This is the first year that Matthew can attend the full day camp….that means being able to compete in the world cup competitions that end the camp on Saturday.
Matthew comes home the first day and reports that a) his team has named themselves the Brazilian Blackhawks and b) he’s on the same team as his good buddy Greg. Suzanne and I think this is a good thing….we have a hard time imagining a team that’s going to have two good/great players like Greg and Matthew, but, as the week goes on, Matthew reports that they are losing the games during the week…so maybe there’s more to it.
Every day, at the end of the day, the campers get together and each team’s coach names a “total player of the day”…..Matthew didn’t win this Tues, or Wed, and Thurs….and of course he’s been very frustrated by this (and doesn’t understand that this ‘award’ isn’t all about who’s the best at soccer). On Friday, when I go to pick the kids up, I get there early enough to see part of the competition. Matthew’s back on defense (and, at this age, the fields are about half-sized) with Greg…and Greg gets the ball and passes it across the field over to Matthew who one-times it into the goal, over everyone on both teams (including the goalie, who had no shot, the ball went into the goal between the top of the goalie’s outstretched hands and the top bar of the goal. Both coaches are saying ‘wow!’…he’s really happy….was a good moment and happily, he made his goal of ‘total player of the day' that afternoon as well.
Matthew made a picture to show Mom his goal
So, Saturday arrives and Suzanne and I are walking all over the park that the camp is held at trying to see all three boys play. Suzanne gets over to Matthew’s game first; I’ve stopped to tape a Christopher game before heading over there. When I get there, Suzanne says “I still don’t believe this team has lost a game this week”. Turns out, aside from Greg and Matthew, the other 3 boys are good and the girls on the team are good as well. The Blackhawks easily rolled to the world cup championship; In all the times I watched the team, they gave up one goal in 5 games, and that goal came when the goalie was hurt, lying in the middle of the field crying, and the other team dribbled around and scored.
Matthew and Greg
Video highlights of Matthew’s day can be found here. They also award a total player of the week award with a nice trophy….we’re not quite sure how Matthew missed out on that.
The other Matthew highlights involve the shooting competition…..players from each team take turns scoring from close to the goal and move increasingly further out after each round. Matthew caught the wrong side of the post on the third round and was eliminated……don’t know if Matthew understands that if he just would have come up and blasted it at the goalie he would have scored just as easily. Happily, he took this setback pretty well, and, in the end, learning to aim at the sides is a good thing.
Video of the shooting event can be found here.
