Xavier – This trip was a Matthew/Dad affair….Suzanne had a work ‘deployment’; that was cancelled late in the week and she could have come at the last minute. BUT, we had already made arrangements to bring another boy whose parents weren’t able to go…..
Iphone takes decent pictures but crappy motion pictures…..Xavier and Matthew jumping on the bed (since that’s what you are supposed to do at hotels)
Playing FIFA 12 on the Ipad…
Swimming in the hotel pool (Matthew on far side out of pool, Xavier in goggles on near side. You should not the two girls in the foreground who decided to stay in the pool when twenty 9 and 10 yr olds invaded….such a bad decision….
Do you know what twenty boys in a small pool space sounds like? Ear Plugs Highly Recommended..
Xavier was very well behaved; one of the highlights for me was the Xavier sang the lyrics to Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” a lot…..and that got Matthew to listen to the song quite a bit since then. Also Xavier shared our appreciation for Looney Tunes; that was what was on the DVD player the last hour or so of the drive home.
Game 3 – Another 8 am game; we obviously did not put enough money in the application to pay off the scheduler!
Early games mean early starts, we were rolling out of the hotel at 5:45 for breakfast to be at the field at 7:30…you can see, it’s still pretty dark
Game 3 was against a team from Middletown….we had won both of our games on Day 1, they had lost both (to the same teams). We were winning 3-0 at the half and 6-0 was the final. The score could really have been a lot more……
Matthew started behind this kid, has run up and muscled and played his was past him, and will in the next second pass the ball to a teammate (towards the camera, not away)
The winners jogging across the field at the end of the game.
Game 4 – So, we’re in the finals against this team from Pickerington (near Columbus)….they have some deal where they pay a royalty and are affiliated with the Barcelona soccer club, so, same colors, etc.
If you look at the brackets, it seems more than a little obvious that our team, and this Barca team, should have been up in the top division (2 of our 3 games each were above the goal-differential max) and some of the teams in the upper division should have been here (those teams were losing 9-1, 10-2). But, this Barca team looks very very good…..
We’re down 3-1 at the half. They are fast, they are very skilled and they are very well trained…it’s kind of like a basketball team that knows a set offense they can run in their sleep; that’s what this team does. I’m not sure that means a lot for development…..I’m probably just whining.
This is early in the game; they are breaking out of their end after taking the ball from us, and Matthew is playing these two (plus the one nearest us). There are still two defensemen behind Matthew, he’s playing center-back here, and stops this push up field…
Matthew taking possession and tearing up the side; again, being a good center back. He tries to cut back to the middle a few steps later and the defense is able to stop that and push the ball out of bounds…
Matthew is running up, he’s about to step in and take this ball (you can see everyone, including our team, except Matthew, is trending/leaning towards our goal) and begin the counterattack.
I thought Matthew did his best work at this new center-back position in this game; he put in a lot of effort, drove the offense forward and got back on defense. Played 28 out of 30 minutes in the first half, came out late when he was very obviously winded and hanging back more and more on defense.
Second half starts; Matthew is back at center-back and scores a goal! A goal I like, because he never stopped coming forward, and that meant that he was where he needed to be to tip the ball in. You can click on the picture below for the video…..
The goalie misplayed it? Maybe. We crossed the ball and he didn’t get it…and Matthew does…
But that was as close as it got…..they score again, and again, and Matthew moves back to defense with his normal defensive partner, and it’s 8-2 late before we score to end the game and it’s an 8-3 final. The end of this game looked a lot like the end of many fall games; defense on the field too long, and forwards standing around at midfield hoping to get a ball that never comes…..Matthew played 58 of 60 minutes, the other defense guy played the whole game. Really don’t think that’s a good thing to get the most out of either of those kids, but, it does very clearly layout the problem our team has; too many forwards (kids who only want to score goals), not enough balance)
The final schedule/standings. Despite the loss still a good way to get the year started….
And you get a trophy…not the biggest one, but, it’s a pretty big trophy nonetheless
Getting his trophy from Coach Alex….
Posing with the Barca team afterwards….
The team – straight-guy pose
The team – goofy guy pose. Matthew always does well here….
