When lately it seems like my whole world is dissolving, everyone I know seems to be struggling and my head is constantly spinning with no solace or comfort anywhere... I just decided to say, heck with it, lets talk about something positive and fun.
People assume soccer- European football- isn't popular in America. The thing is, it IS! But it's popularity is different here. In the U.S, Soccer is a recreational sport, but it just isn't as big of a professional, spectator sport, like in the rest of the world. The rule of thumb is, if you are a great soccer player as an American kid, you grow up to be a great football or basketball player as an adult.
Almost every dude I knew played on an organized youth soccer league of some kind of other when they were a kid. Probably like 70 or 80 percent of kids did in my old hometown, at one time or other. In the town where I grew up, soccer was just as popular- perhaps more so!- than little league baseball. That's where the term "Soccer Mom" got popularized. My mom was a soccer mom for five years.
The first couple years, I wasn't that good, and neither were the teams I was on. The more I played and got a better feel for the game, had better coaches, teammates, and what not, the more I improved, and the more fun it became. I've always felt that playing a team sport is really a valuable thing to do as a kid. You learn a lot about teamwork, discipline, both winning and losing, and it's a shared experience, plus, it's a good way to get excercise. I certainly wasn't the most athletic kid on the field, but even some of the pudgy, non-athletic kids out there had fun playing. My parents never forced me, but there was probably a bit of peer pressure involved because, well, all the other kids played. Plus, it was a fun thing to do. Practice after school was fun, and I looked forward to the games each Saturday. Much more fun when you are on the field, having an actual hand in the success (or failure) of the team, as opposed to, for example, sitting in your chair screaming at the 49ers the next day (which I gotta be honest, I did plenty of as well.) It was certainly a lot more fun though when our team won.
Which we started to do more of, my third year. I turned 12 that year, and the team I was on finished at around 4-5-1. Not a winning season, but an improvement over the two previous one-win seasons for sure, and I certainly savored each of those wins. I typically was a defense man, which was where I excelled; I didn't have the speed or the footwork to be a striker or wing, but I was generally good at slowing down or stopping opposing teams' attacking formations, although the best of the best, future star kids would still give me trouble. Depending on whether the teams utilized a 4-2-4 or a 4-3-3 scheme, I was either labeled "Defensive End" or "Left (or Right) Fullback" and different coaches used different terms, but the position and skills were the same.
The next year though, we were undefeated. This was the best coach I ever had; he was really willing to pull you aside and individually work with you on techniques and help you fine-tune your game, which most amateur youth-league coaches didn't have the time for. We finished the season 10-0, and some of those games were lop-sided, high scoring games. As a 7th grader, I was on top of the world, even though I can't say I was the star player. For the playoffs, the top three teams had a round-robin playoff format. Each team played the other two, and if any team lost both, they were eliminated, if there was a tie, then the championship came down to the top teams in regular season points (1 for tie, three for win; we were the top of the league with 30 points.) We easily won both playoff matches, dispatching the first (3rd ranked) opponent 3-0, and then dominated, 5-0 over the second place team.
But then, for the championship, as it worked out, we had to face the second place team again, and that match was to take place the very next day. We barely had time to celebrate beating them in the playoffs before we had to prepare for them again, this time with the stakes raised, for the big trophy.
It did not go well. They were motivated by revenge, we were complacent, perhaps thinking it would be an easy match. Even professional teams and college-level teams fall into this psychological trap, and we were mere kids; seventh and eighth graders. NOBODY seemed to show up ready to play that day. After the game ended- a 3-0 loss, I remember filing off the field, unable to face my teammates, or even my dad. We all went out for pizza afterwards but it was like eating cardboard; I just had no appetite. I was absolutely crushed. I remember playing decently that day, but the whole team just seemed listless, guys were walking back down the field between plays, and the other team was just fired up and hitting on all cylendars. I came home, showed Dad my second-place medal, and hung it dejectedly in my room, where I brooded the rest of that afternoon... like a sullen and defeated seventh grader.
So it was wait till next year mode. The end of soccer season was always a little sad, like the holidays were over; NOW what do I do on Saturdays?
Next year came, a new team, and this time it was a travelling team that played teams from other towns. I was in eighth grade then. And right out of the gate, we won our first game 7-0. Again, it was gonna be a good year. It was especially fun going to other towns and winning on the road, and feeling like we were defending our home turf, that being the park where we practiced and held our home games on. We finished 9-1 that year, and I remember a couple really exciting games that year. The playoff format for that year was more of a typical semi-finals followed by a championship; they abandoned the round-robin tournament format for some reason (and to be honest that never made sense to me anyway.)
Our playoff game, against a team who we had beaten 5-3 earlier that fall, was just an utter clusterfuck of a fubar from the start. First of all, they told our team that kickoff would be at 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon, a school day, instead of a Saturday. For whatever reason. Except, they bumped up the kickoff time to 3:00- and didn't bother to notify our coaches or parents. The other team were made aware of it before we were, and were thus, far more prepared and organized while we were just scrambling to get everyone to the field on time. A lot of us kids who were in private schools didn't even get out of school until 3, so Mom had to grab my uniform, cleats, and shin guards, and take me directly to the game while I changed in the car. Public school kids got out earlier, at 2:30, but even some of those kids were rushed. But again, because the other team was forewarned about the kickoff time change, they got a chance to warm up before hand. We did not. In fact a few of us (including me) actually missed the first 10 minutes of the game, by which time we were already down 1-0.
We were completely unprepared and disorganized, and it showed. Worse yet, they had been practicing, and had perfected, this new offensive strategy, some complicated crossing formation with the wings and midfielders, that utterly caught our defense unprepared- that included me. Their offense was unstoppable, and even if we had been organized and prepared, we probably couldn't have figured it out to stop it in time. They just utterly destroyed us; it was a humiliating blowout. And a bitter end to the season, somehow this ending was even worse than the disappointment in the championship the year before.
That was also the end of my soccer career. After 8th grade, most kids either went on to play for high school soccer teams, or focused on other high school sports (typically football or basketball.) I chose cross country, as the competition to make the 16 man high school soccer team roster (with typically up to 100 kids trying out) was pretty intense; you pretty had to be all-star caliber to make the cut, and sadly, by my own estimation, I knew I just wasn't quite there. That's okay though. I liked doing the running thing. Maybe I'll do a post about that sometime.
But yet, those five years I played organized youth soccer were among my fonder memories- even the tough playoff losses, though bittersweet, were not without a certain fondness for the whole experience.
So anyway, if you've read this far and managed not to be bored, thanks for letting me share. I've been dealing with a lot. I wanted to get something more light-hearted out there to talk about.