COMMENTS ON NOVEMBER 2007 FOOTBALL ACTIVITIES BY HEADCOACH

UNDER 6

This group is now firmly organised and the children have settled down well and progressing from kinder garden football to more organised play.  An addition to the coaching staff –Chris. Spiteri Shaw is giving a valuable hand to Coach Martin Hili and will take over for a few days when Coach Hili will have a knee operation.

UNDER 7

As I said before this group is well served by three coaches. There is good teamwork between Coaches Liam, Rachel & Patrick  and the children are  doing good progress. The kids will participate in the Floriana Festival in December and this will help them improve.
 
UNDER 8/9

The Under 8 Group has also settled down well and the division of the children between U8 & U9 has proved successful. Coach Ant.Borg  who from this Season has taken charge of a Group i.e. Under 8 is doing good work with them. Coach Richard Saliba has continued with his usual heavy programme of playing many matches against other Nurseries and this is giving a lot of experience to the young ones.  Ex Pembroke Player Adriano is helping Coach Richard during some training sessions and his experience will be of great benefit to the kids.

 I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Coach Richard Saliba who has successfully concluded the tough ‘C’ Licence Course and has received the merited Certificate. He now joins Coaches Alex Calleja & Alex Mifsud with this Grade. Whilst it is expected that Coaches Rikky Pace, Godwin Gatt, Aaron Tonna & Joseph Hili will be promoted from YDD to a ‘C’ Licence in January 2008. Congratulations to all.

Under 10

 

This group has started its participation in the Y.F.A. Gatorade festival which was officially launched on the 21st November, with 2 good games.  This Group consists of 25 players and all of them are making good progress. Some of the children in the Grp. have been chosen by the Regional Coach Leonard Farrugia for training and participation in M.F.A. Regional Tournaments.

 

Under 11

The inclusion of an extra session for this group, enabling the Coaches to divide the Group on Tuesday only  and prepare suitable training session for each group has proved beneficial to all children. Good progress is being made
by all children.  This experiment will in future be considered for other large Groups.

Under 12

Like the Under 10 Group, this Grp. Will be participating in the Y.F.A. Gatorade festival. Some of the children were chosen by Regional Coach to train and participate in MFA regional tournaments.  As the children in this group will next year form part of the Under 14 squad, they are being included in the under 13 festival organised frequently by our Nursery with Coach Charles Farrugia’s help. Also some players are being allowed to train with the Under 14 Grp. to gain the necessary experience.

Under 14

 

This Group participating in the Y.F.A. League is playing well but somehow is not getting the results it deserves. Although we won 1 game convincingly during November against B’Gia, we lost undeservingly 1-2 against Msida. As I said before this Grp. is mostly Under 13 and will certainly get the desired results the more games they play. Preparation for next year is also being made by the participation of most of the players in our Under 13 festivals.

Under 16

We continue to get positive results in this Grp. and have a 100% record in the Y.F.A. league which is very impressive. However  we have a tendency to slack down during the game when we score 2 or more goals and this if not corrected will prove fatal in future games especially during the direct encounters against the other top 2 teams in the Section.   Our progress in the K.O. competition ended with a defeat against Section A B’Kara with a 2-4 score. Although this is our only competitive defeat this Season, we played a very good game and also had the chances to finish with a draw and take our chances in the penalty shoot-out.
 
Girls

Good results were obtained in this festival, drawing 2, winning 2 and losing 2 by a narrow margin.  Participation in our Festivals and those of other clubs/MFA in  the coming months will continue to improve the Girls squad.  Some modification has been made to the training schedule, doing away with the Monday training so that girls from U6/U9 start training with the boys whilst the others train together as one group.

Under 19

As the results show we won one  game and lost heavily the other. I happened to see the lost match and unfortunately I along with the other members of the Club was totally disappointed with our display. The reason for this is not that we lost but that we gave up playing after our opponents 3rd goal, resulting in a humiliating result. One feels sorry also because there are  good players in the squad and there certainly was no big difference between our team and our opponents.  It is hoped that in future games the good work being done by the Coaches will be backed by the commitment of the players.

