the German team were potentially very good and would get better as the tournament progressed. Our second game was an easy win over Denmark. Our third group game was a bye so the women’s team was now only one game away from the Final. Our semi –final opponents would be Gt Britain who were a very well organized, and disciplined group of players. It was obvious they wanted revenge on the US team because we beat them at the 2005 Deaflympics in Australia. I was nervous of this game because some of my best players were carrying bad injuries. This game showed the real character of the US women’s team. Although Gt Britain dominated most of the game in the first half we managed to hang in there. As the players sat down in the locker room at half time I could see they were completely drained both physically and mentally. The players who were injured before the game were in agony I felt so sorry for them, but I couldn’t show it. I decided to rip into the team instead. I hoped if they saw me and Coach Erin angry instead of sympathetic it may jolt a positive response. It worked; the players put in so much effort in the second half and managed to defeat the Gt Britain team 2-1. It was certainly our worst performance of the tournament but I was more proud of my players after this game than any other because they battled till the end even though the odds were against them.

The Final game came much too quick as far as I was concerned, we needed at least a week to get over our injuries, but the time was set so the ladies had to pull together yet again and overcome the situation. Our opponents in the Gold medal game would be Germany who shocked everyone with a semi-final win over the favorites Russia.

Deciding on what formation we should use in the final would be crucial. We realized our players could not compete in an open end to end game for a full 90 minutes because their injuries would not allow this. I decide a 4-5-1 formation would be the only way to keep us in this game. A mass of players protecting our goal would hopefully deny the Germans goal scoring chances, and we could then catch them on the break. At the half time whistle a 0-0 score line left the Germans looking full of confidence, our players left the field exhausted and most of them in agony because of aggravating their injuries.

It was always my plan to start the second half with a formation which would surprise the German’s. We sent the team back out with a 3-5-2 formation with our wide midfielders supporting the two strikers as quickly as possible. This completely confused the German’s game plan and the US team dominated the second half from the first minute to the last. Our continuous pressure destroyed the Germans and goals from Liza Offreda Kate Ward and two from Felicia Schroeder…gave the USA the gold medal.

Between the tears of joy at the end of the game, the most asked question was” how did we pull this off when only 5 months earlier we didn’t even have a full team never mind a squad’ the players just could not believe it.

I suppose miracles do happen when you have a group of women who will sacrifice everything for their country."

-Coach McDonald