Your ¡FUTURISMOS! won. I’m told we played well. That's all I know.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Game 3: ¡¡FUTURISMOS! ! 5 — Chino FC 2
By Brian “Elliot” Litzinger
The soccer and wrestling worlds are a buzz over the recent announcement that the Colle + McVoy ¡FUTURISMOS! are reportedly in negotiation with Vince McMahan about the purchase of the ¡FUTURISMOS! by the WWC, which leaves soccer and wrestling fans scratching their heads. When asked about the seemingly odd purchase in a recent interview McMahan grunted and said, "Why not!? The entertainment value and potential revenue is amazing. Bloody noses and cracked heads is what we're all about! The only thing that was missing from last weeks head bashing of Kristine Hoffman was an aluminum chair, and the week before the field just needed a cage around it to complete the bloody scene of Brian Litzinger's nose. The WWC is the only entity that can bring that to the table. We have also been looking for new ventures, and this seems like a logical fit, and besides, our fans are looking for something new. I mean, for the last 18 years we've used the same 4 story lines and twisted them every way we can, but we can't put anything past those trailer park kids these days. They are bored with the current state of wrestling."
In another interview with Colle + McVoy CFO Lisa Miller we learned that C+M is interested in selling because "there is simply no fan support. How can we financially support a rising and competitive soccer team without attendance revenue?"
Although the deal is still in negotiation, Mr. McMahan is wasting no time and working hard to prepare for his possible ownership. Sources have confirmed that former athlete, wrestler, and actor, The Rock has tentatively signed on to join the ¡FUTURISMOS! . His trainer reports that The Rock has been working hard on his soccer skills, and has even juggled the ball a personal best, 2 consecutive times. Even more surprisingly is the rumors of Mr. McMahan trying to coax former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin out of retirement, but when we went to his Dallas, Texas estate he greeted us at his with a 12 gauge shot gun in his right hand, and a Coors in his left. No questions were asked, but we did notice what looked like a red corner flag and Bermuda grass in his back yard.
The future of the ¡FUTURISMOS! is still uncertain. Whether it be a televised $50 pay per view event, or the same old same old, the team is excited about it's progress and are ready to see what happens next.
Having expended all my creative writing energy, I leave you with a very succinct wrap up of the game itself:
The soccer and wrestling worlds are a buzz over the recent announcement that the Colle + McVoy ¡FUTURISMOS! are reportedly in negotiation with Vince McMahan about the purchase of the ¡FUTURISMOS! by the WWC, which leaves soccer and wrestling fans scratching their heads. When asked about the seemingly odd purchase in a recent interview McMahan grunted and said, "Why not!? The entertainment value and potential revenue is amazing. Bloody noses and cracked heads is what we're all about! The only thing that was missing from last weeks head bashing of Kristine Hoffman was an aluminum chair, and the week before the field just needed a cage around it to complete the bloody scene of Brian Litzinger's nose. The WWC is the only entity that can bring that to the table. We have also been looking for new ventures, and this seems like a logical fit, and besides, our fans are looking for something new. I mean, for the last 18 years we've used the same 4 story lines and twisted them every way we can, but we can't put anything past those trailer park kids these days. They are bored with the current state of wrestling."
In another interview with Colle + McVoy CFO Lisa Miller we learned that C+M is interested in selling because "there is simply no fan support. How can we financially support a rising and competitive soccer team without attendance revenue?"
Although the deal is still in negotiation, Mr. McMahan is wasting no time and working hard to prepare for his possible ownership. Sources have confirmed that former athlete, wrestler, and actor, The Rock has tentatively signed on to join the ¡FUTURISMOS! . His trainer reports that The Rock has been working hard on his soccer skills, and has even juggled the ball a personal best, 2 consecutive times. Even more surprisingly is the rumors of Mr. McMahan trying to coax former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin out of retirement, but when we went to his Dallas, Texas estate he greeted us at his with a 12 gauge shot gun in his right hand, and a Coors in his left. No questions were asked, but we did notice what looked like a red corner flag and Bermuda grass in his back yard.
The future of the ¡FUTURISMOS! is still uncertain. Whether it be a televised $50 pay per view event, or the same old same old, the team is excited about it's progress and are ready to see what happens next.
Having expended all my creative writing energy, I leave you with a very succinct wrap up of the game itself:
- Andrew Charon had a hat trick.
- Tim scored.
- Sarah took a rocket to the face.
- Lia scored.
- Sawyer missed the most immaculate, pristine, and perfect pass across the front of the goal. Not only did he miss it, but he swung his right leg, then the ball rolled between his legs while he fell to the ground only to humiliate himself more. The moment was truly a blur to Mr. Blur.
- Kristy almost broke her skull.
- We won.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Game 2: ¡FUTURISMOS! 1 — Owen Ate FC 2
By I.Madnle
We work in communications so it’s no surprise that we all have our favorite campaigns, past and present. Some of us rave about how select 7-11s were turned into Kwick-E-Marts to help promote The Simpsons Movie. Others still talk about how much harder the folks at Avis try since they were only #2 in their industry. Me? I’ve always been intrigued with how some obscure brewer used the tagline “It’s five-o’clock somewhere,” to help drive sales of his wares.
The folks at CSC apparently had that tagline in mind when they scheduled our game this past week for 9:45 PM and then decided to start our game even later—as in 10 PM. The time I’m usually shutting off lights and heading for bed. But no matter: “It’s a decent hour somewhere, let’s get this game started.”
The problem is that sleep deprivation has serious consequences. Consider the Challenger incident. Or the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Or the time I poured orange juice into my bowl of cereal at breakfast. Yup. There’s something to be said for Circadian rhythms. And for heeding the biological requirements of sleep.
Which is why I’m so surprised about the score. The opposing team, “owen ate fc,” was a band of rag-tag foreigners hailing from the English isle. They’re a full six hours ahead of us!
Nevertheless, your ¡FUTURISMOS! lost 1:2 after a fifty-minute game back under the roof of the indoor football facility on the University of Minnesota campus.
Despite the score, there were a number of highlights in the game:
- A beautiful score by Tim Blevins in the opening minutes of the second half.
- The debut of Boba Fettrow—on both Defense and Offense.
- The second breakdown of a goal in mid-game.
Breakdown can be taken completely literally, as the crossbar folded and fell to the pitch, bringing the verticals right down with them. What caused this? Gravity. What goes up must eventually come down. But was there an instigation? Yes, in the form of a broken nose on the face of our very own goalie Elliot.*
*This bears more description. To watch Elliot play keep (aka play goalie) is absolutely amazing. The man always risks his own longevity just to keep the opposing team from putting the black-and-white sphere behind him in the net. So it was bound to happen that, on one of his face-first-dives some part of his body would meet some part of the body of an opposing player. After three major plays the odds played themselves out and Elliot’s face met the foot or knee of an “owen” player. Now, I’m not a doctor. And I don’t play one on TV. But I do have Clients who are
doctors, so I think it’s fair to say that when you see blood coming out of a person’s nose, and when parts of that nose seem to move in opposing directions, said nose is probably broken.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Game 1: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Snowball’s Chance 4
Editor’s Note: This season the recaps will be written by an assortment of your beloved ¡FUTURISMOS! rather than solely by me. How many of we happy few will lend our words to the noble service of extolling our exploits remains to be seen. Fittingly enough Season 4 begins both with a new Captain and a new chronicler.
By SKYWALKER
I will begin this recap by stating that I am a bit foggy on the details, I blame Andrew Charon’s darling baby girl, Quinn, who was crawling around the sideline dressed up like a pumpkin.
The first game of the season supplied the ¡FUTURISMOS! with plenty of optimistic fuel. Admittedly (me) or not (everyone else), “The Final Countdown” was playing in our heads while we walked onto the field anticipating some truly inspired soccer playing. Unfortunately, that song totally sucks. It sucks and we lost.
It isn’t that we played as unfortunately as we have in season’s past, it’s just that we didn’t play up to the level that we needed to in order to beat Snowball’s Chance. Their team tapped into two people for the vast majority of their talent; we will call them boy who posed a serious threat and boy who posed an imminent threat.
We kept up with these boys and their team quite well in the 1st half. Our first goal was scored by Caguin who was assisted by team newcomer Andrew Charon. Blevins scored our second goal after carrying the ball up field and practically walking into the net.
Emily Kaiden stepped up to the defensive plate and shut down numerous plays, while Hassle brought out her signature hustle. Things were left standing evenly at half time with a score of 2-2.
The second half, however, was not so balanced. The short of it is that the serious and imminent threats scored two more goals on us and we scored zero on them, which left the game’s final score at 4-2.
Obviously we weren’t happy with the loss, but sometimes you don’t have to win in order to walk away smiling. Case in point: A nasty tempered little thing on their team freaked out and called me a name that rhymes with itch when she thought I was being too aggressive. Then she received a yellow card as punishment for her fowl behavior, which forced her to sit out the rest of the game. Ah, the splendid satisfaction received when watching your opponent get shamefully sent to the time-out corner.
Perhaps next game will lend the opportunity for us to shine like the glorious bits of stardust that we are…and perhaps we will also see more of your dapper faces on the sideline.
By SKYWALKER
I will begin this recap by stating that I am a bit foggy on the details, I blame Andrew Charon’s darling baby girl, Quinn, who was crawling around the sideline dressed up like a pumpkin.
The first game of the season supplied the ¡FUTURISMOS! with plenty of optimistic fuel. Admittedly (me) or not (everyone else), “The Final Countdown” was playing in our heads while we walked onto the field anticipating some truly inspired soccer playing. Unfortunately, that song totally sucks. It sucks and we lost.
It isn’t that we played as unfortunately as we have in season’s past, it’s just that we didn’t play up to the level that we needed to in order to beat Snowball’s Chance. Their team tapped into two people for the vast majority of their talent; we will call them boy who posed a serious threat and boy who posed an imminent threat.
We kept up with these boys and their team quite well in the 1st half. Our first goal was scored by Caguin who was assisted by team newcomer Andrew Charon. Blevins scored our second goal after carrying the ball up field and practically walking into the net.
Emily Kaiden stepped up to the defensive plate and shut down numerous plays, while Hassle brought out her signature hustle. Things were left standing evenly at half time with a score of 2-2.
The second half, however, was not so balanced. The short of it is that the serious and imminent threats scored two more goals on us and we scored zero on them, which left the game’s final score at 4-2.
Obviously we weren’t happy with the loss, but sometimes you don’t have to win in order to walk away smiling. Case in point: A nasty tempered little thing on their team freaked out and called me a name that rhymes with itch when she thought I was being too aggressive. Then she received a yellow card as punishment for her fowl behavior, which forced her to sit out the rest of the game. Ah, the splendid satisfaction received when watching your opponent get shamefully sent to the time-out corner.
Perhaps next game will lend the opportunity for us to shine like the glorious bits of stardust that we are…and perhaps we will also see more of your dapper faces on the sideline.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Season 4
Our fourth season will commence Wednesday, October 10th. I may or may not write a season preview in advance depending on, basically, whether I feel like it or not. Zidane knows I probably will.
¡UNTIL THEN!
¡UNTIL THEN!
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Captain is Dead, Long Live the Captain
Professor Paul Davies is a physicist cosmologist. One of his books is about ways the universe might end called The Last Three Minutes. In it there’s a chapter dealing with human beings adapting to a universe very different from the one we currently inhabit. Humans of the distant future (like billions or even trillions of years hence) won’t be anything like what we currently consider human. In essence they could be living thoughts free of any form, or at least anything we’d currently consider “form.”
Professor Davies believes most current people would consider these future humans to be something other than human and addresses the issue thusly, “… we have to ask precisely what it is about human beings that we would wish to preserve.” He then dismisses form as a key element of humanity and continues. “When pressed, I suspect most of us would set more store by what might be called the human spirit—our culture, set of values, our distinctive mental makeup, as exemplified in our artistic, scientific, and intellectual achievements.”
When I read that passage it sent my mind spinning. Note how limited his set encapsulating the Human Spirit is: Arts, Sciences and Intellectual Achievements.
I won’t get into my detailed personal Human Spirit accounting, but let it suffice to say that I’m sitting on a big fat null. That’s a cold realization: I’m currently contributing exactly nothing to the future Human Spirit.
Yikes.
This realization came to me around 1:30 in the morning. ¿And what was my response? ¿Make good on my threat to go to graduate school? ¿Dive back into the kid’s story I’ve been working on since shortly after I decided to change my name? ¿Finish the white paper I started on the ramifications of applying quantum entanglement to human actions and how that effects Hegel’s dialectical progression of history?
Oh, no. Of course not. I immediately got to work on a ¡FUTURISMOS! blog entry.
Alas, try as I might I can’t fit futbol (or worse, writing about futbol, or worse still writing about futbol when none has been played) into one of the Human Spirit categories. This stands to reason because in the distant future we won’t be playing futbol because we won’t have bodies anymore. Be it Professor Davies’ disembodied intellect or simple extinction there’s no way around that. In this way futbol is much like everything else in our world (and ultimately, our universe): doomed.
Mercifully, therein lies the rub.
Everything is doomed in the sense that it will end. If there were someway for something to exist in perpetuity then there would be path of sorts that everything either is or is not on. We can extend our duration to the end of the Universe and no further. And one way or another the Universe it going to end. So there are no winners, so to speak.
That means there is no ULTIMATE criteria by which everything will be judged. The non-corporeal preservation of the Human Spirit in the distant future will be just another phase in the existence of the human race. No “better” or “worse” than at any other point.
Taking that into account contemplating Professor Davies’ question—¿what is it that we want to preserve about the human existence?—I found my mind in the same state I had in the first place: spinning.
Of course, ¡SPINNING!
¿Why does a child spin until she can’t stand anymore and then collapse a giddy mess? To answer because it’s “fun” doesn’t capture the totality of the truth. She doesn’t spin because at some point she thinks, “spinning is fun, I’ll do that.” She just starts spinning.
Kids spin. Dolphins frolic. Gorillas roughhouse. Whales sing. Dogs chase. What I’ll mourn when human beings become one with the Human Spirit is loosing our connection to the parts that aren’t strictly “human.”
So while futbolers futboling may not be included when we eventually become the Final Human Spirit it still counts. ¿So what if it counts like Dinosaurs count? We wouldn’t be here without them and the Final Human Spirit wouldn’t be quite the same without futbol. If you know but one Einstein quip (shame on you) make it this one:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
I wasn’t a Captain captaining like a kid spinning in my ¡FUTURISMOS! tenure under that moniker. I was more like a Manger managing off the pitch and then a Roll Player roll playing on it. I have the proper attitude to captain but am deficient when it comes to my skills and grasp of the game. But there has been a ¡FUTURISMO! all along who did meet all criteria.
One ¡FUTURISMO! who from our inaugural game distinguished herself through superlative (Dynamo worthy) play, clear and steady direction for teammates, and magnanimity of spirit. I’ve said it before and I say it again: I was the captain in title, she was the captain in deed.
Now she’s both.
The ¡FUTURISMOS! will soar into Season 4 riding the brisk wind of 4-1-1 Season 3 finish and under the wing of a new and most deserving Captain.
Sarah Pollpeter
If Professor Davies happens to make his way to Minneapolis at some point in the not distant future I’ll send him an invitation to a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. I’d like him to consider the inclusion of another Human Spirit category. I’ll leave it up to the good Professor to come up with his own title for it but I will have a suggestion:
Cap’n Pete
Professor Davies believes most current people would consider these future humans to be something other than human and addresses the issue thusly, “… we have to ask precisely what it is about human beings that we would wish to preserve.” He then dismisses form as a key element of humanity and continues. “When pressed, I suspect most of us would set more store by what might be called the human spirit—our culture, set of values, our distinctive mental makeup, as exemplified in our artistic, scientific, and intellectual achievements.”
When I read that passage it sent my mind spinning. Note how limited his set encapsulating the Human Spirit is: Arts, Sciences and Intellectual Achievements.
I won’t get into my detailed personal Human Spirit accounting, but let it suffice to say that I’m sitting on a big fat null. That’s a cold realization: I’m currently contributing exactly nothing to the future Human Spirit.
Yikes.
This realization came to me around 1:30 in the morning. ¿And what was my response? ¿Make good on my threat to go to graduate school? ¿Dive back into the kid’s story I’ve been working on since shortly after I decided to change my name? ¿Finish the white paper I started on the ramifications of applying quantum entanglement to human actions and how that effects Hegel’s dialectical progression of history?
Oh, no. Of course not. I immediately got to work on a ¡FUTURISMOS! blog entry.
Alas, try as I might I can’t fit futbol (or worse, writing about futbol, or worse still writing about futbol when none has been played) into one of the Human Spirit categories. This stands to reason because in the distant future we won’t be playing futbol because we won’t have bodies anymore. Be it Professor Davies’ disembodied intellect or simple extinction there’s no way around that. In this way futbol is much like everything else in our world (and ultimately, our universe): doomed.
Mercifully, therein lies the rub.