Seniors

We could only mange a draw against Kirkop in the only game played this month and our promotion chances although not finished are seriously threatened .

 

Futsal

In this new venture for our Club good results are being obtained and our participation is proving beneficial.

Ladies

As mentioned before, our participation in the M.F.A league with the new team is proving very difficult but with patience and hopefully with the inclusion of the girls from the Nursery in future years we can look forward to having a good squad.

Other activities

 

As usual children from our Nursery with our Coaches went to support our National Team’s game vs Norway which we lost by 1-4.

The programmed games vs Sliema Nursery in our Grounds had to be postponed to another date due to bad weather.

Conclusion

Whilst from the Administration side tremendous work is being done to continue upgrading our facilities, the day to day running of the Nursery with daily training sessions and other activities put a lot of strain on the persons involved and it is good that appreciation is shown for all the work involved by our volounteers.

More persons are needed to work  in our Nursery/Club if we are to continue giving the sterling service we are providing .  Those parents/friends who feel they can make this commitment are to contact the Chairman or the under signed for further details.

I wish all a very Happy and peaceful  Christmas and best wishes for the coming New Year.

Alfred Debono
Head Coach

 

 

Comments on  August/October  2007 Football activities

  I am making some comments on our Nursery’s  football  performance so far during this season and as I did last season I will comment on each Group on a monthly basis, listing the results obtained of competitive matches or official festivals. My main comments will be in the area of my responsibilities i.e. Groups Under 6 to Under 16 forming part of the Nursery but I am also commenting briefly on  the senior  teams and showing their results. Elsewhere on the website you will find other information on the Senior  Groups.

WOMEN

This year we have entered a team to participate in the MFA’s women’s senior league. This was possible because a group of ladies who formed part of the Rabat team asked us if they can participate in the MFA league under the Pembroke Club name and thus forming part of our Club, since Rabat were not competing anymore.  The Seniors committee with the support of the Nursery agreed on this proposal, the reason being that our young girls going 13/14 years, at present cannot participate in any league as it does not exist and now can be slowly introduced to the Seniors league. The squad is coached by an Italian ,Enzo Quarella who is very dedicated in his work.

The first game as the score shows was very tough, against the best team on the competition, whose players are almost all internationals.  However at this point in time, the participation and improvement of the squad is the most important thing.

Meanwhile the Girls section –Under 13 participated in the  MFA tournament getting creditable results. This Group which was started  last year is showing great enthusiasm and is improving a lot. Denise Scerri is coaching the elder girls while Lilian Calleja Cremona is coaching the younger ones.

SENIORS

 

Our Seniors team under the guidance of player coach, Jacques Scerri and assistant coaches Godwin Gatt and Tony Borg, started on a slightly disappointing note in the K/O stage after some very good results in friendlies. However they made up for it  by obtaining two good results in the league, expecially against the more experienced Gzira.. Unfortunately we lost the next game vs Luqa and we must now make a collective  effort to get back on track for our promotion ambitions.

UNDER 19

 

After last season’s promotion to section ‘C’ this group started the season on a disappointing note losing the first 2 matches but after drawing against the  strong team of Qormi, won their last game vs Marsaxlokk  and Fgura. They are now back on track and hopefully will continue so.  A number of players in this age bracket seem to have given up playing  and this is a pity as some of them had very good prospects. Some Under 16 players are being roped in this team for this reason. The Group this year also, is being coached by the hard working Godwin Gatt who has been at the Club for a number of years.
    
UNDER 16

As the results show this Group started on a very positive note and this year should not miss promotion to Section B once this progress is maintained. The Squad is small in number but has talented players. We have also managed to win the preliminary K/O game vs Kirkop in style.   Of course tougher games lie in store for us especially in the K/O competition but if we remain focused and train regularly we should not be afraid of any team.   Alex Calleja who recently obtained the ‘C’ licence coaching grade is coaching this Group  with the assistance of Aaron Tonna and David Said as administrator who are doing a very good job.

