Monday, July 27, 2009:



Well, we are all home now and hopefully we have all made our adjustment back to USA time! I know it was great going, but even better coming home! Sean and I arrived in Birmingham at 1:20 PM and Aly arrived at 6:20 PM. After getting home and seeing how much I truly missed it, I was able to spend some quality time with my wife and also with our "Gang of Five". It was wonderful! After picking Aly up and returning home, low and behold my wife had a surprise party waiting on us. We had no idea about this and for the first time in my life, I was truly surprised. I thought all we were going to do was have some cold cuts and fresh pumpernickle, bagels and chalah once we got Aly home. It was a wonderful surprise to have my brother and nephew and his family here as well as all our friends that made this so special. Marie's sister Val and niece Claire from Mobile came up and were in on this from the start. They were such a big help as were our neighbors in helping Marie pull this off. As tired as we were, it was the best of times! Thank you honey for such a great and warm homecoming! I love you!



Now it is time to reflect on our experience for the past 3 and 1/2 weeks that we were away from home. I will once again apologize in advance of this post for my thoughts and open comments.



I can't help but think that this experience was supposed to be in two parts. The first being our pre-camp training/pre-camp touring. In the training segment, we had about 7 training sessions including the games in preparation for the tournament. So really, we had so few sessions to prepare our team and get to understand one another as well as understand Sean and my philosophy and tactical approach to the tournament. In such a short time frame, I truly believe we greatly over achieved as a team that had just been together for 1 week of training prior to the games. The second part of the experience was the games themselves and not only playing these games, but learning what it means to prepare for such a tournament off the field as well as on. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, I said, "everyone has the will to win, but not everone has the will to prepare to win". We tried to teach our kids to think, thus learning to have the will to prepare to win. I think for the most part, we learned that lesson quite well. It certainly showed during group play where we went undefeated, won our group for the first time ever and beat the defending and perennial champions Israel for the first time ever. Our kids were well prepared and more than competitive in these five games. They wanted to do the impossible....get to the medal round! They accomplished this goal with ease. They truly bought in to our philosophy during this time, with no interference from the outside. They were focused and highly motivated to follow our directions and rules and it clearly showed!



Now on to the semi-finals and the question that will always come up in my mind, is what should have been or really what could have been? I will try to answer both of these questions. In what should have been....I believe we should have struggled to make the medal round, based on the short window we had for turning a group of total strangers in to a team. It takes more than 1 week of intense training to mold a cohesive unit into a team of balance, rhythm and flow, while most of our competition had been together as a team for a very long time. The game of soccer is not based on individual talent or skill, but rather on the team functioning as one entity, creating a balance on the field, developing a rhythm in the actual play and creating a great flow to our tactics. You can not take a bunch of individuals, mold them and expect to win every game in such a short time frame. But you can expect them to try and understand the approach to the game and the tactics of the team in order to be successful. So, making the medal round was a great surprise for us. As for what could have been, I will always wonder what the outcomes would have been in the medal round, if we were well rested for the 1 day and a half that we had off before the semi-final game with Argentina. We had to play 2 games in 3 days in order to medal and that being done after playing 5 games in 6 days during the group round. The experience some questioned should have been done during the pre-camp phase of the trip and not during the games themselves. Maybe I am naive, but I thought we were chosen to go to Israel to play in the 18th Maccabiah and focus on that during that time. The experience should have been as a whole, but when it came time for the games, that should have been our total dedicated focus and nothing else. That is why there were try-outs to make this team and why all my emails addressed all these issues before we left for Israel on June 28th. If one attends any try-out in any sport, a prudent person would believe it was to make the team and that was the primary goal. Going and touring Israel was a by-product of this try-out in making the team. If an experience of Israel was all it was supposed to be, then there would not have been the games themselves! When it is time to tour, it is time to tour, but when it is time to play, it is time to play!



As for my players, I want to thank each one of them for the efforts and sacrifices they made in order to be as successful as they were. They were truly everything Sean and I hoped for in picking this team back in December, 2008. My only hope is that they learned from this experience and will continue with their passion for the game of soccer. I also hope they will always continue to think on the field as well as off the field in what is needed to be successful. I shall always remember this time in Israel with a group of kids that greatly over acheived and exceeded all expectations. They are all great kids and I wish them all the best that life has to offer, full of health and happiness. Each one helped to make Sean and my experience that more meaningful. There were bumps along the way, but with every bump, we were able to make the path that much more smooth in our journey!



In closing, there were some other things I wanted to say, but felt this was not the most appropriate venue for sharing those thoughts. So, I will leave it to those that dare to dream and to those that dare not to dream!



The most important part of this blog is in my thank you to all that made this dream possible. First and foremost, I must thank my wonderful and beautiful wife Marie, for all her support to me over all these years and for allowing me to be away from home for the longest we have ever been apart in our 34 years together. Thank you honey and I love you dearly. To my son Sean, for his devotion to me and his companionship during our time in Israel. He was the instrument to our success. His knowledge of the game continues to impress me at any level. He made this trip the most special time in my life. Being together with him and coaching with him, was the greatest experience of my life and to share it in our Ancestral Homeland, made it that much more special. I also wish to thank Maccabi USA for allowing me this unique and rare opportunity and for allowing me to do it with my son. I also want to thank my daughter Aly, for continuing to always make me so very proud to be her father. Her accomplishments at the games, is true testament to her devotion, commitment and integrity to her her chosen sport. The ultimate devotion to her team, came when she was asked to run the half marathon to make the USA be a team in the competition. Not being a distance runner at anytime in her life, this was a truly an amazing feat, just to compete. But, Aly being Aly, she is the ultimate team player and has always put her team ahead of herself. She not only ran the complete half marathon (13.1 miles), but she ran it at a 7 minute 47 second pace for a 7th place and helped to secure the silver medal for her team. I must also thank my employer, Birmingham-Southern College and my long time assistant coach and great friend, Greg Vinson for allowing me to do this journey. And to my new friends I made while in Israel, Barry Kaplan (a long time freind), Adam Cooper, Ami Monson, Roni Schneider, Harold Friedman, Mark Knue our overall Soccer Chairman and many others, thank you for allowing me to have such an enjoyable time and spending it all with you made it that much more enjoyable. I shall always remember with great fondness, the joy and laughter you brought each and every day and night to the Spades games and to this experience.



Thank you all for reading my daily blogs and sharing in this experience with Sean, Aly and me. It has been one of the greatest moments in my life, behind having the greatest parents and brother a boy could ever dream of having, getting married to the heart of my life, Marie and having the two most wonderful children in the world. I am truly blessed!



Take care and stay well!



With my warmest regards,

Preston and Sean from the USA