Everything is doomed in the sense that it will end. If there were someway for something to exist in perpetuity then there would be path of sorts that everything either is or is not on. We can extend our duration to the end of the Universe and no further. And one way or another the Universe it going to end. So there are no winners, so to speak.
That means there is no ULTIMATE criteria by which everything will be judged. The non-corporeal preservation of the Human Spirit in the distant future will be just another phase in the existence of the human race. No “better” or “worse” than at any other point.
Taking that into account contemplating Professor Davies’ question—¿what is it that we want to preserve about the human existence?—I found my mind in the same state I had in the first place: spinning.
Of course, ¡SPINNING!
¿Why does a child spin until she can’t stand anymore and then collapse a giddy mess? To answer because it’s “fun” doesn’t capture the totality of the truth. She doesn’t spin because at some point she thinks, “spinning is fun, I’ll do that.” She just starts spinning.
Kids spin. Dolphins frolic. Gorillas roughhouse. Whales sing. Dogs chase. What I’ll mourn when human beings become one with the Human Spirit is loosing our connection to the parts that aren’t strictly “human.”
So while futbolers futboling may not be included when we eventually become the Final Human Spirit it still counts. ¿So what if it counts like Dinosaurs count? We wouldn’t be here without them and the Final Human Spirit wouldn’t be quite the same without futbol. If you know but one Einstein quip (shame on you) make it this one:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
I wasn’t a Captain captaining like a kid spinning in my ¡FUTURISMOS! tenure under that moniker. I was more like a Manger managing off the pitch and then a Roll Player roll playing on it. I have the proper attitude to captain but am deficient when it comes to my skills and grasp of the game. But there has been a ¡FUTURISMO! all along who did meet all criteria.
One ¡FUTURISMO! who from our inaugural game distinguished herself through superlative (Dynamo worthy) play, clear and steady direction for teammates, and magnanimity of spirit. I’ve said it before and I say it again: I was the captain in title, she was the captain in deed.
Now she’s both.
The ¡FUTURISMOS! will soar into Season 4 riding the brisk wind of 4-1-1 Season 3 finish and under the wing of a new and most deserving Captain.
Sarah Pollpeter
If Professor Davies happens to make his way to Minneapolis at some point in the not distant future I’ll send him an invitation to a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. I’d like him to consider the inclusion of another Human Spirit category. I’ll leave it up to the good Professor to come up with his own title for it but I will have a suggestion:
Cap’n Pete
Monday, August 13, 2007
Season Finale (Game 9): ¡FUTURISMOS! 8 — Team Ecto-Cooler 2
There are essentially no details in this write up because I couldn’t see anything. I played keeper the entire game and probably 75% of the action took place on the TE-C side of the pitch. I wasn’t wearing my glasses so everything was fuzzy and distant. Sorry. This would have been a good game for detail too. Alas…
Season Dagobah
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS!, entered our third season with something new: expectations. [I’m not referring to the 3-win MDC quota either.] Our first season was our first season and it’s only reason for being was being. The second season was more like Season 1.5 than Season 2 because our roster changed significantly and we missed a season in-between.
Season 3 arrived with no excuses. The team was essentially unchanged, we were sufficiently talented, and we were ready because there was no break between seasons. Our goal for the season probably won’t sound that daunting. We weren’t setting out to topple Dynamo or even make a run at the playoffs. Our goal was to transmogrify from a bunch of people who kick the ball around to a little futbol club.
That probably doesn’t sound that difficult. In a nutshell all we had to do was transcend the sum of our parts. Simply absorb our individual strengths and weaknesses into a collective whole that maximizes the former and obscures the latter.
¿What was in our way?
I don’t know.
I reckon the same thing that’s in everybody’s way.
¿How many transcendent human beings have you met? ¿People that are more than the sum of their strengths AND foibles? I’ve met zero and am aware of only two candidates. Neither is alive so I can’t be sure.
Okay, I lied.
I did know what was in our way. I reckon I knew (and lied) in the same way everybody does.
The only thing retarding our becoming a little futbol club was us. ¿Would we make the necessary collective turn? That’s why I chose the name “Season Dagobah.”
For those unfamiliar with the reference: 1) shame on you; 2) Dagobah is where Luke Skywalker went to find Yoda to train to become a Jedi. One of critical challenges on Dagobah was cave in which one faced one’s greatest fear. In the words of Yoda, in the cave you face “only what you take with you.”
We ventured into the cave of Season Dagobah unprepared for what awaited us in our first game: NÜRD.
The first half of that game nearly scuttled your ¡FUTURISMOS! NÜRD played futbol in a way we’d never seen. Their pace was unrelenting. They seemed to attack and defend with all six field players all the time. They were everywhere. Yes, they had some really good futbolers, but what set them apart was that pace and relentless.
In the cave of Season Dagobah we saw the team we hoped to become. We don’t have as many skilled futbolers as they did but we have a large team of people comfortable playing with each other. There was no reason we couldn’t play at NÜRD’s pace and with their relentlessness. But we didn’t. In that game we also how far we had to go.
Our second and third games of the season were rough: A dreary 0-1 loss followed by a 2-5 drubbing. Heading into the forth game of the season things looked bleak.
Then everything changed.
In game 4 we destroyed the p450’s 10–3. From that point on our record was 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. The loss was courtesy a dubious goal and the draw was in the face of a semi-professional striker. Just like that we went from a team toiling at the bottom to one that finished just shy of making the playoffs.
¿What happened?
I don’t know.
Time passed. We continued accumulating experiences. We had little triumphs (like a stellar 2nd half against NÜRD) and failures (that listless 0–1 loss). We remained open to the possibility that the reality we were collectively experiencing wasn’t the only one available to us. All of this compressed, Spacetime distorted, and we made the quantum leap from people kicking a ball to a little futbol club.
If you want a cleaner explanation buy some Tony Robbins or read The Secret. But good luck. If there were a better explanation you’d already know it. The more time you spend studying someone else’s map the more lost you’ll become on your own journey.
Sometimes the only way is to walk into a cave, cut a guy’s head off, see that it’s your own, and then come to learn that it was your dad’s. That’s as good an answer as anyone has ever produced.
The Play of the Game and the Defining Moment of our Season
Team Ecto-Cooler is the team we lost 0-1 to in that dreary game after NÜRD. On this night we destroyed them 8-2 and we did so NÜRD fashion. It wasn’t just one person. It was Total Futbol. 6 people forward. 6 people back. Our 8 goals were scored by 5 different people (more below). Mercifully (because I was keeping) TE-C really only had about 6 shots on goal and only four of them were good attempts, such was the swarming nature of our defense.
TE-C weren’t bad either. They clearly knew what they were doing. Nor were they shorthanded. We simply outplayed them and the breaks went our way.
Toward the end of the game we had a corner kick. Sohei rose up to head the ball but a TE-C lady got under him and when he came down his chin landed on the top of her head. The ref called a foul and play stopped. Sohei apologized and then turned up field.
The lady called out to him, “you know, you could slow down now.”
What she meant was, “you know, you’re killing us and this game is out of reach. So please stop playing hard because it isn’t fun for us anymore.”
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS! were playing so hard and so well that we so completely overwhelmed an opponent that they weren’t having fun anymore.
My heart burst with pride at that moment for my club.
Obviously not because we were winning or winning big. That’s not what this is about. It was because we had arrived and we did so without really noticing. [Had I noticed I would have made some sort of effort to slow us down.] Now futbol comes naturally to your ¡FUTURISMOS! We’re not about to topple Dynamo. That’s not the point anyway. We entered Season Dagobah with the potential to be a little futbol club.
And now we are a little futbol club.
Scoring Recap
Bobby–3
TB–2
Sohei–1
Li’l Pete–1
Julia–1 [I loved this goal. She essentially bellied the ball into the goal from point blank range. Big Pete was out and we needed a ridiculous goal. Julia provided. Thank you, Julia.]
Both TE-C goals were scored in the exact same fashion. One in each half. I, the keeper, passed the ball directly to a TE-C person standing roughly 15-feet in front of me right in front of the goal. In both instances the TE-C guy got the ball, took a step or two and ripped the ball past me.
¿Was it embarrassing?
Yes. Yes, it was.
Li’l Pete Award: Sohei
Sohei usually plays forward. As a matter of fact, prior to this game he may have only played forward. Thanks to an odd assortment of gentlemen on hand Sohei ended up playing back a great deal and I, as keeper, was grateful for it.
Time and again just when my level of keeping fear was about to reach the Vomit Point as a TE-C person barreled toward me Sohei swept in to either poke the ball away or simply redirect the play. Often times I didn’t even see him coming. He’d just appear and then everything would be okay.
There was no defining moment where Sohei absorbed some terrible blast. He just seemed to always be there.
Faustian Moment: Crossing the River Styx
Andrew Charon was the only person from work to show up for the game. I think he’s the only person from work to attend a game at all this season and he’d been at C+M less than a week. You may form your own snide comment and place it here.
I’d met Andrew for the first time ever only a couple of days before. Of course no one should judge anyone based on his or her appearance, but I will confess to everyone that when I saw Andrew my first thought was, “I hope that guy plays futbol because I want someone who looks like that on the team.” He looks like he played for Brazil in the ‘70’s: big curly hair and creative facial hair.
As it turned out Andrew does play futbol for Atari Attack and in the CSC no less on Sundays. So I had hopes of adding him to the ¡FUTURISMOS! before I’d even seen him play.
Andrew showed up at the game when I was in the midst of a crisis. For the second straight week a ¡FUTURISMO! betrayed her club by not showing up after she personally swore to me she would after I explained how important she is. I won’t name her but I will say we didn’t have a keeper. Then Elliot didn’t show up but I wasn’t sure whether he was going to. So we really didn’t have a keeper.
This is a crisis. I won’t belabor it but playing keeper is nothing like playing any of the other positions. If you aren’t a keeper, you aren’t a keeper and you don’t want to play keeper. So I sucked it up and volunteered myself.
That meant I was down a guy… ¿or was I?
I asked Andrew if he had is gear with him.
“Yeah, it’s in the car.”
I asked him if he wanted to play.
“¡YEAH!”
He ran to his car and back. As he was slipping on his shin guards I approached him with my jersey. The keeper has to wear a shirt different than the rest of the team so Andrew could wear my jersey. But when I got to him I looked down and I saw the most peculiar thing in his bag.
A bolt of Argentine blue.
I kind of stammered some broken Spanish but Andrew picked up what I wanted to convey.
“Yeah,” he said, “my jersey is the same color as yours.”
If ever the Eternal Blue Sky has personally (that’s not the right word ¿deifically?) intervened in the affairs of mortals it was here.
So Andrew played with us and it was clear he plays futbol. I don’t remember a specific play or anything, but he was out there. Big curly hair, creative facial hair, and Argentine blue jersey all on proud display.
True to his surname, a threshold was crossed that night which Andrew can never return from. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a ¡FUTURISMO! now.
I’m not sure this is technically a Faustian Moment, per se. It’s more like something that was just really fun. I don’t know that this game had clear Faustian Moment and even if it did it probably took place too far away from me to see it so this will suffice.
¿Would Dr. Faust have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for any of this? Probably not. But that didn’t make it any less joyous.
Honorable Mentions: Kato-San and Julia
Once again Kato-san saved the day. I invited him last minute because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to play much and he filled in without missing a beat.
Li’l Pete brought a friend of hers, Julia, to bolster the lady side of the ball. I think the best thing I can say is I didn’t notice her. She was instantly a part of the team. And scoring not only a goal but a ridiculous goal in her first ever appearance is nothing to sneeze at.
Fan Roll Call
The people of Sawyer turned it out for the last game. Klair (my dear friend), Dani (her sister and a friend of mine although I don’t know her as well), Nicky (their friend whom I like very much but would be presumptious to label her a “friend”), Spectra (co-person), Alin (my mom), Rachel (my sister), and Matthew (my brother) were all there.
There was a mob on our sideline which makes the other team’s sideline look sad. I know it’s stupid and it’s just a rec league but it means a lot that people show up every now an then. Thank you and to mom especially for bringing orange slices, water, and trail mix.
Season Dagobah
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS!, entered our third season with something new: expectations. [I’m not referring to the 3-win MDC quota either.] Our first season was our first season and it’s only reason for being was being. The second season was more like Season 1.5 than Season 2 because our roster changed significantly and we missed a season in-between.
Season 3 arrived with no excuses. The team was essentially unchanged, we were sufficiently talented, and we were ready because there was no break between seasons. Our goal for the season probably won’t sound that daunting. We weren’t setting out to topple Dynamo or even make a run at the playoffs. Our goal was to transmogrify from a bunch of people who kick the ball around to a little futbol club.
That probably doesn’t sound that difficult. In a nutshell all we had to do was transcend the sum of our parts. Simply absorb our individual strengths and weaknesses into a collective whole that maximizes the former and obscures the latter.
¿What was in our way?
I don’t know.
I reckon the same thing that’s in everybody’s way.
¿How many transcendent human beings have you met? ¿People that are more than the sum of their strengths AND foibles? I’ve met zero and am aware of only two candidates. Neither is alive so I can’t be sure.
Okay, I lied.
I did know what was in our way. I reckon I knew (and lied) in the same way everybody does.
The only thing retarding our becoming a little futbol club was us. ¿Would we make the necessary collective turn? That’s why I chose the name “Season Dagobah.”
For those unfamiliar with the reference: 1) shame on you; 2) Dagobah is where Luke Skywalker went to find Yoda to train to become a Jedi. One of critical challenges on Dagobah was cave in which one faced one’s greatest fear. In the words of Yoda, in the cave you face “only what you take with you.”
We ventured into the cave of Season Dagobah unprepared for what awaited us in our first game: NÜRD.
The first half of that game nearly scuttled your ¡FUTURISMOS! NÜRD played futbol in a way we’d never seen. Their pace was unrelenting. They seemed to attack and defend with all six field players all the time. They were everywhere. Yes, they had some really good futbolers, but what set them apart was that pace and relentless.
In the cave of Season Dagobah we saw the team we hoped to become. We don’t have as many skilled futbolers as they did but we have a large team of people comfortable playing with each other. There was no reason we couldn’t play at NÜRD’s pace and with their relentlessness. But we didn’t. In that game we also how far we had to go.
Our second and third games of the season were rough: A dreary 0-1 loss followed by a 2-5 drubbing. Heading into the forth game of the season things looked bleak.
Then everything changed.
In game 4 we destroyed the p450’s 10–3. From that point on our record was 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. The loss was courtesy a dubious goal and the draw was in the face of a semi-professional striker. Just like that we went from a team toiling at the bottom to one that finished just shy of making the playoffs.
¿What happened?
I don’t know.
Time passed. We continued accumulating experiences. We had little triumphs (like a stellar 2nd half against NÜRD) and failures (that listless 0–1 loss). We remained open to the possibility that the reality we were collectively experiencing wasn’t the only one available to us. All of this compressed, Spacetime distorted, and we made the quantum leap from people kicking a ball to a little futbol club.
If you want a cleaner explanation buy some Tony Robbins or read The Secret. But good luck. If there were a better explanation you’d already know it. The more time you spend studying someone else’s map the more lost you’ll become on your own journey.
Sometimes the only way is to walk into a cave, cut a guy’s head off, see that it’s your own, and then come to learn that it was your dad’s. That’s as good an answer as anyone has ever produced.
The Play of the Game and the Defining Moment of our Season
Team Ecto-Cooler is the team we lost 0-1 to in that dreary game after NÜRD. On this night we destroyed them 8-2 and we did so NÜRD fashion. It wasn’t just one person. It was Total Futbol. 6 people forward. 6 people back. Our 8 goals were scored by 5 different people (more below). Mercifully (because I was keeping) TE-C really only had about 6 shots on goal and only four of them were good attempts, such was the swarming nature of our defense.
TE-C weren’t bad either. They clearly knew what they were doing. Nor were they shorthanded. We simply outplayed them and the breaks went our way.
Toward the end of the game we had a corner kick. Sohei rose up to head the ball but a TE-C lady got under him and when he came down his chin landed on the top of her head. The ref called a foul and play stopped. Sohei apologized and then turned up field.
The lady called out to him, “you know, you could slow down now.”
What she meant was, “you know, you’re killing us and this game is out of reach. So please stop playing hard because it isn’t fun for us anymore.”
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS! were playing so hard and so well that we so completely overwhelmed an opponent that they weren’t having fun anymore.
My heart burst with pride at that moment for my club.
Obviously not because we were winning or winning big. That’s not what this is about. It was because we had arrived and we did so without really noticing. [Had I noticed I would have made some sort of effort to slow us down.] Now futbol comes naturally to your ¡FUTURISMOS! We’re not about to topple Dynamo. That’s not the point anyway. We entered Season Dagobah with the potential to be a little futbol club.
And now we are a little futbol club.
Scoring Recap
Bobby–3
TB–2
Sohei–1
Li’l Pete–1
Julia–1 [I loved this goal. She essentially bellied the ball into the goal from point blank range. Big Pete was out and we needed a ridiculous goal. Julia provided. Thank you, Julia.]
