After Saturday’s debacle, we’re back at it for an 8 am kickoff. Win, and we move onto the final. Lose, and the whole Sunday is ahead of us for something other than soccer.
Turns out to be the worst loss since we’ve been playing with TNT; a 6-1 blowout. We’re down 3-1 at the half.
For all of that, Matthew probably had one of his best games ever. He controlled the center of the field for large portions of the game; he headed the ball out of the middle after their goal kicks at least 6 times (he was so fearless in this regard the other team’s parents were commenting on it….you’re supposed to use the forehead, there’s a few times I’m sure his nose got involved).
(edit: I reread that….sounds pretty conceited, we lost 6-1 and I’m saying Matthew’s played a great game….so why did we lose?……but man, there were a few of our good players who I can’t remember being a factor in the game at all, and there were times, in the 2nd half, that Matthew was the only kid in the middle pushing forward with the ball. I’ll stand by the statement!)
There’s a lot of these type of photos recently…..Matthew collecting the ball, gathering himself, looking at the player coming in from up-field, and calmly and coolly moving by that player to continue upfield. You can see here there’s no one between him and the goalie if he makes a mstake.
All day long….if the other team wanted to kick it high in the air in the middle, Matthew was more than happy to send it right back. I think this one is still coming in judging by the other guy and Nick from our team still moving towards Matthew. I love that he’s not just waiting for the ball, he’s jumping into them!
I think this is one he misjudged a little bit and it hit lower on his face than it should have.
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to clip out the video, but, we have a clip of him collecting a ball from a goal kick that had bounced in front of him; he just lowered his head, let it bounce off of his face, and drove in towards the goal…..you can hear Suzanne and I laughing in the background.
This is Matthew at his best on defense; using his body and strength to keep the other guy away from the ball or to ride the other guy off the ball
And while I think this particular instance turned out well (he slid to punch the ball past these two kids), Matthew, and his teammates, spent entirely too much time on the ground sliding into the ball, especially in the first half. If you slide, you can’t do anything until you get back up, and that was a big problem early.
Still trying to find the bright side; the other team had played a full game (they lost, 5-0) and had a chance to learn from their mistakes. We made some crazy mistakes on defense, and it seemed like a lot of kids just weren’t ready for an 8 am kickoff.
Oh well….looks to be a while before our next game.
…..realized I forgot one other high point for me watching Matthew on Sunday….they’ve been learning a move at practice, how to ‘dummy’ a player, basically use your body to overtop the ball and not touch the ball, and ending up in a position where your body is between the other team and the ball and you can move on. Matthew executed this move to perfection in the game; he did it so well it fooled the parents who wondered ‘what is he doing’, but, it was obvious after he finished it that he was planning what he did all along. I really like that he is taking what he learns at practice and attempting it during games…..
