Imagine this: Its the local derby. The crowd are roaring the team onto the pitch. You could cut the tension with a knife. 5 minutes into the game disaster strikes: a diving header at the far post from Emayl, (your Estonian centre back) puts you one up. Emayl throws his shirt into the crowd in jubilation. Your team get excited about the scoreline and your midfielders lose concentration. A quick throughball by the opposition and their striker is through on goal. But Emayl is with the stewards trying to find his shirt in a melle of hysterical, drunken fans. The striker rounds the keeper and equalises within a minute of you going ahead.
     So whats the moral of this story? Yes, your right - your team scored too early and you paid the price.
     "Rubbish!" some people scoff. "A goal for your team is beneficial regardless of when it happens. Thats a fact". Well yes and no. The dynamics of football mean that just because you have scored a goal, doesn't mean that will be beneficial in the end. Just look at the initial example. Team 'A' scored quickly in the kick-off and subsequently team 'B' equalised soon afterwards. How has team 'A' benefitted from scoring? The aggregate is still ends up being the same!
     "Yes, but if your team had stopped the other team scoring you would have benefitted!" Thats true. But they didn't. You must learn from experience or you won't get anywhere.
     If you score too early, you are likely to annoy and aggrevate the opposition. This will make them want to score even more - this is tactically devastating! Also the fact that you scored early meant that they have more time to score goals against you - arrgghhh!!!!
     So when is the best time to score then? The answer is to score as late in the game as possible, thus the opposition are less likely to be able to get goals back. This then diverts the problem of scoring too early towards not letting in any goals before your team scores that very late winner. Well, I'll have to leave that problem to a later date. TTFN...