UNDER 14

 

The points lost so far  by this group could all have been avoided. Some points were lost due to very poor refeering i.e. vs Balzan, others due to poor finishing i.e. vs St.Patrick and Mgarr, losing also a penalty in each of these last 2  games.  Against St.Patrick we played an excellent game, creating a number of scoring chance whilst against Mgarr we were unlucky to lose both points.

One must however take into consideration the young age of the Group who are all under 13 except for 3 players and this also augurs well for next year’s competition besides we have many more games to play. Experienced Coach Charles Farrugia with his assistant Silvio Sultana are coaching this group.

FRIENDLY FESTIVALS
                                                                                                                                        

A number of festivals have been organised by Charles Farrugia, and these are proving very useful giving  the Under 13 and Under 14 players the required match practice and preparation for next year’s Under 14.

 

UNDER 12

 We have participated in our 1st festival of the season with this Group and considering the opposition mixed results were obtained.  The talented boys in the Group can play much better if we start thinking more as a squad/team than as individuals, starting from the training sessions.  As coach Alex Mifsud already pointed out in his remarks in the Forum Section, this  age group is moving from small sided games (7aside etc) to 11 a side games with rules similar  to the senior level of the game i.e. offside, throw –ins, large grounds etc. Therefore we need to be more disciplined during training to take the full benefit of the sessions.  Special training sessions will be made for those who deserve to be in them. Ray Grech is assisting coach Alex with this group.

 

UNDER 11

This Group has increased in number considerably and the two Coaches, Ricky Pace and Assistant George Caruana have their hands full to conduct the training sessions. Julian Caruana an Under 16 player who recently participated in the CYF Course organised by the M.F.A. is also giving a valuable hand.

So far only friendly matches have been played and one can see from  these that  there is every indication  that the children are improving and moving in the right direction.

UNDER 10

Our first organised festival for this season was for this group and the Under 6. A separate report appears elsewhere on our Website, but I can say that we did very well, winning against St.Patrick, Floriana and losing against Sliema. The group also participated in a triangular festival  in Fgura wherein all boys who did not take part in our Festival, took part, drawing against Fgura twice and winning a game and losing one against Luqa.   Joe Hili coaches this considerably large group and is doing a very good job.

UNDER 8/UNDER 9

These groups have not yet participated in any particular Festival but played a number of friendly matches.  Although I have grouped them  together,r they are 2 separate groups . The under 8 is being coached by Anthony Borg and the Under 9 by Richard Saliba. Both our doing good jobs and there is excellent cooperation between them.

UNDER 7

Coach Liam Camilleri a 1st team player is coaching this group with Rachel Galea and a new coach Patrick Vella is assisting them.  This arrangement is going well with Coach Liam’s experience as a player  helping the kids learn the technical  side of the game whilst Coach Rachel continues to conduct coordination exercises which are very important especially for children .

UNDER 6

Our Youngest Group which comprises also some Under 5 children is being coached by Martin Hili, Joe’s brother. It requires great patience to look after this group because of the tender age of the children but Coach Martin has the necessary qualities  to go a good job.

As I said previously this Group participated in our 1st festival organised on 28/10/07 and besides enjoying themselves, has  shown to possess some promising youngsters.

 

SUNDRY

Groups of children were taken to watch Malta’s home matches vs Turkey and Moldova. Both matches proved thrilling especially the Turkey one and it was a great experience seeing our National Team playing with such confidence.

Before the start of the season in July our last year’s Under 11 group with some Under 12 and Under 10 children participated  in a Tournament in Wales with excellent results.   Full details and photos  can be viewed in the website under ‘overseas trips’.

CONCLUSION

From this short report which includes only the technical side of our Organisation, one can see the number of activities going on in our Nursery and the number of dedicated coaches involved who are making all this activity possible. Considering also the many hours of  training sessions they conduct sometimes under difficult circumstances due to difficult parents who look only for the interest of their own children and forget the others.  Add to this the tremendous amount of work being done by the Administration side also sometimes having to deal with difficult situations, one concludes that our Nursery has come a long way from when it started ten years ago and the future looks bright if we continue to work together for the common goal- EDUCATING OUR CHILDREN THROUGH SPORT.

Alfred Debono           
Head Coach                                                                                                                                                 29/10/07