What a game, what a night, what an occasion!

In front of a record crowd, our team ended their season in a heartbreaking way...it was suddenly all over.

We played the semi final of the conference tournament seeded #2 against the #3 seed. Previous encounters this season went to OT with us winning one and the other remaining a tie.

So, how do you prepare your players for the biggest game of their lives so far?

We play in a few hours, we play the semi final of our conference tournament at home in front of the biggest crowd of our careers.....

Last night we gave them the night off from practice so that they would be rested and refreshed for today.

We finished the regular conference games this weekend extending our unbeaten run to 11 games. We have only conceded 6 goals in the last 10 games, so our defense deserves a lot of credit.

When I say our defense, I should really say our defensive play. We have to defend from all positions all over the pitch and the hardwork our forwards put in pressurising the opponents in our attacking third deserves as much credit as the defenders working hard in and around our penalty box.

Sometimes you just have to win ugly. Do whatever it takes and just get the job done. In what was our worst performance of the regular season we ran out 2-0 winners away from home to qualify for Play Offs with 2 games remaining.

This was a tough game for us. We were playing on the worst field in the league, rock hard, bumpy, bone dry, uneven.

In another incredible performance the team extended their unbeaten record to 7 games made up of 5 wins and 2 ties.

What a game! We were tied 0-0 until the 73 minute and were awarded a penalty to go up 1-0. The opposition came back and tied the game up in the 83rd minute. We won the game in the 88th minute from a header from a deep free kick into the box.

Wow, we are having a great season. The stats show this is the best season for this team since 1995! We are currently enjoying a 6 game unbeaten run with 4 wins and 2 ties.

I have learned a tremendous amount this season so far and I am sure over the remaining 5 games of the regular season I will learn some more very valuable lessons.

Yesterday my players played away at a conference rival's and ended a 24 game losing streak. During this time the team scored a total of 14 goals and conceded over 100 goals!

We played very well, we were disciplined, kept our shape and held the opposition to a 0-0 tie. The game went into golden goal overtime and the game remained 0-0.

After losing on Wednesday 1-0 away from home, we decided to dedicate Thursday and Friday's practices to shooting and finishing...boy did that idea pay off!!!

We played away against a school who had a record of 19 wins and 1 loss against us over the last 10 years. In that time we only scored a total of 4 goals to their 80 goals!

So, soccer can be a cruel game and it can also have the last laugh as we demonstrated on Saturday. The players went from feeling like they were on the top of the world, to feeling like they had been ripped off by the tooth fairy!

We played a team we were more than capable of beating. Very close contest, matched each other exactly in shots and corners, they had 31 fouls, we had 10, so maybe that was a factor.

Wow......what a start to our college soccer season!!

Home game against the reigning conference champions, actually they have won the conference for the last 8 years.

They have beaten us for the last 21 games straight.

Until last night that is!!!!

Last night had to be the best game of my life as a coach.

OK, we are now two games into pre season and we came down to earth with a bump last night.

We played against a school with three times the enrollment we have, a school that has had its best start to a season in their history, a team that was 3-0 and had scored 14 goals conceding none....we lost 4-0.

Ok, today is all about recovery, repair, review and fine tune. Fortunately it is not about going back to the drawing board.

This morning we had a team meeting, then the players who were used last night did their recovery run. At the same time I had a meeting with the players who did not play last night to make sure they understood their roles within the team.

Ok, we got the season underway and ground out a win, posting a 4-3 victory.

We went 3-0 up, then 4-1 and died a little in the last few minutes of the game and gave up a tap in and a penalty.

Most importantly, we notched our first win of the season and we are very grateful.

We looked fantastic for about 70% of the game.

OK, all the hardwork has been completed and the players are rested, refreshed and raring to go.

Tonight we entertain a fellow NCAA Division III team from Rhode Island.

We have completed our final preparations albeit hampered a little bit with the fires here in Southern California.

The players got to sleep in a bit this morning and then we had a team meeting at 9.

OK, so we are now on our official 48hour countdown to our first game on Thursday. Today we had a decent practice, working on our midfielders and finishing.

We had to cancel tonight's practice due to the fires here in L.A. so we had a chalk and talk session regarding attacking set plays.

Here are some useful facts about attacking set plays:

1.

Now that the European Leagues are having their break, the agents, managers and press are all busy working away to keep us all interested in what is going on with our respective favorite teams.

Blackburn Rovers are supposedly selling Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City and Matty Derbyshire to Olympiakos.

OK, so we now have World Cup Qualifiers to watch over the next few days. Some of them will be great games, some of them will be a formality. All of them present us with opportunities to learn more about the game so that we can take this new found knowledge onto the practice field.

Here are my Top 5 Things to look for in a soccer game:

1.

Fantastic scenes as Wembley on Monday as Burnley won their play off against Sheffield United and will now play in the English Premier League.

As a Blackburn Rovers fan it is amazing to see Burnley make the top flight of football. For those of you who don't know, Blackburn and Burnley are bitter, bitter rivals.

Well, for all the build up, "Survival Sunday," turned out to be "Sleepy Sunday" in my opinion. I had the misfortune to endure the game between Hull City and the Manchester United 3rd Team and boy did it suck. The only ray of sunshine was the thunderbolt from Darren Gibson to win the game. He then went on to prove that his strike was out of the norm with two more shots from a similar position that sailed at least 20 feet over the bar.

OK, we are in for a great finish to the English Premier League, not so much for the Champions who look certain to be Manchester United, but the dogfight to avoid relegation is going to be massive.

There are still a number of teams fighting for their survival and it is going to go down to the wire.