Soccer

Several days or weeks ago I mentioned that I would be playing on an intramural soccer team with other individuals from my school. Today we had our first “practice.”

What I had imagined to be getting together to kick the ball around in the gym turned out to be having our “team” join a revolving game in which the losing side switches out. Once we eventually figured things out and assessed our troops (we only had 4 of the needed 6 to play) we put our name on the list of challenging teams. It should also be noted that many of the individuals present clearly play regularly and well.

After about twenty minutes it became our turn to play. Unfortunately just moments before our turn came our captain decided to do a quick two laps around the field. As he was making the first turn we were in place on the field.

Almost instantly the game began and as goalkeeper I was quickly under fire. With a groping slide/dive I managed to stop the first shot and bring my team honour. Our team was able to get the ball down to the other end but it was quick to come back.

The second shot was not as nice to me as the first. Without even coming close to stopping the ball it entered the net. The rest of the game was pretty much like this. The ball would be put in play and then we would lose possession and be scored on. The only difference is that on the last shot I managed to tip the ball into my own net.

As we were coming off the field our captain returned from his two laps and couldn’t quite figure out how it was over already, but it was.

On improvement that I can already spot is my attitude. I don’t think that me thinking that we suck is really helping us. While I don’t know that I will be able to delude myself in thinking that we are the best team I might be able to keep the negative thoughts to a minimum. This might be hard when I consider that one of our players doesn’t have sneakers and will be playing in dress shoes.

Our first game is next Saturday. I will let you know how it goes.