Corwin’s soccer team had an out of league game this evening, against the school team for a local Christian school. A couple of players from last season shifted to that school when they went to middle school so the coaches thought it would be fun to have a game this season.
When Corwin and I arrived at the field, the other team was already there, dressed in really snazzy purple uniforms. Right then I knew they were trouble with a capital P (for “purple”). Corwin had originally claimed he wasn’t going play because of his bike injury yesterday, but I told him to get out on the field anyway, even though the entire roster had shown up for the game.Even a 7th grade boy who practices with Corwin’s team was there1 and was allowed to play.
Rumours had been going around that the purple was hot stuff, but the proof of the play is in the kicking. As it turns out, the purple team was quite good.
The game started out with a bang, with a lot of big kicks and fast breaks right off. Corwin’s team was playing a rather offensive set up and in the first quarter purple staged a break away with 3 players which blew through the defense and fired the ball in the goal after a cross field pass. About a minute later Purple scored again on another break away pass. It was a really excellent shot from outside the goalie box with a near perfect trajectory leaving our goalie with nothing to do but jump futiley as it sailed over his head.
Things were looking grim but the team roared back and roughly a minute later scored with a nice shot from the outer goalie box through the thick of the purple defense. There was much rejoicing. After another ten minutes of brisk action Corwin’s team scored after a collision just in front of the goal involving a the purple goalie and a couple of Corwin’s teammates. Another teammate in the attack group was the first to recover and popped the ball in for a score. Not a particularly pretty goal but hey - it went in. The rest of the half had a of excellent play on both sides. I think purple had better field dominance but not obviously. The goalies and defense on both sides got a serious work out with lots of last second saves (like one of the players kicking it almost out of the hands of the goalie for a corner kick because of purple pressure on the goal).
Things were so desperate that Corwin was running. He had a lot of good kicks to clear and actually worked at dogging incoming purple players instead of just letting them by. This enabled another defender to break up the play while the attacker was watching Corwin. Corwin even managed at least a couple of good headers, bouncing the ball back to the offense.
The second half was a bit slower, as the kids were starting to tire. Both teams were playing well and full out in a very mobile game. There was a lot of good passing, although Corwin’s defense should have watched for offsides a bit better — purple was playing aggressively and could have been caught offsides more often. On the other hand, purple had gotten both scores on direct kicks from break aways which clearly was a worry to the defense.
There was no more scoring until about half way through the forth quarter when Corwin’s team put a very nice outside kick. It went out through a hole in the net so it wasn’t initialy clear it was a score, but keen, totally unbiased observers confirmed it had gone in. There was much rejoicing.
But it energized purple who came roaring back with an all out attack. It was touch and go for a bit until purple made a long kick and one of Corwin’s team tried to header it back. Instead, he bounced it back past the goalie (who wasn’t expecting it) and in to the goal. There was much sadness. The kids tried to push but you could tell that both teams were wearing out. A few minutes later it was all over, final score of 3-3. A bit heart breaking because of the own goal and because one shot went across the goal, bounced off the upright and back across the goal again without going in. But that’s just the way things go … in Alllllllllllbequerque!
Woops, wrong song. A few other notables were
1 There’s no 7/8 team this year because not enough players signed up.