Player Information Form

Remember to fill out the Player Information Form so that we have your information for the coming soccer season. Go to: angelcityfc.com/players.asp.

Schedule and Finances Update

1. ACFC's next practice is Jan. 3 at 10 am at Playa Vista. This was originally planned to be a 7 v 7 tournament, but it has been changed to be an inter-squad 11 v 11 scrimmage. ALL ACFC PLAYERS are invited. But please e-mail Ben to confirm your attendance

2. The over 30 team will begin their season on Jan. 13. Even though the league promised us Thursday nights, they changed our schedule to Tuesday nights. If this affects anyone's ability to play, please let Ben know. We have more players interested in playing than we can carry on the roster, so we will notify each of you about your status following the scrimmage on Jan. 3. After three months of practicing, Jan. 3 will be your last chance to make a case for a starting spot on that team.

3. We're waiting on confirmation from the Santa Monica League, but the 7 v 7 leagues will almost definitely be played on Saturday mornings, beginning on Feb. 7. We will complete our final 7 v 7 preparations on Jan. 17 and 24 (10am, Playa Vista). This will include splitting up into three teams and playing matches.

4. Please check the updated schedule at http://www.angelcityfc.com/fixtures.asp for all the schedule changes.

5. Until ACFC gets sponsorship, players have to split all costs equally. That means it will continue to cost $5/player every time we practice on a synthetic field. Also, the leagues we join all have registration and ref fees. Those are divided equally among the players on each team. The fee to play on the 30+ team will be $70/player for 14 games. ($5/game) The fee to play on one of the 7 v 7 teams will be $70/player for 10 games. Uniform jerseys will be provided for you on game day. You will be expected to supply your own black shorts and black socks. We will contact each of you in the coming weeks to let you know which team you're on and how much money it will cost you. We work really hard to keep these fees as low as possible. No one is profiting from this financially and right now the club is operating with no money in reserve. That means that when one of you doesn't pay a fee, it comes directly out of team official's pockets. Almost everyone has been good about paying their practice fees. To those of you who owe fees, we'd appreciate it if you didn't wait for us to seek you out. All fees will continue to be paid to club treasurer Pete Wasek.

Thanks and all the best for 2009.

Ben Kull, ACFC Manager
Billy Alarcon, ACFC Coach
Peter Wasek, ACFC Treasurer
Rahoul Ghose, ACFC Web Producer

Pre-season prescription for injury prevention

Rahoul Ghose
ACFC Web Producer

In an all-encompassing game like soccer, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” when it comes to avoiding unnecessary injury.

Whether you’re a competitive footballer contesting the English Premiership, or a local soccer enthusiast playing 7s at the Santa Monica Airport, an injury free season – while never guaranteed – is much more achievable with the correct equipment and training practices.

Personal fitness should always be on the top of that ‘to do’ list of pre-season goals. But the method and order of training routines is as important as the duration and types of training you do.

For instance, prior to any practice or match a good stretching routine can help to prevent strains and even muscle tears. But before the stretching can truly be effective it is always a good idea to warm up your muscles with a few laps around the field. Include forward, backwards and side-to-side (crossover) movement as well as raised knees and butt kicks during the laps, dividing the laps into quarters where movements transition.

Stretching cold muscles can often do more harm than good. An even more common recipe for injury is starting your soccer routine with either long passes or hard shots on goal, which require a wide range of movement and produce a sharp impact on muscles. This habit can result in groin and hamstring pulls, especially in older players. Warm-up laps and a full stretching routine from head to toe should always precede heavy on field exercise or game play. The same routine should also become part of your end routine – ending practice with a warm-down lap and stretches. Maintaining this cycle will keep your training effective and productive.

With the movement towards all-weather artificial turf fields, equipment choices can also affect your susceptibility to common injuries: muscle pulls, turned or twisted ankles, knee hyperextensions, etc.

Boot choice, and in particular cleat patterns, can play a role in ankle and knee injuries. While boots with blade-like cleats (such as adidas Predators) are very effective on grass pitches – where the ground breaks away easily – they are a common cause of turned and twisted ankles on turf pitches, which have no give if a cleat gets caught. This effect can even extend up the leg into knee injuries as extra pressure is put on the ligaments if a boot gets caught and a leg twists.

For turf fields, obviously rubber turf shoes are ideal, with a greater concentration of lower profile studs. However, for those who want a multi-use boot for turf and grass, one with rounded cleats is far more advisable as it is less likely to get caught on the turf.

Leather outers are also preferable to nylon plastic ones which provide less cushion if you’re stepped on. Look for a boot with a thicker upper lip. There are a multitude of small bones in the foot which can be broken if you are stepped on in the wrong way. Metatarsal injuries have sidelined many pro strikers for weeks or even months.