Both TE-C goals were scored in the exact same fashion. One in each half. I, the keeper, passed the ball directly to a TE-C person standing roughly 15-feet in front of me right in front of the goal. In both instances the TE-C guy got the ball, took a step or two and ripped the ball past me.
¿Was it embarrassing?
Yes. Yes, it was.
Li’l Pete Award: Sohei
Sohei usually plays forward. As a matter of fact, prior to this game he may have only played forward. Thanks to an odd assortment of gentlemen on hand Sohei ended up playing back a great deal and I, as keeper, was grateful for it.
Time and again just when my level of keeping fear was about to reach the Vomit Point as a TE-C person barreled toward me Sohei swept in to either poke the ball away or simply redirect the play. Often times I didn’t even see him coming. He’d just appear and then everything would be okay.
There was no defining moment where Sohei absorbed some terrible blast. He just seemed to always be there.
Faustian Moment: Crossing the River Styx
Andrew Charon was the only person from work to show up for the game. I think he’s the only person from work to attend a game at all this season and he’d been at C+M less than a week. You may form your own snide comment and place it here.
I’d met Andrew for the first time ever only a couple of days before. Of course no one should judge anyone based on his or her appearance, but I will confess to everyone that when I saw Andrew my first thought was, “I hope that guy plays futbol because I want someone who looks like that on the team.” He looks like he played for Brazil in the ‘70’s: big curly hair and creative facial hair.
As it turned out Andrew does play futbol for Atari Attack and in the CSC no less on Sundays. So I had hopes of adding him to the ¡FUTURISMOS! before I’d even seen him play.
Andrew showed up at the game when I was in the midst of a crisis. For the second straight week a ¡FUTURISMO! betrayed her club by not showing up after she personally swore to me she would after I explained how important she is. I won’t name her but I will say we didn’t have a keeper. Then Elliot didn’t show up but I wasn’t sure whether he was going to. So we really didn’t have a keeper.
This is a crisis. I won’t belabor it but playing keeper is nothing like playing any of the other positions. If you aren’t a keeper, you aren’t a keeper and you don’t want to play keeper. So I sucked it up and volunteered myself.
That meant I was down a guy… ¿or was I?
I asked Andrew if he had is gear with him.
“Yeah, it’s in the car.”
I asked him if he wanted to play.
“¡YEAH!”
He ran to his car and back. As he was slipping on his shin guards I approached him with my jersey. The keeper has to wear a shirt different than the rest of the team so Andrew could wear my jersey. But when I got to him I looked down and I saw the most peculiar thing in his bag.
A bolt of Argentine blue.
I kind of stammered some broken Spanish but Andrew picked up what I wanted to convey.
“Yeah,” he said, “my jersey is the same color as yours.”
If ever the Eternal Blue Sky has personally (that’s not the right word ¿deifically?) intervened in the affairs of mortals it was here.
So Andrew played with us and it was clear he plays futbol. I don’t remember a specific play or anything, but he was out there. Big curly hair, creative facial hair, and Argentine blue jersey all on proud display.
True to his surname, a threshold was crossed that night which Andrew can never return from. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a ¡FUTURISMO! now.
I’m not sure this is technically a Faustian Moment, per se. It’s more like something that was just really fun. I don’t know that this game had clear Faustian Moment and even if it did it probably took place too far away from me to see it so this will suffice.
¿Would Dr. Faust have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for any of this? Probably not. But that didn’t make it any less joyous.
Honorable Mentions: Kato-San and Julia
Once again Kato-san saved the day. I invited him last minute because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to play much and he filled in without missing a beat.
Li’l Pete brought a friend of hers, Julia, to bolster the lady side of the ball. I think the best thing I can say is I didn’t notice her. She was instantly a part of the team. And scoring not only a goal but a ridiculous goal in her first ever appearance is nothing to sneeze at.
Fan Roll Call
The people of Sawyer turned it out for the last game. Klair (my dear friend), Dani (her sister and a friend of mine although I don’t know her as well), Nicky (their friend whom I like very much but would be presumptious to label her a “friend”), Spectra (co-person), Alin (my mom), Rachel (my sister), and Matthew (my brother) were all there.
There was a mob on our sideline which makes the other team’s sideline look sad. I know it’s stupid and it’s just a rec league but it means a lot that people show up every now an then. Thank you and to mom especially for bringing orange slices, water, and trail mix.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Game 8: ¡FUTURISMOS! 5 — (Dorsey & Whitney 2 + Pong 3) 5
The Nature of Our “Post-Season” Games
Our “regular season” technically ended last week with our 7th game. Every team in the league gets 2 “post-season” games. Four teams vie for the “championship” everyone else plays a couple more games. We’re among the “everyone else.”
As such I entered the “post-season” with two wishes:
1) Win one game and draw the other to finish with an exactly .500 record of 4 wins, 4 losses, and a 1 tie.
2) Play in two weird, fun, entertaining games.
Game 8: Preamble
In Game 8/Post-Season Game 1 we played Dorsey & Whitney. D&W are tied for dead last in the league. They had scored a grand total of 7 goals during the season and never more than 2 in a game. [For the purposes of perspective we’ve averaged 6.5 goals per game over the last four games.]
Setting aside the “you just never know” factor, we should have romped through a game against D&W. I don’t mean that in a jeering, condescending sense. I mean a glance at the facts lead to one conclusion: a relatively easy win. For the first time ever I milled around before a game without even a touch of nerves and it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything to fret about.
I knew in advance neither Li’l Pete nor Hassle were going to play. That’s the bedrock of our defense and one of our gifted forwards.
Then there was a surprise announcement that another lady, another forward, would miss the game. This after she repeatedly swore up and down that she’d be there after I’d stressed all week that she would play a critical role with Hassle out. This person, who shall remain nameless, is the first ¡FUTURISMO! in team history to have so failed her club that punishment was in order. She has been stripped of her nickname and will so remain until she has earned a new one. It would be cruel to call her out but if you were to figure it out on your own—say, by paying attention to who isn’t mentioned in this game and then is referred to by her non-nickname in future write-ups—well, c’est la vie.
Bobby and Laddie were out of sorts because they live right next door to The Bridge and were home at The Time. Both were a little traumatized. Laddie was down but Bobby was a shell of himself. He’d been up all night talking to Swedish reporters about the collapse and he could only play in the first half because he had to bail for an interview with CNN international.
Even in the face of reflected tragedy, missing critical players, and betrayed by a loved one, my mood was untouched. This was in no small part the work of the Eternal Blue Sky who bestowed upon us ridiculous weather. Upper 70’s. No humidity to speak of (by Minnesota standards). Capped off with the ideal start time: 8:45pm. So we’d start at twilight and play into the night.
I was the portrait of calm. I reckoned the odds of something going wrong were as close to nil as we were ever going to get.
I kicked the ball around with a 3-year-old. I chatted European futbol with a guy from Africa. Then I saw the super-ref Pong headed my way. [Pong pronunciation is “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the word “jet.”]
Pong is one of my favorite people who inhabit the world I frequent. He is just a great guy. Always smiling. Always laughing. ¿Had I previously mentioned Pong is in the Twin Cities to play for the Minnesota Thunder? This was to be his first season with them but he tore something in his knee so he’s been rehabbing to get ready for next season. In the meantime he refs for CSC and then sticks around to see if any teams want/need him to play so he can kick the ball around in a low/no-impact environment (for him—Li’l Pete and my right big toe would beg to differ).
Here’s the exchange that changed this game:
Pong, seeing me: “Hey, man, ¿what’s the name of your team again?”
Me, bursting with pride that he wants to know the name of my team: “The ¡FUTURISMOS!”
Pong, with a Torii Hunter sized smile: “Oh, MAN, I’m playing against you tonight.”
Me. Silence.
First Half: Bobby Answers Many Calls
D&W scored the first goal roughly 30-seconds into the game. It was 100% because Li’l Pete wasn’t playing. This is not a denouncement of the ¡FUTURISMOS! playing at the time. It is a testament to Li’l Pete. She orchestrates our defense.
A D&W guy got the ball at midfield and, basically, ran straight up the middle with it. The center back and right back each got caught in a moment of indecision about who should step to the guy. As a result he went right between them and had a wide-open shot. Much to the credit of your ¡FUTURISMOS! that was only one of two noteworthy defensive breakdowns.
As I alluded to, Bobby wasn’t himself. He looked forlorn. I didn’t see him smile once. He was distracted. When I talked to him he didn’t appear to notice. I don’t even remember him talking on the pitch (although he must have). Bobby was understandably not himself except in one regard: He remained a striker.
The next 3 goals were all ¡FUTURISMOS! and all Bobby. Spinning, waltzing, gliding, with and between D&W defenders Bobby scored all at close range. At a point midway through the first half Bobby had already scored twice and was resting. A forward wanted to come off and was headed toward the sideline. Bobby turned and looked at me. He was despondent and exhausted. I had no idea what, if anything, he was trying to convey to me.
“¿Do you want play again?” I asked.
Bobby heaved a large sigh and stuck his hands into his pockets. For an instant I thought he was telling me he was done. Then he pulled his hands out of his pockets and gave me two cell phones. He said nothing and ran out onto the pitch. Moments later he scored his third goal.
That was a night for him. He disappeared at halftime for an interview with CNN International and didn’t return. After the game I got a text message from him apologizing for being in a bad mood.
There are no “heroes” in sports because there’s nothing on the line. There can be “Herculean efforts” (LeBron James leading the Cavs to the NBA Finals) or “Odyssean journeys” (AC Milan’s 06-07 campaign that started with the threat of relegation and ended with the UEFA Cup and the coronation of Kaká as the Player of the Moment) but not heroes.
I don’t know what to call Bobby’s efforts in this game because I’m still a novice in Greek mythology. I’m trying to think of a crestfallen warrior who has every reason not to leap into the fray but does and triumphs. There has to be one, ¿doesn’t there?
Perhaps the highest praise I have is admitting I’m stumped.
He stumped me.
Thank you, Bobby.
Half Time: ¡F! 3 — D&W 1
You might be inclined to think we were feeling good at halftime with a 2-goal lead. We did, but we didn’t feel great. For purposes of composition I have refrained from telling you about Pong. That shoe now drops.
Second Half: “Ladies and Gentlemen… ¡Pong!”
We have faced many excellent futbolers in our 3 seasons in the league. I’ve seen a bicycle kick. I’ve seen a guy kick so hard I feared for Elliot’s wellbeing. We’ve had guys wreck us and make our defenders look silly. And then there was Pong.
The word “fancy” applies to every really good person we’ve thus far faced. Not that they showboated, it’s more like they’d take one step back to take two steps forward. In any event they had to do stuff, something, to get around our defenders. Hence they used “moves.” Everyone we’d previously faced we could deal with through multiple defenders. Then they’d have to stop or pass or attempt a more circuitous route to the goal.
Not Pong.
For Pong it was more like we were all standing still and he was practicing simply running by us. The economy of his motion was breathtaking. His ball skills were like magic. I don’t mean because he did a bunch of fancy stuff. I mean he ran with the ball as though he didn’t have it, like the ball was stitched to his foot.
There’s a difference between feeling like someone is going to burn you and feeling like you don’t exist. Pong made you feel like you didn’t exist. Like playing a chess master—you know she isn’t playing you, she’s playing herself and you just happen to be sitting opposite her.
Stilts laughed out loud whenever he approached her because she knew he was going to go by her as though she wasn’t there. Not that he would make her look silly. He would make her look nonexistent.
I had always wondered what it would like to play against Ronaldinho. I envisioned him performing all kinds of amazing acrobatics and feats of ball artistry. I now realize how wrong I’d been. He wouldn’t have to do anything fancy because he could just run by us. To Ronaldinho we wouldn’t exist. To Pong we nearly didn’t.
Here’s the most amazing thing about him—He is the best natured person we’ve ever played against. There wasn’t a single arrogant or jerk moment with him.
Whenever I was marking him (that’s defending him when he didn’t have the ball) he’d smile and say, “Oh, man, come on, man. You’re shutting me down, man. I just want to run around and work out my knee. Come on, man, give me some space.”
He complimented ¡FUTURISMOS! on good plays big a small. “Nice pass, man. That was the right ball.”
This game was an experience unlike any other because of Pong. It was worth the draw. I’d have happily lost to experience it.
Having said that, I don’t want to face him next week.
Play of the Game: Pong’s Equalizer
D&W played Chelsea style futbol. That means they kept extra defenders back and their offense amounted to kicking the ball downfield and hoping their superstar striker would get it and do something amazing. Usually it meant the ball went flying somewhere a ¡FUTURISMO! could get to it first. Sometimes it didn’t.
We had a free kick from just outside the penalty box to the right side of the D&W field. Elliot ran up from the backfield where he had been marking Pong to take the kick. That still left two defenders to deal with Pong.
Elliot kicked the ball into the D&W box. A D&W person got it and simply booted the ball down the middle of the field hoping Pong would get to it. He did. Pong turned with the ball and raced up field. He had a ¡FUTURISMO! on his right and one in front of him.
When Pong reached our box both defenders were within arms reach. He didn’t stop. He didn’t do anything “fancy.” He effortlessly weaved between them and blasted a goal into the upper right hand corner.
That may not sound like a big deal. You have to try it.
Get a ball and two people. Run with the ball and a defender running next to you. Position the other defender directly in front you. Now, run full speed with the ball and try to run BETWEEN the two defenders when they’re within arm’s reach of each other.
The first thing you’ll notice is you have to measure your stride to plant your foot to make the cut. The next thing you’ll notice is measuring your steps and the ball at the same time so that not only is your plant foot in the correct place but so is the ball.
Once you’ve got that down make both defenders move to screw up your best laid plans. Now do it one fluid, unbroken motion at full speed with both defenders attempting to poke the ball away.
I don’t care who’s reading this: you can’t do it.
He did all that in something just longer than the blink of an eye. It was amazing, it tied the game and concluded the scoring for the match.
Epilogue
We had planned to go out for a drink after the game. We couldn’t because we were exhausted. By “we” I do mean every single one of us. Gasping, dripping, exhausted. Elliot had Collette drive because he couldn’t. Stilt’s was dry heaving during the game and at one point she was so pale I thought we were going to loose her.
There was one reason and one reason only we were wrecked as team: Pong. He all by himself wore us out because every time he had the ball you had to sprint because our only chance was to surround him with every available person.
Again, it was totally worth it. We can always go for a drink next week or the week after. We may never face Pong again (oh, please, Eternal Blue Sky, I’ve learned my lesson and don’t need to face him again).
Li’l Pete Award: I Guess Everyone
I think everyone had his or her moment in this game.
The Serbian somehow managed to fully flip a guy over like NFL films style. I don’t what she did but it was cool.
Hermione stoically filled Li’l Pete’s shoes as the center back defender. A thankless task she gamely endured.
Laddie basically saved our butts by showing up ready to play. Once he even dispossessed Pong of the ball after he’d woven his way past a couple of defenders thereby saving a certain goal.
Skywalker was her typical self mixing it up with any man, woman, or child who veered her way.
Stilts had the afore mentioned dry heaving.
Everyone had a moment where I thought “that’s the Li’l Pete spirit.” Even Li’l Pete herself who, although she couldn’t play, was on hand.
At one point late in the game I was running full speed after the ball deep in D&W territory near the sideline where the ¡FUTURISMOS! were standing. A D&W lady got the ball first and stuck her foot out to stop it. She also stopped both of my feet and I went flying, falling flat on my face. Even before my brain had recovered its sense of self I heard Li’l Pete yelling at me “¡GET UP! ¡GET UP!” I scrambled to my feet and the ball was already headed back down toward our end and I heard her yelling “¡GET BACK! ¡GET BACK!” and then in a quieter more sympathetic voice, “If you can.”
The Li’l Pete spirit abounded that night.
Faustian Moment: Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr.
One of the Chinese Ninja women of Dynamo brought her 3-year-old daughter to the game. She is now known as Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr. She had a little pink futbol. I was standing about 20-feet from her on the sideline before our game and she kicked her ball to me and then said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”
I kicked it back.
She kicked it back and said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”
I kicked it back.
She then instructed me to set my feet shoulder length apart so she could shoot under my legs. Whenever she a had a near miss she would gallop around on her hands and feet like a enthusiastic monkey. When she “scored” we would both throw ourselves on the ground and scream.
This is literally a Faustian Moment. Dr. Faust traded for what he saw in children at play. Here it is:
Our “regular season” technically ended last week with our 7th game. Every team in the league gets 2 “post-season” games. Four teams vie for the “championship” everyone else plays a couple more games. We’re among the “everyone else.”
As such I entered the “post-season” with two wishes:
1) Win one game and draw the other to finish with an exactly .500 record of 4 wins, 4 losses, and a 1 tie.
2) Play in two weird, fun, entertaining games.
Game 8: Preamble
In Game 8/Post-Season Game 1 we played Dorsey & Whitney. D&W are tied for dead last in the league. They had scored a grand total of 7 goals during the season and never more than 2 in a game. [For the purposes of perspective we’ve averaged 6.5 goals per game over the last four games.]
