Headed out Saturday morning to defend the Ox Roast 4v4 soccer title.
Saturday: Started out our title defense against the St. Johns Heat.
It’s 6-1 at the half, and a 8-2 final. Both SJ goals were off of penalty kicks after two pretty dubious hand ball calls against us…..but it is hard to argue bad refereeing when you are up by a bunch of goals.
Like this picture…it is probably the quintessential Matthew, ball at his feet and is already looking up field to see what he can do with it before he has it settled….
Game two is against the MV Lions….never heard to them, so, we walk to the field and the coach and I say ‘hi’. This is their first 4vr4 tournament and first game ever. Uh-oh.
We win 8-0. We score a goal after removing a kid after hitting 7 goals and having the mercy rules start. Apologized a bit to the other coach (he was pretty irked with his kids) and said they got a bum draw for the first game, and the rest of the day would be better (and it was…they lost 3-1 and tied 2-2).
Hard to say how Matthew played in these two blowouts…he did just fine but there wasn’t anything really notable to report.
The last game of the preliminary round is against Toros Locos, a team of ( C ) kids from the A and B teams. We do not look good, Matthew does not look good at moments on defense, and we walk away with a 2-1 win. Could have scored a lot more but did not….could have had a few more scored against us I guess
(scores and standings)
Sunday: We are seeded first, so, we get a bye to start the day. First game of the knock-out round is against SJ again. And kind of like Saturday, we drill them. 4-1 at the half, 7-1 final. Matthew has a booming rocket of shot for a goal and then another one where the refs and Matthew swear he didn’t cross the forbidden ‘arc’ to score the goal but all you could hear afterwards was a SJ parent whining about it. Didn’t really matter….
The final is a rematch with Toros Locos. All kinds of kids and parents have come over to this field to watch the game. We score first, but they score the next two, and we score again to go to the half 2-2.
Tell the kids I haven’t really seen a great game, or even a great half, from all of them at the same time this tournament. They pull it together and we score the next three goals, the last on a Matthew penalty kick, and we win 5-2.
I had Matthew on defense most of the tournament, but, in the final, had him out at midfield for the first 6 minutes of the second half. Did well…helped to settle the team down and get back to more quick passing. Had some nice assists while out there.
(speaking of Matthew as a midfielder…)
(the champions, the Inner Ninjas. At least this year they had trophies!)
Oh yeah, the other part of the weekend was we played and hung out on the fields near the tournament hq….we’ve never have really done that before. So, lots of music in the background and, especially in the blowouts, more than a few dancing moments on the sidelines. Henry and I are groovin’ during the second half of the final (way too nervous in the first half to screw around).
But when they were playing the Spice Girls as we were getting our trophies and all of the normal pictures were done? Oh yeah…….
