As promised, a rematch against Holt, at their field. Thought I’d do this post a little differently…I’m going to start writing now, leave for the game, and finish when I’m back at home watching the draft and the Penguins.
Pre-Game: I didn’t mention some of the extra-curriculars from the last game…but, I’ll mention them now. I thought the referee at the last game did a fantastic job, but, the Holt coach obviously disagreed…every time (and this is no exaggeration, every time) that the ref made a call that didn’t go their way he was yelling at the ref. I applaud the ref, a high school student, who, at times turned and yelled back at the coach why he made the calls. But, the yelling at the ref never stopped.
I do my level best to ignore all of this….the only way it would get me riled up is if the ref wasn’t making calls on the physical plays, and, he was making them, so, that’s fine. I don’t care if he misses a call every once in a while (and he did), there’s only one of him and that happens, and, it’s good for the kids to learn that, well, that happens and they have to get used to it.
My partner in coaching can be a little more hot-tempered than me, and, at the end of the game, took out his frustrations on the ball as the game ended, punting it about 100 yards away. The Holt coach said “well, that’s real sportsman-like” and of course that lead to yelling at the coach about how sportsman-like yelling at the ref the whole game is and I’m left trying to get everyone lined up to just shake hands, end the game, and move on.
So, there’s that backdrop as we head out tonight. We’re going to be short one of out better players, but, Ii hope that’s a big deal…we’ll see. We’ll see how many players they bring to the dance…I’d say 7 or 8 players and they are going to be one tired bunch at the end of the game.
Halftime: I’m going to pretend like I was at a computer at halftime…
My co-coach and I are often accused of being negative towards the boys….they sometimes mutter “oh, we’re going to get yelled at again”
At halftime of today’s game, the only comment I had was “that might have been the best half of soccer you’ve played all year”. No score, but we had plenty of chances and they didn’t have many at all..
The tension in the game ramped up quite a bit at the beginning; Holt’s field has non-standard goals and we complained about it, but, the ref was fine with it so that was that. Holt also had two more kids than last time….funny how that works out as well.
But we played well….offense carried the ball outside and brought it back in to the center, just like we were working on in practice, and the defense stayed at home, just like we worked on in practice.
Post-game:
Holt 4, Dragons 0. Followed our best half by the absolute worst half we’ve played this year. Tried to do something different with the boys at the end…asked each of them to think of one good thing and one bad thing that happened to our team in the 2nd half. Universally, the bad thing was the defense…didn’t pick up on what the other team was doing and gave up some easy chances in front.
I really got on Christopher after their first goal; he forgot the basic rule of throw in’s…..throw it forward along the line, not out at the middle, and he did, and gave up a breakaway because of it. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. He played ok the rest of the half but is still not very happy with me. Oh well.
I can smile thinking of Matthew’s second half. He will always always play midfield for us because he’s the only one that will consistently, no matter what, give one hundred percent. We’re down 4-0, everyone’s given up, and our goalie clears the ball deep to Holt’s end. They have three players back to get it and Matthew rushes in…the one Holt player is taking his time and doesn’t see Matthew and he just comes in, steals it, drives in on goal and gets off a great shot that just misses the corner of the goal. Rushes a throw-in later and takes a ball to the stomach and has to come off, but, the only Dragon who was still motivated at the end. Wish I had 10 more of him.
The ref? Didn’t call as much of the physical stuff as I though he could, and, not surprisingly, the Holt coach didn’t complain as much as he could have.
We play two games on Saturday...should be interesting times.