Setting aside the “you just never know” factor, we should have romped through a game against D&W. I don’t mean that in a jeering, condescending sense. I mean a glance at the facts lead to one conclusion: a relatively easy win. For the first time ever I milled around before a game without even a touch of nerves and it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything to fret about.
I knew in advance neither Li’l Pete nor Hassle were going to play. That’s the bedrock of our defense and one of our gifted forwards.
Then there was a surprise announcement that another lady, another forward, would miss the game. This after she repeatedly swore up and down that she’d be there after I’d stressed all week that she would play a critical role with Hassle out. This person, who shall remain nameless, is the first ¡FUTURISMO! in team history to have so failed her club that punishment was in order. She has been stripped of her nickname and will so remain until she has earned a new one. It would be cruel to call her out but if you were to figure it out on your own—say, by paying attention to who isn’t mentioned in this game and then is referred to by her non-nickname in future write-ups—well, c’est la vie.
Bobby and Laddie were out of sorts because they live right next door to The Bridge and were home at The Time. Both were a little traumatized. Laddie was down but Bobby was a shell of himself. He’d been up all night talking to Swedish reporters about the collapse and he could only play in the first half because he had to bail for an interview with CNN international.
Even in the face of reflected tragedy, missing critical players, and betrayed by a loved one, my mood was untouched. This was in no small part the work of the Eternal Blue Sky who bestowed upon us ridiculous weather. Upper 70’s. No humidity to speak of (by Minnesota standards). Capped off with the ideal start time: 8:45pm. So we’d start at twilight and play into the night.
I was the portrait of calm. I reckoned the odds of something going wrong were as close to nil as we were ever going to get.
I kicked the ball around with a 3-year-old. I chatted European futbol with a guy from Africa. Then I saw the super-ref Pong headed my way. [Pong pronunciation is “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the word “jet.”]
Pong is one of my favorite people who inhabit the world I frequent. He is just a great guy. Always smiling. Always laughing. ¿Had I previously mentioned Pong is in the Twin Cities to play for the Minnesota Thunder? This was to be his first season with them but he tore something in his knee so he’s been rehabbing to get ready for next season. In the meantime he refs for CSC and then sticks around to see if any teams want/need him to play so he can kick the ball around in a low/no-impact environment (for him—Li’l Pete and my right big toe would beg to differ).
Here’s the exchange that changed this game:
Pong, seeing me: “Hey, man, ¿what’s the name of your team again?”
Me, bursting with pride that he wants to know the name of my team: “The ¡FUTURISMOS!”
Pong, with a Torii Hunter sized smile: “Oh, MAN, I’m playing against you tonight.”
Me. Silence.
First Half: Bobby Answers Many Calls
D&W scored the first goal roughly 30-seconds into the game. It was 100% because Li’l Pete wasn’t playing. This is not a denouncement of the ¡FUTURISMOS! playing at the time. It is a testament to Li’l Pete. She orchestrates our defense.
A D&W guy got the ball at midfield and, basically, ran straight up the middle with it. The center back and right back each got caught in a moment of indecision about who should step to the guy. As a result he went right between them and had a wide-open shot. Much to the credit of your ¡FUTURISMOS! that was only one of two noteworthy defensive breakdowns.
As I alluded to, Bobby wasn’t himself. He looked forlorn. I didn’t see him smile once. He was distracted. When I talked to him he didn’t appear to notice. I don’t even remember him talking on the pitch (although he must have). Bobby was understandably not himself except in one regard: He remained a striker.
The next 3 goals were all ¡FUTURISMOS! and all Bobby. Spinning, waltzing, gliding, with and between D&W defenders Bobby scored all at close range. At a point midway through the first half Bobby had already scored twice and was resting. A forward wanted to come off and was headed toward the sideline. Bobby turned and looked at me. He was despondent and exhausted. I had no idea what, if anything, he was trying to convey to me.
“¿Do you want play again?” I asked.
Bobby heaved a large sigh and stuck his hands into his pockets. For an instant I thought he was telling me he was done. Then he pulled his hands out of his pockets and gave me two cell phones. He said nothing and ran out onto the pitch. Moments later he scored his third goal.
That was a night for him. He disappeared at halftime for an interview with CNN International and didn’t return. After the game I got a text message from him apologizing for being in a bad mood.
There are no “heroes” in sports because there’s nothing on the line. There can be “Herculean efforts” (LeBron James leading the Cavs to the NBA Finals) or “Odyssean journeys” (AC Milan’s 06-07 campaign that started with the threat of relegation and ended with the UEFA Cup and the coronation of Kaká as the Player of the Moment) but not heroes.
I don’t know what to call Bobby’s efforts in this game because I’m still a novice in Greek mythology. I’m trying to think of a crestfallen warrior who has every reason not to leap into the fray but does and triumphs. There has to be one, ¿doesn’t there?
Perhaps the highest praise I have is admitting I’m stumped.
He stumped me.
Thank you, Bobby.
Half Time: ¡F! 3 — D&W 1
You might be inclined to think we were feeling good at halftime with a 2-goal lead. We did, but we didn’t feel great. For purposes of composition I have refrained from telling you about Pong. That shoe now drops.
Second Half: “Ladies and Gentlemen… ¡Pong!”
We have faced many excellent futbolers in our 3 seasons in the league. I’ve seen a bicycle kick. I’ve seen a guy kick so hard I feared for Elliot’s wellbeing. We’ve had guys wreck us and make our defenders look silly. And then there was Pong.
The word “fancy” applies to every really good person we’ve thus far faced. Not that they showboated, it’s more like they’d take one step back to take two steps forward. In any event they had to do stuff, something, to get around our defenders. Hence they used “moves.” Everyone we’d previously faced we could deal with through multiple defenders. Then they’d have to stop or pass or attempt a more circuitous route to the goal.
Not Pong.
For Pong it was more like we were all standing still and he was practicing simply running by us. The economy of his motion was breathtaking. His ball skills were like magic. I don’t mean because he did a bunch of fancy stuff. I mean he ran with the ball as though he didn’t have it, like the ball was stitched to his foot.
There’s a difference between feeling like someone is going to burn you and feeling like you don’t exist. Pong made you feel like you didn’t exist. Like playing a chess master—you know she isn’t playing you, she’s playing herself and you just happen to be sitting opposite her.
Stilts laughed out loud whenever he approached her because she knew he was going to go by her as though she wasn’t there. Not that he would make her look silly. He would make her look nonexistent.
I had always wondered what it would like to play against Ronaldinho. I envisioned him performing all kinds of amazing acrobatics and feats of ball artistry. I now realize how wrong I’d been. He wouldn’t have to do anything fancy because he could just run by us. To Ronaldinho we wouldn’t exist. To Pong we nearly didn’t.
Here’s the most amazing thing about him—He is the best natured person we’ve ever played against. There wasn’t a single arrogant or jerk moment with him.
Whenever I was marking him (that’s defending him when he didn’t have the ball) he’d smile and say, “Oh, man, come on, man. You’re shutting me down, man. I just want to run around and work out my knee. Come on, man, give me some space.”
He complimented ¡FUTURISMOS! on good plays big a small. “Nice pass, man. That was the right ball.”
This game was an experience unlike any other because of Pong. It was worth the draw. I’d have happily lost to experience it.
Having said that, I don’t want to face him next week.
Second Half: Goal by Goal
Pong scored first a couple minutes into the second half. He got the ball at midfield, ran by me, ran by his own teammate, then weaved between two ¡FUTURISMOS! and blasted a goal. Score 3–2.
D&W leveled with a goal that Pong didn’t score by was responsible for. A D&W guy approached with the ball and Pong running by his side. Pong peeled away. Two defenders (including me) followed Pong. Nobody followed with the guy with the ball so he had a clear path to the goal and scored. Literally two people defended a guy without the ball leaving the guy with the ball alone running toward the goal. The game was tied 3–3.
At this point I feared the game had slipped away from us. We had squandered our lead, lost Bobby, and faced an unrelenting one-man onslaught. Then TB struck.
TB beat a defender on the wing and found himself in open space 15-yards out to the left of the goal. There were a couple of D&W defenders in the box so TB sniped. His shot was aimed directly at the upper right corner of the goal. It hit the crossbar and TB in disgust turned back up field. So he missed the ball ricocheting down and to the left just inside the goal.
We had a lead again: 4–3.
Every team should have a ridiculous goal specialist. Ours is Big Pete. ¿You know what Dudley Do-Right from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show looks like? He’s the Canadian Mountie character with incredibly broad shoulders whose body tapers down so his feet are tiny. That’s what Big Pete looks like when he’s running with the ball. He has this massive upper body but when he runs with the ball he takes these tiny stutter steps. So Big Pete Do-Righted the ball to within feet of the goal and as the keeper reached out for the ball Big Pete sort of just poked it over him.
A D&W defender was somehow behind the keeper and ball popped up toward him about belly high. His first instinct was to hit it with his hand but he checked it in time but the moment was lost. He awkwardly attempted to knee the ball and it ended up fumbling over his leg and into the goal.
We had a regained our 2 goal cushion at 5–3.
Somewhere around here is when Stilts nearly scored her first goal. It was the same set up as the two she’d previously declined to score. She swooped in backside, the ball was passed to her and she had an empty net in front her. The first two times this happened she simply declined to stick her foot out and redirect the ball into the net. Now we know why.
This time she did stick her foot out and sent the ball over the net. Stilts was only about 5 feet away from the net so that’s not easy to do. She had to send the ball basically straight up.
Oh, Stilts. Always doing things her way whether they make any sense or not. You’ve really got to commend her for that.
Then Pong scored again. I don’t even remember how it worked but rest assured he did it alone and at tremendous pace.
With 5 minutes to play we were up 5–4 and we did the only thing we could to slow Pong down: Elliot marked him.
Elliot was the only ¡FUTURISMO! who could actually defend Pong. At one point Pong was running with the ball across the field and Elliot ran with him step-for-step. Pong tried to stop quickly and cut back but Elliot stopped too and Pong lost the ball out of bounds. Katie, the CSC official was standing next to me and said, “Wow, that guy is really fast.” She was referring to Elliot.
For a couple of minutes it appeared we had a solution for Pong that just might preserve our lead. Then came the play of the game.
Pong scored first a couple minutes into the second half. He got the ball at midfield, ran by me, ran by his own teammate, then weaved between two ¡FUTURISMOS! and blasted a goal. Score 3–2.
D&W leveled with a goal that Pong didn’t score by was responsible for. A D&W guy approached with the ball and Pong running by his side. Pong peeled away. Two defenders (including me) followed Pong. Nobody followed with the guy with the ball so he had a clear path to the goal and scored. Literally two people defended a guy without the ball leaving the guy with the ball alone running toward the goal. The game was tied 3–3.
At this point I feared the game had slipped away from us. We had squandered our lead, lost Bobby, and faced an unrelenting one-man onslaught. Then TB struck.
TB beat a defender on the wing and found himself in open space 15-yards out to the left of the goal. There were a couple of D&W defenders in the box so TB sniped. His shot was aimed directly at the upper right corner of the goal. It hit the crossbar and TB in disgust turned back up field. So he missed the ball ricocheting down and to the left just inside the goal.
We had a lead again: 4–3.
Every team should have a ridiculous goal specialist. Ours is Big Pete. ¿You know what Dudley Do-Right from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show looks like? He’s the Canadian Mountie character with incredibly broad shoulders whose body tapers down so his feet are tiny. That’s what Big Pete looks like when he’s running with the ball. He has this massive upper body but when he runs with the ball he takes these tiny stutter steps. So Big Pete Do-Righted the ball to within feet of the goal and as the keeper reached out for the ball Big Pete sort of just poked it over him.
A D&W defender was somehow behind the keeper and ball popped up toward him about belly high. His first instinct was to hit it with his hand but he checked it in time but the moment was lost. He awkwardly attempted to knee the ball and it ended up fumbling over his leg and into the goal.
We had a regained our 2 goal cushion at 5–3.
Somewhere around here is when Stilts nearly scored her first goal. It was the same set up as the two she’d previously declined to score. She swooped in backside, the ball was passed to her and she had an empty net in front her. The first two times this happened she simply declined to stick her foot out and redirect the ball into the net. Now we know why.
This time she did stick her foot out and sent the ball over the net. Stilts was only about 5 feet away from the net so that’s not easy to do. She had to send the ball basically straight up.
Oh, Stilts. Always doing things her way whether they make any sense or not. You’ve really got to commend her for that.
Then Pong scored again. I don’t even remember how it worked but rest assured he did it alone and at tremendous pace.
With 5 minutes to play we were up 5–4 and we did the only thing we could to slow Pong down: Elliot marked him.
Elliot was the only ¡FUTURISMO! who could actually defend Pong. At one point Pong was running with the ball across the field and Elliot ran with him step-for-step. Pong tried to stop quickly and cut back but Elliot stopped too and Pong lost the ball out of bounds. Katie, the CSC official was standing next to me and said, “Wow, that guy is really fast.” She was referring to Elliot.
For a couple of minutes it appeared we had a solution for Pong that just might preserve our lead. Then came the play of the game.
Play of the Game: Pong’s Equalizer
D&W played Chelsea style futbol. That means they kept extra defenders back and their offense amounted to kicking the ball downfield and hoping their superstar striker would get it and do something amazing. Usually it meant the ball went flying somewhere a ¡FUTURISMO! could get to it first. Sometimes it didn’t.
We had a free kick from just outside the penalty box to the right side of the D&W field. Elliot ran up from the backfield where he had been marking Pong to take the kick. That still left two defenders to deal with Pong.
Elliot kicked the ball into the D&W box. A D&W person got it and simply booted the ball down the middle of the field hoping Pong would get to it. He did. Pong turned with the ball and raced up field. He had a ¡FUTURISMO! on his right and one in front of him.
When Pong reached our box both defenders were within arms reach. He didn’t stop. He didn’t do anything “fancy.” He effortlessly weaved between them and blasted a goal into the upper right hand corner.
That may not sound like a big deal. You have to try it.
Get a ball and two people. Run with the ball and a defender running next to you. Position the other defender directly in front you. Now, run full speed with the ball and try to run BETWEEN the two defenders when they’re within arm’s reach of each other.
The first thing you’ll notice is you have to measure your stride to plant your foot to make the cut. The next thing you’ll notice is measuring your steps and the ball at the same time so that not only is your plant foot in the correct place but so is the ball.
Once you’ve got that down make both defenders move to screw up your best laid plans. Now do it one fluid, unbroken motion at full speed with both defenders attempting to poke the ball away.
I don’t care who’s reading this: you can’t do it.
He did all that in something just longer than the blink of an eye. It was amazing, it tied the game and concluded the scoring for the match.
Epilogue
We had planned to go out for a drink after the game. We couldn’t because we were exhausted. By “we” I do mean every single one of us. Gasping, dripping, exhausted. Elliot had Collette drive because he couldn’t. Stilt’s was dry heaving during the game and at one point she was so pale I thought we were going to loose her.
There was one reason and one reason only we were wrecked as team: Pong. He all by himself wore us out because every time he had the ball you had to sprint because our only chance was to surround him with every available person.
Again, it was totally worth it. We can always go for a drink next week or the week after. We may never face Pong again (oh, please, Eternal Blue Sky, I’ve learned my lesson and don’t need to face him again).
Li’l Pete Award: I Guess Everyone
I think everyone had his or her moment in this game.
The Serbian somehow managed to fully flip a guy over like NFL films style. I don’t what she did but it was cool.
Hermione stoically filled Li’l Pete’s shoes as the center back defender. A thankless task she gamely endured.
Laddie basically saved our butts by showing up ready to play. Once he even dispossessed Pong of the ball after he’d woven his way past a couple of defenders thereby saving a certain goal.
Skywalker was her typical self mixing it up with any man, woman, or child who veered her way.
Stilts had the afore mentioned dry heaving.
Everyone had a moment where I thought “that’s the Li’l Pete spirit.” Even Li’l Pete herself who, although she couldn’t play, was on hand.
At one point late in the game I was running full speed after the ball deep in D&W territory near the sideline where the ¡FUTURISMOS! were standing. A D&W lady got the ball first and stuck her foot out to stop it. She also stopped both of my feet and I went flying, falling flat on my face. Even before my brain had recovered its sense of self I heard Li’l Pete yelling at me “¡GET UP! ¡GET UP!” I scrambled to my feet and the ball was already headed back down toward our end and I heard her yelling “¡GET BACK! ¡GET BACK!” and then in a quieter more sympathetic voice, “If you can.”
The Li’l Pete spirit abounded that night.
Faustian Moment: Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr.
One of the Chinese Ninja women of Dynamo brought her 3-year-old daughter to the game. She is now known as Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr. She had a little pink futbol. I was standing about 20-feet from her on the sideline before our game and she kicked her ball to me and then said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”
I kicked it back.
She kicked it back and said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”
I kicked it back.
She then instructed me to set my feet shoulder length apart so she could shoot under my legs. Whenever she a had a near miss she would gallop around on her hands and feet like a enthusiastic monkey. When she “scored” we would both throw ourselves on the ground and scream.
