Today was opening day for the spring soccer season.
Charles had the first game, at 9 AM. It was a bit cold and Charles, naturally, had not brought a coat of any sort. I was layered so I pulled off my sweater for Charles but he said he would rather freeze than wear it. Despite that I made him wear it.
The game did not go so well, Charles’ team lost 1-2. Charles had a good game, very solid on defense and reasonably aggressive on offense. He came close to scoring once but luck was not with him. One of the problems is that several of his teammates have very little endurance and are flagging or literally falling on the ground by late game. Only 7 payers showed up, but the other team let us play 6 on 6 so that we could have one substitute.
Corwin’s game was later. They ended up losing 1-4. The other team was playing better than last season, in my opinion, and Corwin’s team wasn’t playing as well. A big part of that is that they ended up with so many kids that they split in to two teams and Corwin’s squad hasn’t really come together as a unit because of all the new players and the missing regulars.
Corwin managed to get some good stops on defense. He also played goalie for the second half and unfortunately was scored on three times. Two of those and one on another goalie were good shots. One on Corwin and the other goalie were over their heads, in fact over their outstretched hands even though both are a good height for their age. I only had a blurry picture but I could see poor Corwin, jumping as much as he is able, hands stretched up high with the ball just glancing off his fingers. Corwin had a number of excellent stops while he was goalie, frequently risking his beautiful face jumping on the ball in the middle of a scrum. He did well by reacting to incoming balls by putting his hands out to block rather than ducking and covering.
There was some whining afterwards, the kids being unused to losing, but hopefully it will motivate them to work together a bit better next week.
