Sarcasm with a side of optimism.

My first GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

Blogger isn't working for me right now. It's either
the site, or this stupid Apple laptop that is
sometimes handy, but more of a novelty.

I don't know if I mentioned this already or not, but I
decided to play another round of indoor soccer, but
this time, registering independently to be randomly
put on a team in a women's league. Figured this might
be better than the co-ed version where women are
typically marginalized by testosterone brutes, and
plus, it might be a good place for me to learn a bit
more, and try out some new moves!

Last week was our first game. There were only seven
girls on the email, and you need six to play. I
anticipated that we'd be short because it's highly
unlikely that everyone will show up. And surprise
surprise, that was exactly the outcome. After I paid
my $80 (ouch), I instantly regretted it, and thought,
"Is there time to bail still?" One girl from the
other team was nice enough to come play with us so we
had 6. It was tough, and unfortunately, I was goalie,
but it was surprisingly fun, and the team as a whole
isn't bad, we're just lacking communication, and need
to get used to each other.

I set up Evite such that we could track attendance.
I'd hate to show up for a 10:30pm game on a Monday
night and be the only one there because it's late. I
recruited Tracy from coed. She's the wife of the guy
who organizes our Saturday outdoor league. This time,
we had exactly enough. The team we were playing
against were older, but I saw that they recruited some
girls from the very best team who aren't even in our
recreational league. This pissed me off.

We started off short b/c Ellen arrived late. After 10
minutes, I was ready to burst a lung, and solicited
one of the other team's 3 subs to come over to help.
She did, but only until Ellen showed up. During the
first half, they killed us. I think we were down, 0
to 5. Kind of depressing. I don't know what changed
during the second half, but I noticed that there were
fundamental things that were wrong, like players not
making space for other players, and bunch ball. I was
tired, so I stayed back on defense, but I couldn't
take it anymore because the girls were bunching up in
the corners and the angles were too wide for them to
score successfully. I ran up the middle and took a
shot when the ball got passed. It doesn't matter what
happens, as long as you try for it. We ended up
scoring several goals when we picked up the rebounds!
It was good! Tracy did very well too both on defense
and offense. Later, I find out that she's never
played offense before!

Tracy and I rotate out of defense into offense, and
things start making a bit more sense. She says,
"You're going to score tonight, definitely! You keep
taking all these shots, and they're really close!"
(Close, but not good enough...grr) More time passes,
and we are keeping possession of the ball, despite
being exhausted and having no subs. I hear someone on
the other team mutter to their teammate, "Whoa, these
girls are actually good.."

Us? Hahahaha.... But it's cool if they think so.

We have possession, and they're toying with it now.
Why won't anyone try for a shot? Are they waiting for
the perfect angle? It isn't going to happen. And why
is there nobody in the middle? Tracy is fighting for
the ball on the left side, two on one and she's pinned
in. I run up the middle from defense and she passes
the ball slightly in front of me in the center and oh
crap, there's two girls closing in on me but MMMPH!
And somehow, the ball takes off and arcs straight into
the upper left hand corner. The game is tied!!! Oh
my god, did I just...How?...Me?....MY FIRST GOAL
EVER!!! I'm smiling a thousand watt smile, high-five
Tracy on the way back to our half, and definitely
beaming like the village idiot.

It was a good goal. Like on TV. Not a cheap, lazy,
rolling-on-the-ground goal, but GOOD! A
Craig-would-be-proud goal! Too bad he wasn't there to
see it. Tracy also got a goal that game too. It was
definitely fun!

In the last five minutes, we ran out of steam, and
couldn't get back in time on defense, so poor Emily
had to fend for herself in the goal. I felt bad, but
these legs were NOT moving.

I got to use a few tricks that Craig taught me. Next
week will be interesting...

posted by v @ 5:10 PM