Maciej Tarnogrodzki took over as manager of UCD’s Under 19 side ahead of the 2017 season, after the students won the league in 2016, and here he reflects on his first season in charge of the next generation of students.
The 42 year-old Polish coach previously coached at Shelbourne and Bray Wanderers, and was interim Manager at the Seasiders when Alan Mathews resigned in 2015.
First off we spoke about the crazy league semi-final defeat to St Patrick’s Athletic, in a game that finished 7-4 to put an end to their season.
“It was our worst defensive performance of the season. Throughout the whole league campaign we conceded the least goals together with Cork from all the teams, but on Saturday we had a really bad day in that regard and that was very disappointing.”
“The game started very unfortunate for us with a very unlucky own goal and soon after that a missed clearance, plus our defender slipping and the Pats striker found himself one on one with the keeper. Two unfortunate situations and we were two goals down. We created a couple of chances and started to play well at the end of the 1st half and scored with very good finish by Neil Farrugia after good team build up and an assist by Yoyo Mahdy.”
“We were confident that in the 2nd half we could scored a couple of goals and dominate the game, however within a period of about 10-15 minutes we conceded a couple of goals after some poor marking and individual mistakes.”
“Credit has to be given to the St Pats forwards who capitalised on those errors and finished them well. We were 5-1 down with 25 minutes to go and after Sean McDonald was introduced he immediately scored 2 very good goals, plus Simon Power added another one to make it 5-4, with 3-4 minutes left of the regular time plus injury time.”
“During that period we completely dominated the game, pushing players forward from both flanks and playing basically 3 strikers up front. We felt we could go and score another one or two goals.”
“However the goal for 6-4 killed the game and it was very bad defending from our side with a couple of defenders making mistakes and allowing the Pats player to go round them from the corner of the pitch and making an assist for the goal.”
“The last goal was an empty netter as we pushed everyone, including our goalkeeper Conor Kearns for the corner kick. Overall St. Patrick’s Athletic were very clinical on the day and they deserved to win the match.”
UCD also reached the final of the Enda McGuill Cup, but were unfortunate to lose out on penalties to Dundalk, and then found themselves qualified for the UEFA Youth League. In that competition they were drawn against top Norwegian side Molde. They won the 1st leg 2-1 and lost the 2nd leg to the same scoreline, but yet again, a penalty shoot-out proved their undoing
Tarnogrodzki said, “We were involved in many important games in the last two months but unfortunately we missed out on a chance to win the Cup Final after conceding with the last kick of the game, plus we drew 3-3 on aggregate but lost out on a penalty shoot-out to a very strong Molde team in the UEFA Youth League. From my own personal perspective the season was a bit of the failure because myself as manager didn’t deliver any trophies.”
“However, from a development point of view I think couple of players improved and grew as footballers and we as a team, together with Darren and myself and the rest of coaching staff, gained some good experience throughout. We tried to play good positive football in all of the matches we played, and it takes a bit of time to build that and possibly at the end of the season we missed a little bit to finish as winners with this type of football.”
How has he enjoyed his first season at the College? “My first year in UCD was very good. I enjoyed working with all the players and coaches. The players were very professional, disciplined and willing to improve as footballers. I had very good support from Diarmuid McNally, Albert Sugg and Tony Sheridan who manage the UCD football club, so overall from that perspective it was very positive.”
On the league itself, Tarnogrodzki had some thoughts on it’s future, and says that it’s something he’s discussed with many other coaches who are also in agreement.
Tarnogrodzki said, “I think the league winners should be decided in the league itself and not in the play offs as there is a chance that team who finished 4th in a respective league can win the league, which in my opinion, it shouldn’t be like that. The league should be decided on the hard work you put in throughout the 10 months, and then you can still win it with 2 or 3 bad days as happens to the best teams in every league.”
“You might have a very good season throughout and one off in a quarter-final decides that you are out of league competition. We already have a cup competition in that format. Perhaps two leagues ( A Premier Division and First Division with relegation promotion format as it in senior football), with the top 5 teams from each group in a transition season create the new format for the next year.”
“In my opinion that will create a very good top league with players playing against the best, but also 1st Division teams will have a big incentive to go up if they do well. Or to have a bigger 18-20 team league with 34 - 38 games, they’d be playing more often as I think 18 competitive league games with 22 players in the squad it’s not enough. Players need more games at that age.”
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