I saw the Pep effect in full force this morning.
I went to watch my granddaughter playing in hr U13s team. The last I knew, she was a striker, but her coach has moved her to centre-back.
And I could immediately see why. The team, as a whole, try to keep the ball on the ground and pass to each other, but she is on a different level altogether.
She reads the game brilliantly, and always seems to be in the right place at the right time to intercept the ball. Not only that, but she brings it out in the same manner that John Stones does. She even took the ball the whole length of the field and scored.
I know that it’s not right to compare a 12 year old girl with Boulders, but for the different levels of the game, it’s relevant. And while I concede that I was watching her through biased eyes, I wasn’t the only one, who thought so, as she was voted parents' Player of the Match to follow her coaches' Player of the Match last week.
But, as I said at the start of the post, it wasn’t just her; the whole team was passing to feet.
The result? They won 9-0.