This is literally a Faustian Moment. Dr. Faust traded for what he saw in children at play. Here it is:
Monday, July 30, 2007
Game 7 (the “Regular Season” Finale): ¡FUTURISMOS! 6 — Team Ramrod 3
3-Win Commitment… ¡Fulfilled!
The ¡FUTURISMOS! team sponsor, the good people of Colle+McVoy, attached a stipulation to our third season funding: win 3 games. They weren’t joking. They even included it in forecasting to their parent company. So we entered this season on a 3-win hook held by Colle+McVoy and backed by their parent company. That’s like owing your best friend money and then having his dad stand behind you saying “that means you owe me 3 bucks” when his dad is the head of the CIA (the current secret-prisons-in-countries-that-allow-torture CIA).
Even though 3 wins was well within reason this season and a natural progression from our first two in which we won 1 and then 2 games respectively, it was a little nerve wracking at times. No longer.
This was our third win of the season. Our albatross has been revived and flew away. Now we can treat our final 2 games of the season the way they ought to. They will be an extended futboling celebration complete with dancing, singing, chanting, laughing, piggy-back rides, and—¿dare we hope?—a dash of Elliot showboating.
Perhaps we ought not get ahead of ourselves.
That Old Saw About The Japanese Character For “Adversity” Also Meaning “Opportunity”
[NOTE: I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’ve heard it in movies plenty and it jives with other tidbits I know about Japanese culture. I’ll ask Sosuke and add a note in the future.]
Nothing about game 7 appeared to bode well for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Our roster was gutted by a Colle+McVoy blowout shindig that claimed the Thursday night lives of all but four of your ¡FUTURISMOS! Adding an inadvertent foot to the groin after a crippling shot to the shin Big Pete was out of town on vacation. With Bobby on board that meant I had a grand total of 5 available futbolers.
Even had I been entertaining the idea of playing a game with 5 players (and rest assured I was if it came to that) the Eternal Blue Sky was having nothing of it. The weather forecast for game time was 90-degree heat with suffocating humidity. 5 wasn’t going to cut it.
The number or cultural/literary/religious sources for something along the lines of “at your darkest hour you will find the light” are endless. It’s Buddhist. It’s Taoist. It’s the sword in the stone and the Lady in the Lake. It’s the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat. It’s Luke realizing the only way to defeat the Emperor is to throw down his sword. It’s probably Judeo-Christian-Islamic (although I can’t say for sure but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt assuming they had the sense to crib from the older, eastern influenced beliefs). It’s the backbone of Genghis Kahn’s military genius. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you if this is a foreign concept because it isn’t particularly United States-ian. In fact it’s the antithesis of United States-ian rugged individualism/defy all laws of physics and reason to pull yourself up by your own boot straps.
Anyway, in our hour of your ¡FUTURISMOS! greatest need forces both supernatural and mundane swept in to save the day.
The Mayor came through with two additional guys: Spencer and Paul, henceforth known as Laddie and Doc. Don’t forget that the Mayor is also responsible for Bobby too.
Meagan Kato came through by having the foresight to have married a totally cool guy who was looking for an opportunity to kick the ball around: Matthew, henceforth known as Kato-san (wait, he speaks some Japanese, I should ask him about the opportunity/adversity thing).
Last but so far from least that I’d say most critically, an erstwhile ¡FUTURISMO! reappeared to literally save the day: Velvet Curtain (aka Heather Prenevost) arrived and brought a comrade, Shannon, henceforth known as Graal (more on her later). This boosted our number of available ladies from a daunting 2 to an acceptable 4.
Overseeing this hodgepodge of newly knighted ¡FUTURISMOS! was the Eternal Blue Sky. Rather than sun blasted heat and crippling humidity the Eternal Blue Sky delivered pre-game storms that knocked the heat down a little and followed up with a light drizzle under one dense, expansive cloudbank. It was still hot and humid, but the drizzle was cool and persistent and without the Sun beating us down the conditions were something just this side of perfect.
Game Time
At game time that Japanese character still looked a lot like adversity though. In my rush to make sure I had enough matching shirts just incase our newly minted ¡FUTURISMOS! showed up way off color palette I managed to forget my boots. To make matters worse I wore flip-flops to the game so I couldn’t play in sneakers Yes, this was humiliating. [Spectra, Eternal Blue Sky bless her, was in attendance and raced off to get them for me.]
As the ref—make that the “Don’t you want to play” Uber-ref, Pong (read: “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the world “jet”)—was set to put the ball in play we had 4 players on the pitch. Elliot in goal; Kato-san, Skywalker, and Li’l Pete. Pong looked at me silently to say “¿what do you want me to do here?”
I looked back silently to say “do what you must and we’ll deal until more people arrive.”
On the other hand our opponents, Team Ramrod, had 3 reserve men and 1 woman on the sideline. I chatted with several of their players before the game and they were a good natured lot. They were also very much aware of the fact they were half a game ahead of us in the league standings. The winner would remain a middle of the pack team. The looser would be sent down to mingle with the bottom dwellers. All of that is to say they were motivated for this game. Motivated and looking to get off to a strong start with a huge numbers advantage.
Then just as Pong was about to whistle the start of the game Bobby and Laddie showed up and were ready in one clean motion from auto to pitch. Pong whistled and we started the game playing 6 against 7 with no reserves.
“Oh, God, Not Him,” thought a Team Ramrod defender as Bobby bared down upon him
Playing down a person really means you play short a forward. It should mean you still defend but can’t score. That is unless someone is capable of being an offense all by her or himself.
Appearances mean nothing in futbol. The fittest, futboling-est looking man or woman can be a worthless klutz. I’ve seen an honest to goodness fat-bordering-on-obese person move like a deer with the ball. I’ve run past people who look like track stars and been smoked by at least one grandma. So at the start of each game no one really knows whom, if anyone, to fear. It took Team Ramrod only a couple of minutes to find out which ¡FUTURISMO! was going to torture them.
As a defender you keep a healthy distance from a person you fear. Rather than try to disposes him or her of the ball you only want to limit the damage they can do (and there most certainly are ladies to fear, Hassle routinely torches defenders who get too close). Before you know who to fear you approach everyone as though they’ll cough up the ball. As the game elapses you can tell who is good by looking at how close people are to them.
When Bobby first got the ball in open space on the Team Ramrod side of the pitch they challenged him not knowing something about Bobby: he can dance with the ball. It’s really a beautiful, silly thing to see. In open space Bobby waltzes with the ball, it goes quiet at the touch of his foot and never gets away from him when he taps it forward, like spinning your partner but never loosing the softest touch of the hand. When the feet of defenders threaten to molest the ball Bobby switches his dance up to Savion Glover-style light speed tap and his partner is protected by feet moving so fast they morph into a cloud of probability shielding the ball.
Bobby tap-danced around the first defender. A second defender awaited him and wisely played him by cutting off the middle of the field and forcing Bobby to the outside where he’d have less of an angle on goal. Bobby waltzed by this defender taking the space she left him and with only oblique angles available to him he calmly slotted the ball near-post past a keeper whom, I’m guessing, had a hard time believing what he was seeing.
This guy could tap, he could waltz, and hit the angles. And after he scored he simply turned around and jogged back up field with only a Buddha sized smile to celebrate his stunning work.
Shorthanded your ¡FUTURISMOS! opened the scoring just a couple minutes into the game.
A few minutes later Team Ramrod leveled with a goal off horrendous defense. I knew we were bound to give up a couple of jailbreak stampedes because good defending is the result of cohesion between the defenders. At that point our backline was Li’l Pete flanked by Kato-san and Laddie. They were bound to get caught compromised a few times just because they didn’t know each other. To everyone’s credit this was the only truly bad defensive breakdown.
Still shorthanded, Bobby struck again.
This time he had the ball in the TR box flanked by two defenders. Bobby spun, tap dancing to protect the ball in a cloud of feet probability. He managed to slip through the two desperate defenders and scored pointblank again.
I can’t remember exactly what time exactly VC and Graal showed up, but it was past the halfway mark of the first half (by the way, that’s when Spectra returned with my shoes too). So we played the majority of the first half down a person. I know Doc showed up before VC and Graal but Bobby didn’t take his first break until after the ladies showed up.
In any event Bobby scored his third goal in the first half right around the time VC and Graal arrived. I don’t remember if either had taken the field yet so I don’t know if all three were scored when we were still short handed. But by the time he scored that third Ramrod had long since learned to maintain a healthy distance from Bobby. I have no doubt every time the he got the ball Ramrod braced themselves the same way we did when we faced Lil’ Diego in last season’s game 7. It seemed he could not be stopped. Get too close and he’ll go around you. Give him too much space and he’ll back you into the goal and walk the ball in.
When Bobby took his first breather of the half I went over to him and enthusiastically pretended to punch him the chest while quietly making that noise you make when mimicking the sound of crowd going wild.
Bobby looked at me in surprise and asked “¿why are you hitting me?”
I explained I was celebrating his stunning 3 goal achievement.
His reply. “Oh, that. I used to be much better. I used to train 4 days a week, 2 hours a day in addition to playing regularly. I used to be fit, but now I am flabby and out of shape.” [Note, Bobby looks to be in about the same shape as Elliot or maybe me.]
Simultaneously boastful and humble. A crushing display of futboling celebrated with the slightest of grins.
Thank you, Bobby.
Li’l Pete’s First Ever ¡FUTURISMOS! Goal
Late in the first half the atmosphere was simmering, stunned joy. What had transpired made almost no sense. We were up 3-1. Ramrod was actually quite good but we managed to stifle them. Their one goal was their only really good scoring opportunity. Yes, they were close on other occasions but only once where I thought we’d dodged a bullet.
The Eternal Blue Sky wanted more from us though. The Eternal Blue Sky wanted some jubilation, some joyous screeching. So it turned up the heat of happiness by illuminating the path to Li’l Pete’s first ever goal as a ¡FUTURISMO!
The play was quite simple. Textbook even. I intercepted a Team Ramrod pass at midfield and passed the ball straight ahead to Laddie who turned up field. A defender stepped to him thereby opening up the middle of pitch. Li’l Pete saw the opening, broke for it and called for the ball. Laddie led Li’l Pete perfectly. She took a touch to settle it on the run and then blasted a shot to the right past the keeper.
Li’l Pete turned up field. Her eyes wide and mouth agape. I was standing in the dead center of the pitch where I had original intercepted the pass. She jogged straight at me and said, half in disbelief, “that’s my first ever goal.”
I just vigorously nodded, no doubt with the stupidest giantest grin on my face.
Li’l Pete jogged right to me in the dead center of the pitch, leapt into my arms, and we both bellowed with the joy the Eternal Blue Sky was looking for.
It should surprise no one who reads the tales of the ¡FUTURISMOS! even intermittently to hear that Li’l Pete is my hands-down most cherished player. She has an award named after her that she repeatedly wins herself, for crying out loud. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my players. Each for different reasons based on who they are (or aren’t) and what they do (or don’t do, or can’t do). Mercifully, the ¡FUTURISMOS! are not my children. They are my players. So I can have a favorite.
Of course it is not only easy but proper to have a favorite when that person is not only eternally willing to absorb punishment doled out by Russian futbol mutants whose legs have been engineered to use small atomic bombs to propel the ball forward BUT ALSO takes herself out of games so others can play even if she doesn’t need the rest.
Had I any sway with the Eternal Blue Sky I would have respectfully submitted that the ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving a goal was Li’l Pete. Of course I have no sway with the Eternal Blue Sky so I can only assume her merit is recognizable beyond the human realm.
Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
Half Time: ¡F! 4 — TR 1
The attitude facing the second half was akin to that of the final day of the Tour de France. It would be nearly ceremonial. The idea of loosing or even drawing this game didn’t exist. I wanted Elliot to get out of the goal and play up so I offered to play keeper.
He looked at me in silence for a moment and said, “I’ll stay in goal.”
I told him I really wanted him to get out in the field so he could play with Bobby and Doc. Elliot must have envisioned me keeping for a moment, weighed a 3 goal cushion, and then declined my offer again.
Then Kato-san walked over and said “I’ll play keeper in the second half.”
Elliot immediately relinquished the gloves.
For the second time this season Elliot turned tending the timbers over to someone he met for the first time ever half an hour earlier and had seen play for a total of, maybe, 15-mintues instead of me.
The Second Half: Elliot's 2-Goal Retort
Team Ramrod actually scored first in the second half. It was several minutes in. The shot was actually a classic Elliot goal. A Ramrod guy was 35-yards out and decided to take a speculative boot. He caught Kato-san playing out a little too far and the ball dropped over his backpedaling outstretched hand and just inside the crossbar. It was good goal.
We were still weren’t flummoxed though and minutes later our cushion was restored.
We earned a corner. The ball was kicked in low. Someone deflected it on the near-post side of the goal. I don’t recall whether it was ¡FUTURISMO! or a Ramrod. The ball ricocheted upward and was moving at a healthy clip. Elliot was standing right in front of the Ramrod keeper and he reacted to that ball with shocking quickness. He headed it right over the Ramrod keeper’s head. I can’t emphasize this point emphatically enough: Elliot did this very deliberately but at lightening speed. He even flicked his head to redirect the ball’s path rather than just letting the ball bounce off his head.
Our 3-goal lead was restored.
A while latter Elliot scored again by popping the ball underneath a stooping Ramrod keeper at close range. I missed the event itself but Laddie said with the result of an incredible sequence of close quarters passing between Bobby, Doc and Elliot.
Elliot’s second goal closed out the ¡FUTURISMOS! scoring. Ramrod scored once more but there were only about 4 minutes to play and that span passed without any noteworthy attempts that I recall.
The ease of this game is inexplicable. Team Ramrod was all around good. They didn’t have a single person on the team as bad as even I am. I don’t know. The more I play the less I understand. The Eternal Blue Sky alternately taketh away and givith. We were recipients of the later this night.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
So not only did Li’l Pete score her first goal but she was in tiptop, old-school form. As I mentioned, our defense was ragged thanks to odd assortments of people who’d largely never played together before.
Time and again, there was Li’l Pete poking the ball away; backing someone up; getting run over by Ramrods (and on one occasion, me). She didn’t issue her patented screech, but there were grunts galore and endless orders to the backs flanking her to mold our ragtag defense by nothing more than the force of her will.
It was classic Li’l Pete from wire to wire in a way I haven’t see since I don’t know when.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
By the way, the strong runner-up is Velvet Curtain. Her knee was banged up something fierce and she gutted it out the whole way through. Every time I saw her on the sideline I thought “there’s no way she’ll get back in there” and a few minutes later when someone needed a breather back she’d go. A brave and needed effort.
Thank you, VC.
Play of the Game: Several
Any of Bobby’s goals would do it. Li’l Pete’s first ever was a beauty. Elliot headed goal was amazing. Too many to pick one.
Faustian Moment: “I seek… The Graal”
There wasn’t a Faustian Moment in this game so much as there was a Faustian player.
Graal is an old French word. It was adopted by the English language and became “Grail.” As in “Holy Grail.” As in I so enjoyed playing with Shannon and having her on the team so much that I want to kick half the current ladies off to make room for her.
The first thing Graal said to me when she arrived was, “This is my second game… ever.” The blinding twinkle in her eye that accompanied that proclamation assured me this was both true and good. Before I continue I have to say it was hard to believe it was only her second game.
Here are the three moments that exemplified the spirit of Graal.
The Throw In
In the second half the ball went out of bounds and we had a throw in. The person nearest the ball was Graal so she naturally went out of bounds and picked it up to throw it back in. One problem—She had never before in her life executed a futbol throw in. It’s not complicated and there are really only three basic rules governing the procedure (although I have managed to break one of those rules on nearly half of all my throw ins), but it’s certainly something you’d rather practice once before doing it in a game. Not Graal.
She simply asked for the rules as she was throwing it in. Then she threw it in.
The Near Goal
In the final minute of the game I had the ball on the sideline just over mid-pitch in Ramrod territory. There was plenty of space in front of the goal and I booted the ball about chest high into the box hoping a ¡FUTURISMO! would make a run and get a chance to do something with it. And a ¡FUTURISMO! did.
I was expecting it to be Elliot or Bobby or Doc, but no. It was Graal. She burst through a pack of defenders and had a clear chance on the ball. The only thing impeding her was she didn’t know what to do with a chest high ball so instead of heading or chesting it the ball just sailed by her. But she was right there. She saw the play the whole way and put herself in position to make it.
The Laughing
Of course the attribute I prize above all others is the ability to clearly have fun while playing. Graal was an expert at this. The best moment came late in the game. She was chasing down a ball that was rolling toward the keeper. There was no way she was going to get to the ball before either the keeper got it or it ran out of bounds but this did not impede her pace. I yelled from the sideline at her as she was running “if you run so hard you throw up…” and then I waited a moment for the ball to get to the keeper, “…you still won’t get there in time.”
Graal’s response was amazing. She laughed AND kept chasing the ball down even though it was safely in the keeper’s possession. To Graal’s credit her hustle flummoxed the keeper and he made a terrible pass that was intercepted and nearly led to another goal.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been on hand to watch Graal play—and in particular seen her chase that ball down laughing all the way—the good Doctor would have turned to the nearby Lucifer, yelled “¡STOP!” and traded his soul right then and there.
