Saturday Morning: It has been as wet a spring as I can remember here and the rain is still coming. There were very heavy storms Thursday night that forced the powers-to-be in the tournament to completely reschedule all of the games (not a small undertaking when 780 teams are coming to town!). So, we show up Saturday morning at 11 for our first game against Carpathia.
No pictures of this game. I think Suzanne was so disgusted by the start that she put the camera away and it never came back out. I have video (oh, I have so much video!) to get through, but that will be a while.
Since this tournament is over Memorial Day, we lost one player to having other plans and another player to injury. The club decided to add two players who were U9 but played U10 to our roster so that we could field a team. One plays with my soccer team, the other, well, let’s hope his parents never surf in here because of this next paragraph.
I don’t know this kid from Adam, but our coach, before the game, tells us that he is a “goalie-stud"…and that’s what he plays most of the time. All of us parents like this….we don’t have a dedicated goalie and the one we do have is missing this weekend. If you go all Letterman from Electric Company, and replace the st- with a d-, well, that’s what we got. First half is over, and we’re down 4-0.
Now, it’s not all this kid’s fault, the kids decided to come out flat flat flat and paid for it. But I’ll take at least two of those goals, if not one more, and firmly chalk them up as ‘stupid goalie play’. One time he comes out and doesn’t pick it up, he things he can dribble with it, promptly turns it over, and they score less than 10 seconds later. One time, same deal, he comes out, weakly kicks it out, and one of their kids just kicks it right back over his head into the goal.
In the second half we outscored the other team 6-3. But the damage had been done, and we lost 7-6. Matthew played ok, he directly lead to two of our goals but also directly led to one of theirs. Like the rest of the team, he came out flat and slow and they paid for it.
Field update; The best field of the tournament….mostly green, maybe not cut enough but very playable given the amount of rain.
Saturday Evening: The big grudge match against the other local club, the Chill; it was funny how many coaches from the other club (5, plus the team coach) were there to watch. I think they made a bigger deal of it than we did. We won 2-1 but it could have / should have been a lot more….they have a really good goalie who stood on his head for a lot of the game. I’d say at least 80% of the game was in their half of the field.
Matthew’s play went from good in the first game to ok here…..he has developed a severe case of “I’ll sit back and let my teammates do the work” and we’ve had a few discussions about that since the tournament ended. I’ve noticed this in the last few practices I’ve seen and asked him “why are you hanging back like that?” and sadly, got to trot out the “remember, you play like you practice” chestnut this weekend….
But he almost punched in this corner kick; I’m not quite sure why he couldn’t get in front of it but he didn’t get control in time before the other player swooped in and kicked the ball out of there.
Field Update: The picture above shows the worst of it, a large section of the field was solid dirt and mud. But, the areas on both sides of this was pretty good grass, so, well, not as good as the first game, and not as bad as the last…..
Sunday Afternoon: So, one win and one loss, and, if things break right here a win would move us on the championship (turns out they didn’t break right, Carpathia beat Chill 4-3 so there was no way to move on). We start the game knowing we are playing for pride, and knowing that this team has beaten the other two by a total of 13-1. They walk up with 11 kids in clean blue shirts….we only have 7 now (one sub for the entire game) and the boys are a filthy mess (our coach has had them dive in the mud on the field to get over it….they’ll be playing on it for fifty minutes).
This field, you see, is the worst of the bunch. It rained hard Saturday night, and there is still standing water on this field. Maybe 10% of the field is green, the rest is brown and one entire end of the field is solid mud.
But I will give the boys all the credit in the world….they came out hustling and full of fire and had a 2-1 lead at halftime.
The game got off to weirdest start that I’ve seen in some time. The Tigers take a corner kick, and our goalie grabs it with both hands above his head, and their kid heads the ball out of his hands into the goal. The ref calls it a goal, the teams are lining up at midfield, and our coach is going nuts. And I give the ref credit for doing this; he realized he made the wrong call and he switched the decision. Especially at this age level, when the goalie has his hands on the ball, that’s it. It’s no goal.
The other team’s coach and parents go bat-shit nuts. I’m sure, if they had that type of goal scored against them, they would want the right call made, and I can understand being upset, but, they were a little bit over the line. Not fun to be next to that group of hillbilly-types for the rest of the game.
They scored to tie it 1-1 (with lots of “does that one count, ref?” comments….I thought their coach was a pig and hope that I have the courage to pull Matthew away from a coach that acts like that in the future)…
We scored to make it 2-1 heading into the half……
And the boys just didn’t have enough energy, with one sub, playing in mud, to keep up in the second half and they scored four to win 6-2. Matthew was one of the more guilty ones in not moving/hustling….at one point he was directing kids to run to the ball while he stayed in the middle and that, of all things, earned him more than a few words about being a good teammate (never mind a good soccer player) on the way home.
I guess one other thing before I stop…it’s not surprising to me that the other team, given their coach and parents, were a pushy, physical bunch. And the poor ref, after the disaster in the first half, wasn’t calling much unless he saw it and it was obvious. I will give Matthew full credit here….he’s not one to go down easily, and he is going to give back what he gets. He’s not outside of the rules, but, they didn’t have a lot of success pushing him off the ball either….
