Topic: A nightmare

[snake eyes]

Ha Ha thats some funny sh**! I am with you guys on this one, goalies that feel less pressured normally play better. I will say I have been guilty of this in the past as I started out playing nets for my buddy and teacher of the game. He was pretty rough on me although I idolized his amazing skills. When I switched to playing forward I caught myself more than once fragging my novice goalkeeper. I have found that explaining standard zone defense eliminates alot of early problems, experience talks in this game/sport and the ones that won't listen to any of your advice are most likely going to be forever stuck with weak game.  Snake

[wildcard]

Don't worry about it OM, I doubt that your partner could do much better or he would have been smart enough to make a strategic switch when he realized that the combination of you getting lit up and he getting blanked and allowing your opponent a disastrous amount of possessions isn't going to win the match. A good forward is like a good quarterback, he has to know when to try a TD pass, and when to hand off.  A good forward would realize that something needed to be done to break the opponents' momentum, and that something isn't letting the opposing forward have the satisfaction of seeing a meltdown and knowing that he is in your forwards' head. To me one facet of being a great forward is to know when their own game is on the fritz and try to fix themselves before they start making their goalie the goat. Unfortunately there are many out there whose egos won't let them do anything but go down in flames and play the blame game rather than swallowing their pride and mixing things up a bit. They may find if they would play more as a TEAM and less as the designated "boss" then more wins would result with goalies that they don't often play with. One of my biggest pet peeves is when my forward self-destructs and instead of taking a deep breath (and allowing me to do the same) after I get scored on, instead just immediately puts the next ball in play without thought, gets his pass stolen and now it is again on the opposing forwards' 3row within 15 seconds of their last score. That puts a lot of pressure on a goalie as well as giving the opposing forwards' muscle memory another quick shot. I don't think there is anyone who won't agree that the less an opposing forward has the ball on their 3row then the higher the chance that they may not convert their next scoring opportunity due to their own frustration and wanting to "quick shoot" or even just a product of their arm "cooling off".

I know you are good at keeping stats, so next time keep a mental record of how many blocks, clears, successful passes and scores you make versus how many easy rebounds, poor passes, or poor shots you coughed up to the opposing forward in a given match. If your percentages are on the plus side, then your forward needs to put up, or STFU. If you are making it easy on the opposing forward through poor decisions in your own play, then you are indeed putting a lot of pressure on your forward's mental game, which may not be as good as he thinks. And don't beat yourself up over it, there are many good forwards that can only play at a high level when they have their favorite goalie in the nets, but when they don't get the safety net of having a solid brickwall goalie then that is the true measure of their mental toughness by figuring out how to adjust their OWN game to turn things around. If they can't do that, then maybe THEY shouldn't be playing forward.


Note to Buckshot: Make sure that you have cookies enabled for foosball.com...not a guarantee, but it could be that during a site refresh or a browser refresh you are being logged back out and so your post is lost to limbo. Your cookies are what lets the site identify you and save your place. If that doesn't work, then try composing your post in Notepad or Wordpad, refresh your browser, then copy/paste it in its entirety and hit the post button. Hope this helps.

[Buckshot]

Thanks for the note, Wildcard.

Your comments are intelligent, interesting and true. A forward who is rattled and trying for the quick score rather than taking a deep breath and thinking about how to optimize his play is a lot like a poker player who just took a big hit and goes on tilt. He starts playing weak hands over aggressively and his opponents see this and take advantage of him, i.e., they smell blood and move in for the kill.

When your emotions affect your play, in either poker or foosball, it's time to take a timeout.

[Old Meister]

The point or gist of this thread was to show how hard it is to get into a good place mentally when your partner disrespects your game. I don't put any blame on my forward for not blocking better as that WAS on me. The problem I had was how quickly this partner took it upon himself to "train me" thus disrespecting me which really threw me off. The player we were playing is a complete player, really smart, does excellent reads and execution. The only way to beat him is to catch him on a bad day or you really have a good day. He was really really good that day and I was trying to pull something out of my butt to put him off. How can you do that when your forward then decides to take it upon himself to tell you not to do this and to do that? It was a nightmare and that is why I shared it. Playing really good and smart players requires a lot of thought and concentration and strategy. Strategy doesn't happen without thought and concentration and you can't have that without a clear path to operate, which is something a partner has to allow to happen, be on the same side, not against you.