For the third straight year, we make an appearance at the largest 4v4 tournament in the area, the Dewitt Ox Roast 4v4. The quest is to stop those damned girls (and Zane and Nick) from winning the championship for the third time! It will be difficult.
I’ve assembled Matthew and four of his teammates for this challenge. We were going to call our team “Call Us Maybe” and have the boys wear some shirts that I found (for college students) that said “I (heart) HS Girls”……but, couldn’t get them in Youth Large so had to go Plan B.
That’s AJ, sporting argon, that’s Matthew sporting krypton….we are the Noble Gases.
Yeah, I really hit 10 on the geek/dork scale this year. But, I had a bunch of people, like last year, come up and say that our shirts were really cool. Each of the five kids (and coach) is a different element that’s a noble gas. The symbol from the periodic table is on the front, a bunch of facts about each element on the back…..
Game One: A 6-0 blasting of the Portland Punishers…..we started off really slow (missed at least five golden opportunities for goals) but I don’t think they had one serious chance at even scoring a goal.
In other years I’ve had to coach ‘more’…for one reason or another I’ve had younger kids that needed more ‘words’ or kids who weren’t as ‘good’ as some of my other players (read as ‘Matthew’) and I’d have to “coach them up”. Not this time, these kids, for the most part, have it, and we’re heavy on the basics (hustle, move without the ball, pressure the ball) and some new wrinkles (double-team when you can, make runs into the zone on kick-ins)
And for the first time ever (even though he’s playing defense here) I’ve felt comfortable enough with another player (Myles, ahead on the left here) to put Myles back on defense and release Matthew to midfield. I think that works out best for our team, Matthew has become a pass-first kind of guy almost all of the time and Myles can sometimes linger over the ball and miss passing opportunities at midfield. But he’s super quick and aggressive on defense….
Near the end of this game (right before we scored our 5th goal?) Matthew got hurt, took a cleat to his left ankle and came hobbling off almost in tears… He walked it off for the rest of the game and was fine afterwards…….
I have video of the game (Cpher, in a guest appearance as videographer. He did well, earned $20 for his work….and after each goal would announce the score to the camera……he couldn’t keep our team name straight to you would get announcements like these “That’s Toxic Gases 5, White Team 0”), Matthew wanted to see his injury so we went and looked for it. At the time, I thought he got hurt and then hobbled off….turns out, he got hurt, jumped back into the play, then bent over wincing, and then jumped back into the play again and scored a goal and then hobbled off!
I like this tournament. It’s well organized, it’s well attended, and it’s a really good time. But they have this rule….no ball over 4’ in height (to promote ball control and prevent injuries)….anything that goes over that height is blown dead and the opposing team gets a free kick at the spot of the kick. This rule is becoming more of a pain in the ass now that balls in the air are a major-Matthew-strength.
But, my major complaint is that I would like this rule if they could ever be consistent in enforcing it. But they aren’t. It’s a judgment call that varies from ref to ref and sometimes they let it go when they shouldn’t, or sometimes they over enforce it to the point if the ball goes over the waist they blow it dead. Just frustrating….
Game 2: An 8-0 whitewash of the Lawn Stars. Not much to say here other than at 7 we had to take a player off the field…and still scored a goal. On the video I record who scores a goal and who has an assist; Matthew had four assists; we had a ton of goals with long passes out of our end for breakaways for goals….
No pictures of Game 3 (at least where you can see the opponent, but, this might have been). We won 4-1 and it was a lot tougher than the first 2 games, we were tied 0-0 at the half. Their one goal had me in fits, hit one of our kids heads, bounced across the field directly to someone on their team who one-timed it in while we were out of position. I’m yelling “Why isn’t that a high ball?? It hit his head!!”….and of course, no answer, the ref just completely missed it.
