Tampa Day 3: Getting educated

When Teddington Athletic started investigating a Florida tour, it was to give the girls new experiences and new lessons. Their first Stateside matchday brought both.

Experientially, these may be the hottest conditions the girls ever play in. With the kick-off brought forward to 2pm, the mercury touched 85˚F (30˚C) with 90% humidity. It’s the first time your reporter has stood at the side of the pitch wondering whether to go trainers, boots or barefoot. As the teams warmed up – a wholly unsuitable term for the situation – Tampa Bay United’s affable chief George Fotopoulos arrived pitchside in a motorised buggy filled with water and ice for the participants.

For the first time on the Florida tour, the sun came out, short shadows scuttling underfoot on the artificial turf. Three hours later, on returning to the resort, the girls would discover it had suffered another tropical downpour. How they wished for one during the game.

The girls in their special Tampa-tour kit, 

kindly sponsored by RDT Office Solutions

Teddington started with the same team that had annihilated Abbey early doors, but here it was Tampa taking the early initiative, going in front after three minutes. In what would prove their preferred pattern of play, the hosts fed the supremely speedy left-winger, who cut inside and crossed. Teddington turned down a couple of opportunities to clear it but Tampa were much less fussy, driving low past Ruby to open the scoring.

The visitors had been prepared to face a team with a rare combination of physical and technical supremacy. Not only are Tampa Bay United’s U14 Elite girls the state champions, they are also – in a country obsessed with ranking its sports teams – officially the best in the land. Passing in triangles with pace and purpose, they immediately worried Teddington, who were also rather too keen on occasion to contribute to their own downfall.

Still, the visitors showed glimpses of their own considerable ability. In the 10th minute, realising they generally couldn’t dribble past or outpace their opponents, they started passing the ball instead, and immediately cut through the vaunted home team: Doddsy fed Carla on the left, who linked up with front-runner Boz to force a corner. 

Playing a passing game requires familiarity and continuity, but in this heat the bigger requirement was multiple substitutions, and Teddington struggled to establish a rhythm. Just before the first water break, a Millie T tackle was adjudged to be a penalty. The striker rolled it confidently toward the bottom corner, but Ruby dived full-length to her right to stop it – her second penalty save, following a crucial stop at Fleet late last season.

Teddington came within five minutes of making it to half-time a single goal behind, but Tampa doubled their lead when another left-wing cross was pulled back for a striker who’d broken clear of the centre-backs to slot the ball under Ruby’s dive. And three minutes later it was 3-0 when Teddington failed to clear a corner; despite Carla’s best efforts to throw herself in front of the ball, the rebound was tucked away.

A positive half-time team-talk, held under what Tampa called “the shade trees”, couldn’t stop Teddington going 4-0 down two minutes after the break with another preventable goal. Ruby had done well to push a shot round the post, although it may have been going wide anyway; certainly the corner should have been cleared instead of bouncing at the near post, and Tampa punished the hesitancy with a game-killing fourth goal.

Four became five on 51 minutes – Tampa cutting through from the right wing for a change, and hammering past a somewhat dazed Ruby – and six on 58 minutes, when a ball across the six-yard area was tapped home by the tiny No.9, over whom even Amy would have a height advantage.  

By the time of the second mid-half water-break, Tampa may have been tempted to take their foot of the gas, except that they seemed to be fielding a few trialists who wanted to prove themselves; instead it was the visitors who proved a point or two. Teddington were pushing players into all manner of unusual positions to fill the XI, and some of the girls were finding hidden reserves of courage.

Not only were they continuing to battle despite the heat and scoreline, but many were experiencing new positions. When Anna needed a rest, Amy filled in well at right-back; when Sas succumbed to the weather, Macca took her left-back slot; Carla showed good promise in defensive midfield then even slotted in at centre-back.

Such positional flexibility – not only a boon to coach and team, but also brilliantly educational for the girls – is already a feature of Teddington’s squad, displayed by reliable performers like Bash (left or right wing), Boz (right-wing or up front) and Doddsy (who in one particularly hectic five-minute spell moved from midfield to centre-forward to centre-back).

Indeed, in the 64th minute, emergency left-back Macca displayed Saskia-like qualities in intercepting a cross, looking up and playing a superb first-time daisy-cutter up the middle to Doddsy, now operating as the main striker. She outmuscled and outpaced the defender, her shot from outside the box toward the bottom-left corner just about being pushed round the post by the goalkeeper.

From the corner, Macca hared up to play a one-two with Boz, whose cross allowed Emily Coulson to set for Doddsy to fire narrowly over.

A minute later, Teddington got a consolation goal that was very fine indeed. Playing out from the back, Ruby and Doddsy – now at centre-back, Ale having come on for the exhausted Millie T, who had lasted over an hour and allowed herself a deserved air-punch as she came off – calmly passed the ball between each other until Doddsy made space to find Boz in right midfield.

Boz laid it inside for Emily C, who immediately tried to switch the ball for left-winger Phoebe. That was blocked, but Em picked up the loose ball and instead sent a clever ball down the right, where Boz was on her bike and pedalling. Hitting the byline, Boz pulled out a typically excellent cross which sailed over Ale’s near-post run because she had perfectly picked out Phoebe at the back stick, who scored what she proudly noted afterwards was her first-ever header. A new experience for a fine player, and the least that Teddington deserved.

After the match, as the girls tucked into well-deserved pasta and meatballs, the exemplary hosts took justified pride in showing some of their trophies. Turns out that the U14 girls aren’t the only TBU team ranked No.1 in the US: so are the U13s, and indeed at just about every level up to adulthood, Tampa’s female teams are in the top three or four; at some age levels, they’ve got the top two teams. Clearly, this is A Proper Club.

For their part, Teddington need to keep learning. This was the hardest fixture of the tour; on Tuesday they’ll face Tampa’s U13 Elite – also national champions, but a year younger – before two more games on Friday and Saturday against a mixture of girls that George Fotopoulos will carefully gauge in an attempt to create close games. 

Those fixtures will also be held outside the searing heat of afternoon, in either the evening or mid-morning. That may help Teddington to overcome one of their biggest enemies – allowing the conditions, which cannot be changed, to affect their thought processes.  

There are other things that Teddington can do to help themselves. There is no shame in losing to such a good team, but the majority of the goals were preventable. That’s a shame, because when they started to play the game the way the normally intend to, they looked like they belonged on the same pitch as the USA’s finest side. This game brought new experiences, and it also brought new lessons. Teddington can benefit from both.

TEDDINGTON ATHLETIC Ruby Rudkin, Anna Kauffmann, Ella Waldron, Millie Theobald, Saskia Brewster, Amy Hallett, Phoebe Head (1), Ella Dodd, Emily Coulson, Carla Novakovic, Ella Bothamley. Subs Millie MacEacharn, Liz Kriebel, Sadie Day, Emily Bashford, Ale Fairn