Just haven’t been very current about updating the blog…..really need to be better about this.
Wiley Update #1: Better Friday and Saturday Morning than he was Thursday…..still had to help him get to his feet on Friday morning but was able to walk to food, water, and outside and get up on his own as the day went on. Not much more than that. Ruptured disk maybe? Was out in Grand Rapids on Thursday picking up Matthew from soccer camp…reports from home were very bad but maybe the steroids are finally kicking in and maybe the pain medication was dialed up too much. At least he is doing the basics……
Soccer in the Sand: Headed west a few weeks back for the second try at soccer on the beach in Grand Haven. Last year was an unqualified success; 4-0 and a championship. This year? Not so much, 0-3 and a whole lot of disappointment.
Game 1: Gave up a goal on a goalie miscue….gave up a goal on an own goal. Down 2-0 after the first period. We score twice in the second; Matthew has an assist on one goal but we are still down 3-2 after 2. The third goal against is one of the first of the infuriating ones……we stand around and can’t mark kids on a corner kick so of course they just put it in on the header if no one is going to bother them.
We give up two more in the third to lose 5-3. Again, the goal against are infuriating; one time the team can’t do what every team does….build a wall as the other team kicks off and of course they score. The last goal is the same deal as goal #3, can’t mark kids and they score unimpeded.
So where was Matthew during all of this? On the first corner kick I talked about he is on the field and he comes back from up front to mark the kid in front of the goal; the guy on the far post is left alone and he puts it in. He is not on the field for the other two disasters.
I think sand soccer suits Matthew very well…..it slows every player down and accents his strengths. So he (because there is only other person on the team that they trust to play defense, and he is in the other group of four) is almost always back there and is a rock….always stopping the other team and usually starting us back down field.
Game 2: Completely manhandled in this team by a bunch of kids who were much bigger than us.
The team we are on is the same as last year for the most part….a whole bunch of kids Matthew used to play with. And I came away singularly unimpressed by many of them. Could not create their own shot. Could not keep possession. Couldn’t be troubled to play defense.
But, it is soccer in the sand and the sun is out and it is cool and the water is great so, uh, ok, it’s disappointing and we can live with that.
Game 3: This game is what I can not live with. We go up 1-0 on a nice goal. They have a goal disallowed (it was very clear to the parents I was sitting near that the ball went over but the ref didn’t call it that way) and we are still up 1-0. And the thing I dislike the most in almost any game happens here; parents thinking this is the world cup. Yes the ref was bad. But just because the other team’s coach is acting like a total fool doesn’t mean you need to respond or make sure everyone knows you are a total fool. Sadly, some of the kids on the other team acted like their coach and played cheap, and even more sadly, our team responded. More than a few kids were just going in trying to take out the other kid….not play the ball.
I ended up walking away from the field with about 3 minutes to go….just couldn’t stand it. Which is too bad….I taped the whole game on my Ipad and of course Matthew scores his only goal of the weekend in those 3 minutes. His goal is really similar to the goal that was disallowed for the other team…off the crossbar and down and in (their goal went almost straight down and barely crossed the line…Matthew’s goal hit the back of the net after the deflection). And so the other coach again gets loud and snide and starts yelling “How is that a goal when ours wasn’t!?!”. They are up 5-2 at this point. Sigh.
But I could care less if the other team’s coach and parents are ogres…..I’m more pissed off that our parents acted that way and some of our kids decided that they could act on their parents’ frustrations.
Went for a swim afterwards. Sand, sun, water. What I really should remember the weekend for I guess.
This boy didn’t listen to his Dad to apply a lot of sunscreen to his shoulders and arms because he doesn’t wear a tank top often. He had a major sunburn to deal with through the week, with the inevitable peeling by the end of the week.
