Charles’ soccer team had a game yesterday. It went well for Charles, who was excited by winning 1-0 (“the other team scored zero goals!”). Charles played well, making a few runs at the opponent’s goal. He might have scored except for two small mistakes.
The first was going too wide around the goal, at least once going from the far left to the far right. Charles seems to think this is part of the goal attack strategy, even though his coaches tried to convince him otherwise in practice. The other mistake is that Charles likes to drop to his knees just before or while he kicks. This tends to rob his shot of some of its power. I have no idea where he got the idea that is a good technique. Neither of these are accidental or brought on the by the confusion of the game, I see Charles do exactly the same thing in practice.
The best part of the game was the aftermath of one drive at the opponent’s goal by Charles’ team. The ball ended up short of the goal, but for some reaon neither team tried to kick it. The parents were yelling “kick it! kick it!” to no effect. Then one of the opposing players realized something was wrong so she picked up the ball and handed it to the goalie. Problem solved! It was way too cute for the referees to call a penalty on.