Every so often over the next week and a half, UTPA women's soccer head coach Glad Bugariu, also the head coach of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines women's national team, will blog about his experiences during the time leading up to, and in the Winward Islands Football Association Championship.

March 13
We had our first training session, meaning our first opportunity to really asses the level of play and the overall speed of play, so I decided on a series of challenging training activities that forced players to think ahead and make decisions. The level between the top players and bottom players is vast, technically speaking, but I believe that the top 18 players can compete with any of the surrounding countries. However, we have loads of work to do these next few days, especially as we have only a limited amount of time together.
 
March 14
Only one session today as it is National Heroes Day, a massive holiday, and there are many events and celebrations in throughout the country. I have been told there is a little we can do as all of these events will take up any training space that we have. We had a great breakfast, a good session focusing on defensive organization, and then a nice lunch near the ocean. Overall, I am enjoying the players and staff. The people of St. Vincent are very nice and welcoming, I hope my presence around this team will not only improve them, but show women's footballers in this country that there are tons of opportunities available for females to continue to play at the next level.
 
March 15
It's already time for our first friendly game, as we took on a boys U17 team from the local league. As you can see, the pitch is not really up to standard, so we had some difficulties in controlling the ball in a 3-1 loss. However, not a bad outing considering we played a team bigger, faster, and stronger than us. And we did score a cracking goal. Some goalkeeper issues contributed to our result, but overall, it wasn't too bad considering we have had limited time together. I took a backseat approach with this game as I am still learning players' names and positions. I spent a significant amount of time analyzing the game with the Technical Director Keith Ollivierre on our bench… which was an abandoned boat.
 
March 16
Today I presented some information about our women's soccer team along with a power point presentation on our game model. Basically, it was about how we design our teams from a tactical point of view, focusing on attacking and defending principles, coupled with our emphasis on the five pillars of tactics our team uses.
 
The entire national coaching staff was present, both men and women, and we discussed how our structure can be created in a place of limited resources. There was great discussion and it was a very pleasant experience to exchange ideas and philosophies.
 
March 17
Today we held the first of two goalkeeper-training sessions for some of the national team goalkeepers. With the help of the national team goalkeeper coach, "Fingers," we trained a group of three from the men's national team pool. They're a very enthusiastic group with a varied amount of talent. I enjoyed working with them.

This afternoon we have another women's national team training session where we will work more on defensive organization.

Past Entries
Entry One: The Journey

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