Honorable Mentions For Our Savior ¡FUTURISMOS!
Laddie
The most important thing about Laddie was his style. His boots were so white I wondered if he had purchased them for that game. His shorts were big and appeared to be of the basketball variety. Most importantly, there was his hair. He has that bowl cut grown out shaggy style hair. So Laddie had a personal game within the game of dealing with his hair.
Laddie was clearly determined to make a difference and he did so primarily through running, which he did well. He also assisted Li’l Pete’s on her goal, let us not forget.
Kato-san
He played in the field in the first half. The highlight being a header on a corner kick that, while not exactly being “close” to scoring, was in the neighborhood and elicited an “ooooo” from the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline.
Kato-san switched to keeper in the second half. While he held his own—I was only feet away from one save where I thought “I’m glad that wasn’t me standing in front of that”— but you could tell he was uncomfortable. I mean this in the most charming way possible.
The keeper is exposed in a way no one else is on the pitch. The slightest hesitation or the smallest miscue is blazingly apparent. If someone burns a defender they still have to travel some distance and shoot to score. If someone burns the keeper, that’s it. That’s a goal. So the keeper is on display in a way none of the other players are.
Like Graal he had a moment of learning on the fly. I don’t know what he did but his first goal kick was improper somehow so Pong went over and explained where he had to place the ball and where to kick it so he could do it over again. But my favorite Kato-san keeping moment was this.
He was in the upper right corner of the box and the ball had somehow popped straight up in the air in front of him. A Ramrod lady got under the ball and Kato-san froze like an Apple II computing pie. ¿Should he knock this lady down to get the ball? ¿Whould he back up? And there was a moment where he sort of stuttered forward not knowing how to simultaneously deal with both this woman and the ball (for reference, Elliot would have barreled through that lady to get the ball and we would have been right to do so).
In the end Kato-san choose a novel solution between his apparent options—He essentially stood face to face with the lady and stuck his arms out around her to get the ball so that he would have caught it behind her back. I don’t remember what happened after that, I think the ball bounced off both of them and got away.
Doc
Doc is so nicknamed because he was calm and clinical at all times. Whenever the ball got to his feet I immediately relaxed because I knew he wasn’t going to do something crazy and whatever he did it was going to be correct. He had these same properties off the ball as well. Such as this incident:
I was left back. I intercepted a ball and moved forward and then stopped when a Ramrod person stepped toward me. So I had a defender in front of me and defender to the right of me. Doc was beyond the defender to my right and Skywalker was behind me. I looked up and didn’t know where to go with the ball.
Doc very calmly but firmly said, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…” over and over (much to my chagrin not everyone uses the nicknames).
I knew exactly what he meant—“pass the ball to Skywalker because she’ll have better angles to make another pass than you do”—but for some reason I didn’t heed his advice. I passed the ball toward Doc instead.
This was stupid because there was a Ramrod right there. The pass forced Doc to hustle to the Ramrod guy to break up his attempted steal. In the scramble the ball came back to me and we were back where we started.
Rather than get flummoxed Doc calmly and firmly tried again, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…”
This time I took the advice I knew I should have in the first place and passed the ball back to Skywalker. The defenders moved, as Doc knew they would, and Skywalker passed the ball to Doc who then took off up field with it.
Anyone who’s spent much time working with children knows how unique and difficult that level of patience and commitment is.
Spectra
Without whom I would have stood on the sideline in my socks the whole game being ribbed by Pong and Katie.
Thank you, Spectra.
Sadly, I Must Stop Writing
Sorry, I have to quit writing now because I’ve run out of time. I wanted to write about Meagan telling me about Kato-san’s breathless retelling of the game when he got home. I also wanted to write about the magically rolling ball that traveled darn near the length of the field slowly along the sideline when everyone assumed it would roll out and it just… kept… going.
But I can’t.
C’est la vie.
The ¡FUTURISMOS! team sponsor, the good people of Colle+McVoy, attached a stipulation to our third season funding: win 3 games. They weren’t joking. They even included it in forecasting to their parent company. So we entered this season on a 3-win hook held by Colle+McVoy and backed by their parent company. That’s like owing your best friend money and then having his dad stand behind you saying “that means you owe me 3 bucks” when his dad is the head of the CIA (the current secret-prisons-in-countries-that-allow-torture CIA).
Even though 3 wins was well within reason this season and a natural progression from our first two in which we won 1 and then 2 games respectively, it was a little nerve wracking at times. No longer.
This was our third win of the season. Our albatross has been revived and flew away. Now we can treat our final 2 games of the season the way they ought to. They will be an extended futboling celebration complete with dancing, singing, chanting, laughing, piggy-back rides, and—¿dare we hope?—a dash of Elliot showboating.
Perhaps we ought not get ahead of ourselves.
That Old Saw About The Japanese Character For “Adversity” Also Meaning “Opportunity”
[NOTE: I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’ve heard it in movies plenty and it jives with other tidbits I know about Japanese culture. I’ll ask Sosuke and add a note in the future.]
Nothing about game 7 appeared to bode well for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Our roster was gutted by a Colle+McVoy blowout shindig that claimed the Thursday night lives of all but four of your ¡FUTURISMOS! Adding an inadvertent foot to the groin after a crippling shot to the shin Big Pete was out of town on vacation. With Bobby on board that meant I had a grand total of 5 available futbolers.
Even had I been entertaining the idea of playing a game with 5 players (and rest assured I was if it came to that) the Eternal Blue Sky was having nothing of it. The weather forecast for game time was 90-degree heat with suffocating humidity. 5 wasn’t going to cut it.
The number or cultural/literary/religious sources for something along the lines of “at your darkest hour you will find the light” are endless. It’s Buddhist. It’s Taoist. It’s the sword in the stone and the Lady in the Lake. It’s the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat. It’s Luke realizing the only way to defeat the Emperor is to throw down his sword. It’s probably Judeo-Christian-Islamic (although I can’t say for sure but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt assuming they had the sense to crib from the older, eastern influenced beliefs). It’s the backbone of Genghis Kahn’s military genius. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you if this is a foreign concept because it isn’t particularly United States-ian. In fact it’s the antithesis of United States-ian rugged individualism/defy all laws of physics and reason to pull yourself up by your own boot straps.
Anyway, in our hour of your ¡FUTURISMOS! greatest need forces both supernatural and mundane swept in to save the day.
The Mayor came through with two additional guys: Spencer and Paul, henceforth known as Laddie and Doc. Don’t forget that the Mayor is also responsible for Bobby too.
Meagan Kato came through by having the foresight to have married a totally cool guy who was looking for an opportunity to kick the ball around: Matthew, henceforth known as Kato-san (wait, he speaks some Japanese, I should ask him about the opportunity/adversity thing).
Last but so far from least that I’d say most critically, an erstwhile ¡FUTURISMO! reappeared to literally save the day: Velvet Curtain (aka Heather Prenevost) arrived and brought a comrade, Shannon, henceforth known as Graal (more on her later). This boosted our number of available ladies from a daunting 2 to an acceptable 4.
Overseeing this hodgepodge of newly knighted ¡FUTURISMOS! was the Eternal Blue Sky. Rather than sun blasted heat and crippling humidity the Eternal Blue Sky delivered pre-game storms that knocked the heat down a little and followed up with a light drizzle under one dense, expansive cloudbank. It was still hot and humid, but the drizzle was cool and persistent and without the Sun beating us down the conditions were something just this side of perfect.
Game Time
At game time that Japanese character still looked a lot like adversity though. In my rush to make sure I had enough matching shirts just incase our newly minted ¡FUTURISMOS! showed up way off color palette I managed to forget my boots. To make matters worse I wore flip-flops to the game so I couldn’t play in sneakers Yes, this was humiliating. [Spectra, Eternal Blue Sky bless her, was in attendance and raced off to get them for me.]
As the ref—make that the “Don’t you want to play” Uber-ref, Pong (read: “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the world “jet”)—was set to put the ball in play we had 4 players on the pitch. Elliot in goal; Kato-san, Skywalker, and Li’l Pete. Pong looked at me silently to say “¿what do you want me to do here?”
I looked back silently to say “do what you must and we’ll deal until more people arrive.”
On the other hand our opponents, Team Ramrod, had 3 reserve men and 1 woman on the sideline. I chatted with several of their players before the game and they were a good natured lot. They were also very much aware of the fact they were half a game ahead of us in the league standings. The winner would remain a middle of the pack team. The looser would be sent down to mingle with the bottom dwellers. All of that is to say they were motivated for this game. Motivated and looking to get off to a strong start with a huge numbers advantage.
Then just as Pong was about to whistle the start of the game Bobby and Laddie showed up and were ready in one clean motion from auto to pitch. Pong whistled and we started the game playing 6 against 7 with no reserves.
“Oh, God, Not Him,” thought a Team Ramrod defender as Bobby bared down upon him
Playing down a person really means you play short a forward. It should mean you still defend but can’t score. That is unless someone is capable of being an offense all by her or himself.
Appearances mean nothing in futbol. The fittest, futboling-est looking man or woman can be a worthless klutz. I’ve seen an honest to goodness fat-bordering-on-obese person move like a deer with the ball. I’ve run past people who look like track stars and been smoked by at least one grandma. So at the start of each game no one really knows whom, if anyone, to fear. It took Team Ramrod only a couple of minutes to find out which ¡FUTURISMO! was going to torture them.
As a defender you keep a healthy distance from a person you fear. Rather than try to disposes him or her of the ball you only want to limit the damage they can do (and there most certainly are ladies to fear, Hassle routinely torches defenders who get too close). Before you know who to fear you approach everyone as though they’ll cough up the ball. As the game elapses you can tell who is good by looking at how close people are to them.
When Bobby first got the ball in open space on the Team Ramrod side of the pitch they challenged him not knowing something about Bobby: he can dance with the ball. It’s really a beautiful, silly thing to see. In open space Bobby waltzes with the ball, it goes quiet at the touch of his foot and never gets away from him when he taps it forward, like spinning your partner but never loosing the softest touch of the hand. When the feet of defenders threaten to molest the ball Bobby switches his dance up to Savion Glover-style light speed tap and his partner is protected by feet moving so fast they morph into a cloud of probability shielding the ball.
Bobby tap-danced around the first defender. A second defender awaited him and wisely played him by cutting off the middle of the field and forcing Bobby to the outside where he’d have less of an angle on goal. Bobby waltzed by this defender taking the space she left him and with only oblique angles available to him he calmly slotted the ball near-post past a keeper whom, I’m guessing, had a hard time believing what he was seeing.
This guy could tap, he could waltz, and hit the angles. And after he scored he simply turned around and jogged back up field with only a Buddha sized smile to celebrate his stunning work.
Shorthanded your ¡FUTURISMOS! opened the scoring just a couple minutes into the game.
A few minutes later Team Ramrod leveled with a goal off horrendous defense. I knew we were bound to give up a couple of jailbreak stampedes because good defending is the result of cohesion between the defenders. At that point our backline was Li’l Pete flanked by Kato-san and Laddie. They were bound to get caught compromised a few times just because they didn’t know each other. To everyone’s credit this was the only truly bad defensive breakdown.
Still shorthanded, Bobby struck again.
This time he had the ball in the TR box flanked by two defenders. Bobby spun, tap dancing to protect the ball in a cloud of feet probability. He managed to slip through the two desperate defenders and scored pointblank again.
I can’t remember exactly what time exactly VC and Graal showed up, but it was past the halfway mark of the first half (by the way, that’s when Spectra returned with my shoes too). So we played the majority of the first half down a person. I know Doc showed up before VC and Graal but Bobby didn’t take his first break until after the ladies showed up.
In any event Bobby scored his third goal in the first half right around the time VC and Graal arrived. I don’t remember if either had taken the field yet so I don’t know if all three were scored when we were still short handed. But by the time he scored that third Ramrod had long since learned to maintain a healthy distance from Bobby. I have no doubt every time the he got the ball Ramrod braced themselves the same way we did when we faced Lil’ Diego in last season’s game 7. It seemed he could not be stopped. Get too close and he’ll go around you. Give him too much space and he’ll back you into the goal and walk the ball in.
When Bobby took his first breather of the half I went over to him and enthusiastically pretended to punch him the chest while quietly making that noise you make when mimicking the sound of crowd going wild.
Bobby looked at me in surprise and asked “¿why are you hitting me?”
I explained I was celebrating his stunning 3 goal achievement.
His reply. “Oh, that. I used to be much better. I used to train 4 days a week, 2 hours a day in addition to playing regularly. I used to be fit, but now I am flabby and out of shape.” [Note, Bobby looks to be in about the same shape as Elliot or maybe me.]
Simultaneously boastful and humble. A crushing display of futboling celebrated with the slightest of grins.
Thank you, Bobby.
Li’l Pete’s First Ever ¡FUTURISMOS! Goal
Late in the first half the atmosphere was simmering, stunned joy. What had transpired made almost no sense. We were up 3-1. Ramrod was actually quite good but we managed to stifle them. Their one goal was their only really good scoring opportunity. Yes, they were close on other occasions but only once where I thought we’d dodged a bullet.
The Eternal Blue Sky wanted more from us though. The Eternal Blue Sky wanted some jubilation, some joyous screeching. So it turned up the heat of happiness by illuminating the path to Li’l Pete’s first ever goal as a ¡FUTURISMO!
The play was quite simple. Textbook even. I intercepted a Team Ramrod pass at midfield and passed the ball straight ahead to Laddie who turned up field. A defender stepped to him thereby opening up the middle of pitch. Li’l Pete saw the opening, broke for it and called for the ball. Laddie led Li’l Pete perfectly. She took a touch to settle it on the run and then blasted a shot to the right past the keeper.
Li’l Pete turned up field. Her eyes wide and mouth agape. I was standing in the dead center of the pitch where I had original intercepted the pass. She jogged straight at me and said, half in disbelief, “that’s my first ever goal.”
I just vigorously nodded, no doubt with the stupidest giantest grin on my face.
Li’l Pete jogged right to me in the dead center of the pitch, leapt into my arms, and we both bellowed with the joy the Eternal Blue Sky was looking for.
It should surprise no one who reads the tales of the ¡FUTURISMOS! even intermittently to hear that Li’l Pete is my hands-down most cherished player. She has an award named after her that she repeatedly wins herself, for crying out loud. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my players. Each for different reasons based on who they are (or aren’t) and what they do (or don’t do, or can’t do). Mercifully, the ¡FUTURISMOS! are not my children. They are my players. So I can have a favorite.
Of course it is not only easy but proper to have a favorite when that person is not only eternally willing to absorb punishment doled out by Russian futbol mutants whose legs have been engineered to use small atomic bombs to propel the ball forward BUT ALSO takes herself out of games so others can play even if she doesn’t need the rest.
Had I any sway with the Eternal Blue Sky I would have respectfully submitted that the ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving a goal was Li’l Pete. Of course I have no sway with the Eternal Blue Sky so I can only assume her merit is recognizable beyond the human realm.
Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
Half Time: ¡F! 4 — TR 1
The attitude facing the second half was akin to that of the final day of the Tour de France. It would be nearly ceremonial. The idea of loosing or even drawing this game didn’t exist. I wanted Elliot to get out of the goal and play up so I offered to play keeper.
He looked at me in silence for a moment and said, “I’ll stay in goal.”
I told him I really wanted him to get out in the field so he could play with Bobby and Doc. Elliot must have envisioned me keeping for a moment, weighed a 3 goal cushion, and then declined my offer again.
Then Kato-san walked over and said “I’ll play keeper in the second half.”
Elliot immediately relinquished the gloves.
For the second time this season Elliot turned tending the timbers over to someone he met for the first time ever half an hour earlier and had seen play for a total of, maybe, 15-mintues instead of me.
The Second Half: Elliot's 2-Goal Retort
Team Ramrod actually scored first in the second half. It was several minutes in. The shot was actually a classic Elliot goal. A Ramrod guy was 35-yards out and decided to take a speculative boot. He caught Kato-san playing out a little too far and the ball dropped over his backpedaling outstretched hand and just inside the crossbar. It was good goal.
We were still weren’t flummoxed though and minutes later our cushion was restored.
We earned a corner. The ball was kicked in low. Someone deflected it on the near-post side of the goal. I don’t recall whether it was ¡FUTURISMO! or a Ramrod. The ball ricocheted upward and was moving at a healthy clip. Elliot was standing right in front of the Ramrod keeper and he reacted to that ball with shocking quickness. He headed it right over the Ramrod keeper’s head. I can’t emphasize this point emphatically enough: Elliot did this very deliberately but at lightening speed. He even flicked his head to redirect the ball’s path rather than just letting the ball bounce off his head.
Our 3-goal lead was restored.
A while latter Elliot scored again by popping the ball underneath a stooping Ramrod keeper at close range. I missed the event itself but Laddie said with the result of an incredible sequence of close quarters passing between Bobby, Doc and Elliot.