A regular routine of taping ankles and using shin guard anklets can also strengthen your ankles for inevitable tackles and collisions during game play. Both thicker, wider sports tape or thinner and more flexible electrical tape can provide added support. Tape should be wrapped around both sides of the ankle and under the foot in a figure eight pattern. This will still allow movement, but will prevent unwanted turns for those with already injured or weakened ankle ligaments.

Another recent addition to the soccer equipment arsenal is compression wear. All major companies produce a version – adidas, nike, Puma, Under Armour – of both shorts and shirts. Compression shorts, in particular, have lowered the instance of groin and hamstring injuries by helping to prevent over extension during tackles and shots. Cost for the shorts can range anywhere from about $20 to more than $60 for the more technical varieties, which include rubber ribbing for added support.

Compression shirts can help to maintain upper body strength as a player tires. These are available in short, long and no sleeve versions. While compression wear is particularly useful for colder weather play, when it takes longer for muscles to warm up, they can be equally effective in the summer months at preventing injury.

Ultimately, nothing will make you 100 per cent injury proof. But following proper warm-up and stretching routines and choosing equipment suited to the playing environment can keep you on the field longer and performing better.

Football Movie links

If you're looking for a stocking stuffer for the holidays, I've added another links section of great to decent Football movies with links to Amazon where you can purchase them. My top five list would be:

Kicking It: a documentary about the World Cup for homeless people, set in South Africa

The Other Final: a documentary about a match set up between two of the lowest ranked World Cup teams Bhutan and Montserrat

The Football Factory: a study of Middle England Football violence and male culture, based on a novel by John King

The Cup: World Cup soccer fever sweeps into a remote Himalayan monastery and centuries-old traditions are threatened the young monks will do just about anything to watch the final match, posing a unique challenge to the venerable lamas in charge.

There's Only One Jimmy Grimble: Jimmy Grimble (played by Lewis McKenzie) is a little guy who wants to play on the Greenock High School football team in Manchester, England. The team is being contingently sponsored by the father of the team's star, 'Gorgeous' Gordon Burley (played by Bobby Power). Gordon and his pals constantly bully Jimmy. On one occasion, Jimmy hides out with a homeless woman (played by Jane Laptaire), who gives him an old 'magic' pair of football cleats. Unimpressed, Jimmy tosses them away. The next day, Gordon throws Jimmy's regular shoes into a garbage truck. Desperate, Jimmy retrieves the 'magic' shoes and becomes the team's leading scorer. The team wins, making it to the high school finals. A scout for Manchester United will be watching. Then Gordon throws the 'magic' shoes into a canal. What is Jimmy to do?

Look for Angel City FC to be hosting some football movie nights in 2009.

7 v 7 update

Just wanted to update you guys on our plans for next season in the 7 v 7 Santa Monica League.

We're planning on having 3 distinct teams, which will play in different divisions. Most likely all our games will be on Saturday morning. Each team will have 11 full time players. Unlike last year, we're going to try to keep the same groups of players together for the entire season. Only in emergencies will players be asked to play in more than one game.

As we practice, you'll begin to notice that Coach and I will be starting to group you with many of the same guys each week. This will be experimental at first and will evolve into the final formations at the end of December.

As of now it doesn't look like we'll be playing 7s on weekdays, so if you have offers to play on other teams on weeknights, that will probably fit into our schedule. But keep in mind that we'll probably be practicing on Monday nights and playing in the Municipal league on Thursday nights, starting in late January.

I'll keep you informed as we get closer to the start of the season. Until then, practices will continue to be on Monday nights.

Thanks.

Ben

Slideshows and Links

SLIDESHOW USE AND PHOTO SUBMISSIONS

Check out our two slideshows at the right. Clicking on the rotating images will take you to the full Flickr or Picasa gallery. If you have any team photos you would like added to the gallery, please e-mail them to Billy Alarcon at balarcon@angelcityfc.com with a small description and the photographers name.

LINKS

We have also added a useful Football Links section. If you know of any more links you would like added, send them to producer@angelcityfc.com.

Buy ACFC Gear Online

The Angel City FC website now has a link to the club's Cafe Press storefront, where you can purchase all types of logo wear and items.

Click here

Welcome to the ACFC Blog

Welcome to the angelcityfc.com Blog, a resource for all club players to hear and see what's going on through small articles and photo updates.

Check out the Slide Show feature for recent pics of the team's activities both on and off the field. Manager Ben Kull and Web Producer Rahoul Ghose will try to keep you up to date on all ACFC happenings. And feel free to comment on postings so we start to build ACFC's online community.

This past weekend's friendly at Playa Vista is featured in the slide show, and look for images from the Santa Monica Adult Soccer Thanksgiving Tournament soon.