Elliot’s second goal closed out the ¡FUTURISMOS! scoring. Ramrod scored once more but there were only about 4 minutes to play and that span passed without any noteworthy attempts that I recall.
The ease of this game is inexplicable. Team Ramrod was all around good. They didn’t have a single person on the team as bad as even I am. I don’t know. The more I play the less I understand. The Eternal Blue Sky alternately taketh away and givith. We were recipients of the later this night.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
So not only did Li’l Pete score her first goal but she was in tiptop, old-school form. As I mentioned, our defense was ragged thanks to odd assortments of people who’d largely never played together before.
Time and again, there was Li’l Pete poking the ball away; backing someone up; getting run over by Ramrods (and on one occasion, me). She didn’t issue her patented screech, but there were grunts galore and endless orders to the backs flanking her to mold our ragtag defense by nothing more than the force of her will.
It was classic Li’l Pete from wire to wire in a way I haven’t see since I don’t know when.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
By the way, the strong runner-up is Velvet Curtain. Her knee was banged up something fierce and she gutted it out the whole way through. Every time I saw her on the sideline I thought “there’s no way she’ll get back in there” and a few minutes later when someone needed a breather back she’d go. A brave and needed effort.
Thank you, VC.
Play of the Game: Several
Any of Bobby’s goals would do it. Li’l Pete’s first ever was a beauty. Elliot headed goal was amazing. Too many to pick one.
Faustian Moment: “I seek… The Graal”
There wasn’t a Faustian Moment in this game so much as there was a Faustian player.
Graal is an old French word. It was adopted by the English language and became “Grail.” As in “Holy Grail.” As in I so enjoyed playing with Shannon and having her on the team so much that I want to kick half the current ladies off to make room for her.
The first thing Graal said to me when she arrived was, “This is my second game… ever.” The blinding twinkle in her eye that accompanied that proclamation assured me this was both true and good. Before I continue I have to say it was hard to believe it was only her second game.
Here are the three moments that exemplified the spirit of Graal.
The Throw In
In the second half the ball went out of bounds and we had a throw in. The person nearest the ball was Graal so she naturally went out of bounds and picked it up to throw it back in. One problem—She had never before in her life executed a futbol throw in. It’s not complicated and there are really only three basic rules governing the procedure (although I have managed to break one of those rules on nearly half of all my throw ins), but it’s certainly something you’d rather practice once before doing it in a game. Not Graal.
She simply asked for the rules as she was throwing it in. Then she threw it in.
The Near Goal
In the final minute of the game I had the ball on the sideline just over mid-pitch in Ramrod territory. There was plenty of space in front of the goal and I booted the ball about chest high into the box hoping a ¡FUTURISMO! would make a run and get a chance to do something with it. And a ¡FUTURISMO! did.
I was expecting it to be Elliot or Bobby or Doc, but no. It was Graal. She burst through a pack of defenders and had a clear chance on the ball. The only thing impeding her was she didn’t know what to do with a chest high ball so instead of heading or chesting it the ball just sailed by her. But she was right there. She saw the play the whole way and put herself in position to make it.
The Laughing
Of course the attribute I prize above all others is the ability to clearly have fun while playing. Graal was an expert at this. The best moment came late in the game. She was chasing down a ball that was rolling toward the keeper. There was no way she was going to get to the ball before either the keeper got it or it ran out of bounds but this did not impede her pace. I yelled from the sideline at her as she was running “if you run so hard you throw up…” and then I waited a moment for the ball to get to the keeper, “…you still won’t get there in time.”
Graal’s response was amazing. She laughed AND kept chasing the ball down even though it was safely in the keeper’s possession. To Graal’s credit her hustle flummoxed the keeper and he made a terrible pass that was intercepted and nearly led to another goal.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been on hand to watch Graal play—and in particular seen her chase that ball down laughing all the way—the good Doctor would have turned to the nearby Lucifer, yelled “¡STOP!” and traded his soul right then and there.
Honorable Mentions For Our Savior ¡FUTURISMOS!
Laddie
The most important thing about Laddie was his style. His boots were so white I wondered if he had purchased them for that game. His shorts were big and appeared to be of the basketball variety. Most importantly, there was his hair. He has that bowl cut grown out shaggy style hair. So Laddie had a personal game within the game of dealing with his hair.
Laddie was clearly determined to make a difference and he did so primarily through running, which he did well. He also assisted Li’l Pete’s on her goal, let us not forget.
Kato-san
He played in the field in the first half. The highlight being a header on a corner kick that, while not exactly being “close” to scoring, was in the neighborhood and elicited an “ooooo” from the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline.
Kato-san switched to keeper in the second half. While he held his own—I was only feet away from one save where I thought “I’m glad that wasn’t me standing in front of that”— but you could tell he was uncomfortable. I mean this in the most charming way possible.
The keeper is exposed in a way no one else is on the pitch. The slightest hesitation or the smallest miscue is blazingly apparent. If someone burns a defender they still have to travel some distance and shoot to score. If someone burns the keeper, that’s it. That’s a goal. So the keeper is on display in a way none of the other players are.
Like Graal he had a moment of learning on the fly. I don’t know what he did but his first goal kick was improper somehow so Pong went over and explained where he had to place the ball and where to kick it so he could do it over again. But my favorite Kato-san keeping moment was this.
He was in the upper right corner of the box and the ball had somehow popped straight up in the air in front of him. A Ramrod lady got under the ball and Kato-san froze like an Apple II computing pie. ¿Should he knock this lady down to get the ball? ¿Whould he back up? And there was a moment where he sort of stuttered forward not knowing how to simultaneously deal with both this woman and the ball (for reference, Elliot would have barreled through that lady to get the ball and we would have been right to do so).
In the end Kato-san choose a novel solution between his apparent options—He essentially stood face to face with the lady and stuck his arms out around her to get the ball so that he would have caught it behind her back. I don’t remember what happened after that, I think the ball bounced off both of them and got away.
Doc
Doc is so nicknamed because he was calm and clinical at all times. Whenever the ball got to his feet I immediately relaxed because I knew he wasn’t going to do something crazy and whatever he did it was going to be correct. He had these same properties off the ball as well. Such as this incident:
I was left back. I intercepted a ball and moved forward and then stopped when a Ramrod person stepped toward me. So I had a defender in front of me and defender to the right of me. Doc was beyond the defender to my right and Skywalker was behind me. I looked up and didn’t know where to go with the ball.
Doc very calmly but firmly said, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…” over and over (much to my chagrin not everyone uses the nicknames).
I knew exactly what he meant—“pass the ball to Skywalker because she’ll have better angles to make another pass than you do”—but for some reason I didn’t heed his advice. I passed the ball toward Doc instead.
This was stupid because there was a Ramrod right there. The pass forced Doc to hustle to the Ramrod guy to break up his attempted steal. In the scramble the ball came back to me and we were back where we started.
Rather than get flummoxed Doc calmly and firmly tried again, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…”
This time I took the advice I knew I should have in the first place and passed the ball back to Skywalker. The defenders moved, as Doc knew they would, and Skywalker passed the ball to Doc who then took off up field with it.
Anyone who’s spent much time working with children knows how unique and difficult that level of patience and commitment is.
Spectra
Without whom I would have stood on the sideline in my socks the whole game being ribbed by Pong and Katie.
Thank you, Spectra.
Sadly, I Must Stop Writing
Sorry, I have to quit writing now because I’ve run out of time. I wanted to write about Meagan telling me about Kato-san’s breathless retelling of the game when he got home. I also wanted to write about the magically rolling ball that traveled darn near the length of the field slowly along the sideline when everyone assumed it would roll out and it just… kept… going.
But I can’t.
C’est la vie.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Game 6: ¡FUTURISMOS! 4 — Hoff in the Shower 3
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: or Why The Write-Up Is Short This Week
I have failed you, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans. I thought I’d be able to be reasonable about reading the final Harry Potter by reading a couple chapters a day. Alas, just as Harry’s fate is inextricably intertwined with Lord Voldemort’s so is mine to read about it like a fool.
A Perfectly Normal Game
This game was weird in the sense that it felt perfectly normal. The weather was “nice.” The temperature was in the mid-70’s, I reckon, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the sun took its toll. Yes, I am grateful for the Sun—seeing as how it is the source of life on our planet—but that doesn’t mean I like playing under its gaze.
Our opponent was Hoff in the Shower. Their record and the scores of their games led me to believe this game would be a breeze. Once again I learned the existential nature of the game the hard way. We beat the p450’s 10-3 and they’re half a game out of playoff contention. HITS is tied for last in the league and they put up a dogfight that we narrowly won.
Bobby scored the game’s first goal. Their keeper looked shaky and we looked like we were ready to cruise.
Then they scored and tied but the knot was short lived.
Bobby scored again and so did Big Pete. We went into halftime up 3-1 and looking good. They had threatened a few times and came away empty but we had on many occasions. So headed into the second half we were up 2 goals and felt like we were on the verge of a few more.
Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls
It wasn’t over confidence or slackened effort that caught up with us in the second half. No, HITS just scored a couple good goals and we couldn’t crack the keeper they switched to for the second half.
That keeper, by the way, scored one of their 2 second half goals. He made a save. Dropped the ball on the ground. Took off up field. Scampered by a couple defenders. Then unleashed an excellent blast from 20-yards out to the left of the goal into the lower right corner.
They tied it with just under 10-minutes to play and the life went out of us. Not in a dramatic way that was clearly visible on the pitch. We just lost our zip. We needed a boost and it didn’t look like one was coming. But then with 5-minutes to play Li’l Pete turned everything around.
Energy is still largely a mystery even to the sciences. Energy is a stubborn element. We can harness it. We can use it. But we don’t really understand it. From an empirical standpoint why Li’l Pete’s efforts worked is a mystery.
What Li’l Pete did was want to win. She started yelling, “¡Five minutes left, and we are going to win this game!” At first it had no effect. Then slowly it started to build. As though the spirit of Li’l Pete imbued all the ¡FUTURISMOS! with a will that was lacking. We were quicker to the ball. More decisive in our movement.
And then with a minute to play Li’l Pete’s energy invested in the club paid off.
Bobby lured the keeper out to the right side of the goal then calmly slotted the ball over to Big Pete who was waiting for it on the left. The pass was perfect and Big Pete escorted the ball into the goal to score the game winner.
There was still a couple minutes to play but the game was over. We played neither particularly well nor poorly. It was a normal game and we were a little bit luckier than HITS. C’est la vie.
Play of the Game & Faustian Moment: Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal
I never thought I’d see the day when the Play of the Game and the Faustian Moment are one and the same. Leave it to Big Pete.
Big Pete was running toward the goal and received the ball only about 15-feet from the goal (sorry, I can’t remember who passed it). The keeper was already rushing Big Pete to smother the ball before he got a chance to get off a shot. The keeper and the ball got to Big Pete’s feet at almost the same time. The keeper was sliding sideways and took Big Pete’s feet out from under him. His momentum carried him forward and he ended up doing a kind of flip/summersault over the keeper.
The ball got caught between Big Pete’s feet and he ended up flinging it forward mid-summersault flip. It is important you actually take a moment to imagine this:
Imagine standing still with the ball between your feet. You do summersault and when your feet are straight over your head you let the ball go to throw it forward. That’s what Big Pete did... on the run. So as he flipped over the diving keeper he threw the ball in with his feet into the goal.
Big Pete tumbled into the goal unaware of what happened. Then looked down and saw the ball with him in the net; looked up and saw his teammates cheering; and realized he had scored a stupefying goal worthy of a Ronaldinho.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to witness Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal and his reaction to finding himself in the net with the ball he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at the nearby Lucifer and sold his soul right then and there.
It was brilliant.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
It’s rare to hear the Li’l Pete scream anymore. I’m not sure why. Perhaps there aren’t as many people who kick the ball hard enough. I like to think our defense is better so we don’t leave her alone anymore with people who kick the ball hard enough to kill children (or spindly adults for that matter). So it is a rare treat when we hear the outright scream Li’l Pete issues when she throws herself into a cannon ball.
We got to hear it as Li’l Pete snuffed out HITS final attempt to get the ball down near our goal to score the tying goal. A HITS guy was trying to rifle the ball into the middle from the sideline. Li’l Pete had none of it, threw herself before the cannon, screamed and the ball bounced harmlessly out of bounds.
Game over.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
I have failed you, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans. I thought I’d be able to be reasonable about reading the final Harry Potter by reading a couple chapters a day. Alas, just as Harry’s fate is inextricably intertwined with Lord Voldemort’s so is mine to read about it like a fool.
A Perfectly Normal Game
This game was weird in the sense that it felt perfectly normal. The weather was “nice.” The temperature was in the mid-70’s, I reckon, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the sun took its toll. Yes, I am grateful for the Sun—seeing as how it is the source of life on our planet—but that doesn’t mean I like playing under its gaze.
Our opponent was Hoff in the Shower. Their record and the scores of their games led me to believe this game would be a breeze. Once again I learned the existential nature of the game the hard way. We beat the p450’s 10-3 and they’re half a game out of playoff contention. HITS is tied for last in the league and they put up a dogfight that we narrowly won.
Bobby scored the game’s first goal. Their keeper looked shaky and we looked like we were ready to cruise.
Then they scored and tied but the knot was short lived.
Bobby scored again and so did Big Pete. We went into halftime up 3-1 and looking good. They had threatened a few times and came away empty but we had on many occasions. So headed into the second half we were up 2 goals and felt like we were on the verge of a few more.
Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls
It wasn’t over confidence or slackened effort that caught up with us in the second half. No, HITS just scored a couple good goals and we couldn’t crack the keeper they switched to for the second half.
That keeper, by the way, scored one of their 2 second half goals. He made a save. Dropped the ball on the ground. Took off up field. Scampered by a couple defenders. Then unleashed an excellent blast from 20-yards out to the left of the goal into the lower right corner.
They tied it with just under 10-minutes to play and the life went out of us. Not in a dramatic way that was clearly visible on the pitch. We just lost our zip. We needed a boost and it didn’t look like one was coming. But then with 5-minutes to play Li’l Pete turned everything around.
Energy is still largely a mystery even to the sciences. Energy is a stubborn element. We can harness it. We can use it. But we don’t really understand it. From an empirical standpoint why Li’l Pete’s efforts worked is a mystery.
What Li’l Pete did was want to win. She started yelling, “¡Five minutes left, and we are going to win this game!” At first it had no effect. Then slowly it started to build. As though the spirit of Li’l Pete imbued all the ¡FUTURISMOS! with a will that was lacking. We were quicker to the ball. More decisive in our movement.
And then with a minute to play Li’l Pete’s energy invested in the club paid off.
Bobby lured the keeper out to the right side of the goal then calmly slotted the ball over to Big Pete who was waiting for it on the left. The pass was perfect and Big Pete escorted the ball into the goal to score the game winner.
There was still a couple minutes to play but the game was over. We played neither particularly well nor poorly. It was a normal game and we were a little bit luckier than HITS. C’est la vie.
Play of the Game & Faustian Moment: Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal
I never thought I’d see the day when the Play of the Game and the Faustian Moment are one and the same. Leave it to Big Pete.
Big Pete was running toward the goal and received the ball only about 15-feet from the goal (sorry, I can’t remember who passed it). The keeper was already rushing Big Pete to smother the ball before he got a chance to get off a shot. The keeper and the ball got to Big Pete’s feet at almost the same time. The keeper was sliding sideways and took Big Pete’s feet out from under him. His momentum carried him forward and he ended up doing a kind of flip/summersault over the keeper.
The ball got caught between Big Pete’s feet and he ended up flinging it forward mid-summersault flip. It is important you actually take a moment to imagine this:
Imagine standing still with the ball between your feet. You do summersault and when your feet are straight over your head you let the ball go to throw it forward. That’s what Big Pete did... on the run. So as he flipped over the diving keeper he threw the ball in with his feet into the goal.
Big Pete tumbled into the goal unaware of what happened. Then looked down and saw the ball with him in the net; looked up and saw his teammates cheering; and realized he had scored a stupefying goal worthy of a Ronaldinho.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to witness Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal and his reaction to finding himself in the net with the ball he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at the nearby Lucifer and sold his soul right then and there.
It was brilliant.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
It’s rare to hear the Li’l Pete scream anymore. I’m not sure why. Perhaps there aren’t as many people who kick the ball hard enough. I like to think our defense is better so we don’t leave her alone anymore with people who kick the ball hard enough to kill children (or spindly adults for that matter). So it is a rare treat when we hear the outright scream Li’l Pete issues when she throws herself into a cannon ball.
We got to hear it as Li’l Pete snuffed out HITS final attempt to get the ball down near our goal to score the tying goal. A HITS guy was trying to rifle the ball into the middle from the sideline. Li’l Pete had none of it, threw herself before the cannon, screamed and the ball bounced harmlessly out of bounds.
Game over.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Game 5: ¡FUTURISMOS! 6 — Snowball’s Chance 6
One Phantom Goal Begets Another
When this game ended I thought we'd lost 5-6 on a cheap goal (see below). Then a couple days later I check the score online and it said we tied 6-6. I reckoned there was some funny book keeping to even out that cheap shot goal that never shouldn't have been. Then a day later I checked again and Snowball's Chance was awarded a mystery goal of their own.
So we ended up loosing after all. But instead of just a cheap shot goal it was a cheap shot goal and a phantom goal. What a way to go down.
By the way, I wrote the whole entry thinking we’d lost and posted it. Then I found out we tied, wrote the section “This Just In… Literally” and made a few revisions throughout to adjust for the tie. Now that we lost again I just don’t have the energy to go back and make more corrections. Sorry about the confusion, although I’m certain no one will read this so whatever.
This Just In… Literally (revised minutes after I finished the entry below)
Apparently I missed a goal.
I just checked the league standings and we tied Snowball’s Chance last week. ¡WE TIED THE NUMBER ONE TEAM IN THE LEAGUE! ¡AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’d write more but I have to run around reveling in our belated quasi-triumph.
If you read the rest of the recap--which I wrote thinking we had lost by a goal--you will see why this missed goal that was is particularly sweet.
“¡Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky!”
The Eternal Blue Sky
The basis of many Mongols’ religious beliefs—including Genghis Kahn’s—is the Eternal Blue Sky. I believe we open skied, prairie dwelling peoples from the other side of the world can relate. Game 5 against Snowball’s Chance was played under an awe inspiring display of the Eternal Blue Sky.
The game started at 8:45pm, early sunset. Overhead was a blue sky with furrows of fat, rolling clouds filled with the gold of sunset. My agnosticism buckled under the weight of the grandeur of the Eternal Blue Sky.
Our opponent was a worthy of the setting. Snowball’s Chance—in spite of their name—is the #1 team in the league. In their first four games they scored no fewer nor allowed more than 3 goals (we’ve been shut out once and prior to last week hadn’t scored more than 2 goals). Two weeks ago they beat the same NÜRD team I once presumed invincible.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! entered the game on a high after last week’s 10 goal blow up and in decent attendance shape. Five ladies were on hand: Li’l Pete, Hassle, Mayor, Belle, and Hermione (¡in her new black socks!). Five gents as well: Elliot, TB, Sohei, Bobby, and yours truly. And, of course, our Keeper, Kahn.
For reasons I’ll elaborate on later I have few overarching thoughts about the game and only spotty specific memories but it went more or like this:
We quickly opened with a goal.
They quickly scored to level.
Then they scored again.
And again.
And again.
Their four goals were all scored over the middle stretch of the first half. Even though they weren’t dominating us in terms of overwhelming quality of play or suburb ball control it felt like they were way out ahead of us. And they were, 1-4 is a sizeable gap. But we scored again making the halftime score 2-4.
Half Time: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Snowball’s Chance 4
No one was down at the half. Even though we behind a healthy two goals the attitude was “it’s only two.” Keep in mind that prior to last week the most goals we’d scored in a game was 2. So entering the second half against the #1 team we were trailing by as many goals as we’d scored in any of our first 3 games. So “it’s only two” was a quantum leap in ¡FUTURISMOS! attitude towards onion sack deposits.
The Most Controversial Goal in ¡FUTURISMOS! history
The second half opened with controversy. Snowball’s Chance had the ball. For those unaccustomed with the ways of fútbol, the halves open thusly: the ball is placed at center pitch, the ref blows the whistle, and someone on the team with the ball has to one-touch the ball (meaning you have to kick it rather than run with it). In my history of watching and playing the sport—both in person and in video game—every time a half commences the team with the ball starts by passing the ball to a teammate. Usually it’s a person standing within 5 feet of the passer.
Unfortunately the ref blew the whistle before Kahn was ready. She was still fiddling with the gloves. The Snowball guy taking the opening tap—Alfredo, more on him later—saw Kahn wasn’t ready and so rather than passing the ball to a teammate he shot it. Kahn, along with everyone else on the pitch, was caught totally off guard. She picked the ball’s flight up late, stumbled over to it and while still fumbling with her gloves got in front of it to deflect it but the bounce rolled it into the net giving Snowball’s Chance a 5-2 lead.
A dazed Kahn looked up at the ref and held her hands up to show her that she hadn’t even put her gloves on yet. The ref winced and apologized to us, but what was done was done.
Yes, of course, it would have been nice had the ref been more aware of Kahn’s state before she blew the whistle. And, yes, it is ultimately our own fault for taking the pitch unready to play. Having said that this was a serious violation of fútboling etiquette. It was positively unsporting. The kind of thing that would have sparked riots in Europe or the Americas south of the Rio Grande.
Part of the beauty of futbol is it is governed by 17 laws, the overwhelming majority of which pertain to the pitch, equipment, and technical aspects of the game (i.e. when an indirect kick is awarded verses a direct kick, how a penalty kick is to be taken). Taking a shot from the set ball to open half when you see the ref has inadvertently whistled play to start before your opponent is set—if the ref had noticed the keeper wasn’t ready she would not have blown the whistle—is tantamount to theft.
Fortunately Karma appears to play a roll under the Eternal Blue Sky and would exact a pinch of balance—more later.
The Rest of the 2nd Half
Down 2-5 seconds into the second half to the #1 team in the league may seem like a daunting challenge. I don’t remember feeling that way and it certainly wasn’t pervasive if anyone felt it at all. From that point the comeback was on.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! scored to make it 3-5. Back in striking distance.
Snowball’s Chance scored again to push it back to 3-6.
Then with nine minutes left we scored. 4-6.
A few minutes later we scored again. 5-6.
Down a goal with roughly 5 minutes to play things got downright intriguing.
Play of the Game: “I’M GOING TO GET YOU, MOTHERF*CKER.”
As I’ve already mentioned on a couple of occasions, the play of the game is the play of the game. I can’t help it. Just like a triangle is a triangle or a perfect circle a perfect circle. I have no say in the matter. The play of not only the 2006 World Cup Final but rather the whole tournament was Zidane’s Headbutt. It will be remembered forever whereas any other play or even the winner will have to looked up to jolt peoples’ memories.
This requires a little set up.
Our 5th goal was scored by Elliot. He had the ball in the Snowball box and was defended by a lady. He shot and she stuck her foot out to block it. Apparently her ankle took the brunt of the boot and she crumbled to the ground. As she tumbled Elliot shot again and the ball went in (I think it ricocheted off their keeper even). The time that elapsed between the lady crumbling and the goal scoring was bang-bang. In other words no time. It was all one continuous play. Elliot didn’t dribble the ball or even take a step. He just shot it again as the lady was tumbling.
Snowball’s Chance protested. On what grounds exactly was hard to say. I think they were making the twin arguments that Elliot had somehow intentionally injured the Snowball lady and that the ref should have stopped play when it was clear someone was injured. Neither argument holds.
The injury was two people going for a ball. It’s normal. It happens all the time (it’s why my right big toe will never be the same, but that guy didn’t foul me either). As for stopping play, by the time it was clear she was actually hurt rather than just down the goal had already been scored. If play stopped every time someone hit the pitch the game would be all stoppage.
The goal stood and Alfredo’s dye was cast.
The injured lady was Alfredo’s wife (we think). And Elliot, the person who crunched her ankle, and Alfred already had a testy relationship. They had already shoved each other prior to that and exchanged words.
Shortly after our 5th goal Alfredo had the ball and was bringing it up the sideline. Elliot dispossessed him of the ball and cleared it. In the course of that play Alfredo kicked Elliot in the back of the leg and scraped him with his cleats. Then as they both turned to trot back up field toward the ball Alfredo turned around to share his feelings with Elliot.
“I’m going to get you, Motherf*cker.”
I had the distinctly weird pleasure/horror of being about 10 feet away from Alfredo when he issued his threat. As the Eternal Blue Sky would have it the ref was only a few feet further away and heard it too.
The ref fumbled in her pocket and produced a yellow card. The first we’ve ever had in a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. Alfredo and several other teammates protested. Arguing that Elliot deserved one for injuring the lady earlier. The ref heard nothing of it and simply said, “get off the pitch, Alfredo.” Snowball’s Chance would play the last couple of minutes without their best player.
FOOTNOTE: Whereas most people were stunned or confused about what was happening as the ref was sending Alfredo off, Bobby didn’t care a lick.
“¿Whose ball, ref?” he kept asking as the ref was still dealing with a recalcitrant Alfredo.
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
When she motioned it was our ball, while steal dealing with Alfredo, Bobby then changed his tune.
“¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! Come on ref, let’s go, time is short.”
Indeed time was short.
Too short.
The Last Couple of Minutes
We had two more stellar chances in the last couple of minutes. Each was thwarted by an excellent diving save from the Snowball keeper. Alas, the Snowball keeper saved the game for them and they—the #1 team in the league—left the pitch clinging for dear life to a win they didn’t even come close to deserving.
Or so it seemed at the time. Little did we know at that point that we had at some point scored the leveling goal. Truth be told, a tie is the correct outcome. How that tie came about is the domain of the Eternal Blue Sky. If you want to know more head outside, look up, and ask.
Who Scored
Elliot scored twice. Bobby and TB each scored one. And Belle (aka Shawna Lavelle) scored her first of the season. ¡HUZZAH!
There is a lost sixth goal in the mix as well. The likely candidates for ownership are Elliot, TB, Hassle, Bobby, Sohei, and Belle. Take your pick and congratulate her or him... then go outside and give the Eternal Blue Sky a nod as well.
LI’L PETE AWARD: I'm Not Sure, Several People
I feel like several people are deserving this week. Hermione selflessly threw herself before a charging Snowball guy just feet away from the goal earning herself a nice bruise in exchange for thwarting a likely goal. The Mayor held down her side of the defensive backfield. Li’l Pete was her usual self. I played the entire game at left back because the other four guys on hand were all forwards by nature (and we’d need them there to increase our odds of scoring) and didn’t fall on my face, didn’t get burnt, and even almost scored… an own goal. This is why my recollections are fragmented because I literally had no time to encode anything.
So the Li’l Pete Award winners are those who put in the bulk of their time in the backfield: Li’l Pete, Mayor, Hermione, and me.
Faustian Moment: Pretty, shiny, ball… ¡Weeeeeeee!
The Faustian Moment this week was also my one serious lapse, which unfortunately led directly to a Snowball goal.
I was marking Alfredo. Snowball’s Chance had the ball in the corner and Alfredo and I were standing in front of our goal. A ¡FUTURISMO! stole the ball and cleared it. Everyone started trotting up field to follow the ball except Alfredo who stood still in front of our goal. That meant I stood still in front of our goal with him.
Near midfield a Snowballer stole the ball back and immediately kicked it high into the air toward Alfredo and me.
What I should have done was stand there with Alfredo to at least make him jostle with me to get at the ball. Here’s what I did do.
As I mentioned earlier the Eternal Blue Sky was particularly gorgeous that night. The flood lights were on too so there two different hues of light playing off each other. As the ball sailed into the air I became transfixed by its shinny hallo of bright white light (thanks to the floodlights accenting it) set against the brilliant blue sky and the golden white clouds. As all children do when under the spell of a bubble gently wafting through the air, I tottered toward it.
I wish I could at least say I had left the man I was marking undefended because I thought I had a better bead on the flight of the ball and intended to make a play on it. Alas, I cannot. I was simply enthralled (which now means “capture the fascinated attention of with magic” but in Middle English meant “enslaved,” both definitions fit here).
There is a point at which the force behind an object sent into the air is at equilibrium with the force of gravity. In that instant the object hangs exactly perfectly in the vertical plane—moving neither up nor down. In that moment it is at rest in regard to gravity. They are at peace with one another.
To call that point a “moment” is too long. To say it “pauses” is an exaggeration. This is what the phrase “a twinkling of an eye” was invented for.
I toddled out toward the pretty bauble floating on the upside-down ocean at sunset. I watched it rise. In a twinkle of my eye I saw the ball/bauble become one with gravity. When the ball was directly over my head—well over my head, I couldn’t have jumped and hit with my hand—gravity won and it started its downward fall. I turned around to watch it continue its path toward the pitch.
Down it went.
Down.
Until something got in its way.
The head of Alfredo, the guy I was supposed to be defending. And with his head he redirected the ball into the far corner of the net for a goal.
Beyond a doubt I yielded that goal but I take back what I said a bit ago. I don’t wish I could say I left my mark undefended because I had a better track on the ball. I’m glad I became enthralled by the simple majesty of the moment. I only hope that next time I’m able to both appreciate the beauty of the moment AND keep the person I’m defending within arm’s length. These things should not be mutually exclusive.
Alas, they might be. That’s why had Dr. Faust been on hand to witness my bewitching I have little doubt he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
Fan update: An entire family plus Spectra
I don’t really expect people to come to games anymore so I had dropped this section, but this was a special occasion. Erica (¿sp?), TB’s wife, was on hand with her parents and dog. In addition Spectra was an honorary member of their family for the evening.
Thank you, TB’s in-laws.
When this game ended I thought we'd lost 5-6 on a cheap goal (see below). Then a couple days later I check the score online and it said we tied 6-6. I reckoned there was some funny book keeping to even out that cheap shot goal that never shouldn't have been. Then a day later I checked again and Snowball's Chance was awarded a mystery goal of their own.
So we ended up loosing after all. But instead of just a cheap shot goal it was a cheap shot goal and a phantom goal. What a way to go down.
By the way, I wrote the whole entry thinking we’d lost and posted it. Then I found out we tied, wrote the section “This Just In… Literally” and made a few revisions throughout to adjust for the tie. Now that we lost again I just don’t have the energy to go back and make more corrections. Sorry about the confusion, although I’m certain no one will read this so whatever.
This Just In… Literally (revised minutes after I finished the entry below)
Apparently I missed a goal.
I just checked the league standings and we tied Snowball’s Chance last week. ¡WE TIED THE NUMBER ONE TEAM IN THE LEAGUE! ¡AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’d write more but I have to run around reveling in our belated quasi-triumph.
If you read the rest of the recap--which I wrote thinking we had lost by a goal--you will see why this missed goal that was is particularly sweet.
“¡Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky!”
The Eternal Blue Sky
The basis of many Mongols’ religious beliefs—including Genghis Kahn’s—is the Eternal Blue Sky. I believe we open skied, prairie dwelling peoples from the other side of the world can relate. Game 5 against Snowball’s Chance was played under an awe inspiring display of the Eternal Blue Sky.
The game started at 8:45pm, early sunset. Overhead was a blue sky with furrows of fat, rolling clouds filled with the gold of sunset. My agnosticism buckled under the weight of the grandeur of the Eternal Blue Sky.
Our opponent was a worthy of the setting. Snowball’s Chance—in spite of their name—is the #1 team in the league. In their first four games they scored no fewer nor allowed more than 3 goals (we’ve been shut out once and prior to last week hadn’t scored more than 2 goals). Two weeks ago they beat the same NÜRD team I once presumed invincible.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! entered the game on a high after last week’s 10 goal blow up and in decent attendance shape. Five ladies were on hand: Li’l Pete, Hassle, Mayor, Belle, and Hermione (¡in her new black socks!). Five gents as well: Elliot, TB, Sohei, Bobby, and yours truly. And, of course, our Keeper, Kahn.
For reasons I’ll elaborate on later I have few overarching thoughts about the game and only spotty specific memories but it went more or like this:
We quickly opened with a goal.
They quickly scored to level.
Then they scored again.
And again.
And again.
Their four goals were all scored over the middle stretch of the first half. Even though they weren’t dominating us in terms of overwhelming quality of play or suburb ball control it felt like they were way out ahead of us. And they were, 1-4 is a sizeable gap. But we scored again making the halftime score 2-4.
Half Time: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Snowball’s Chance 4
No one was down at the half. Even though we behind a healthy two goals the attitude was “it’s only two.” Keep in mind that prior to last week the most goals we’d scored in a game was 2. So entering the second half against the #1 team we were trailing by as many goals as we’d scored in any of our first 3 games. So “it’s only two” was a quantum leap in ¡FUTURISMOS! attitude towards onion sack deposits.
The Most Controversial Goal in ¡FUTURISMOS! history
The second half opened with controversy. Snowball’s Chance had the ball. For those unaccustomed with the ways of fútbol, the halves open thusly: the ball is placed at center pitch, the ref blows the whistle, and someone on the team with the ball has to one-touch the ball (meaning you have to kick it rather than run with it). In my history of watching and playing the sport—both in person and in video game—every time a half commences the team with the ball starts by passing the ball to a teammate. Usually it’s a person standing within 5 feet of the passer.
Unfortunately the ref blew the whistle before Kahn was ready. She was still fiddling with the gloves. The Snowball guy taking the opening tap—Alfredo, more on him later—saw Kahn wasn’t ready and so rather than passing the ball to a teammate he shot it. Kahn, along with everyone else on the pitch, was caught totally off guard. She picked the ball’s flight up late, stumbled over to it and while still fumbling with her gloves got in front of it to deflect it but the bounce rolled it into the net giving Snowball’s Chance a 5-2 lead.
A dazed Kahn looked up at the ref and held her hands up to show her that she hadn’t even put her gloves on yet. The ref winced and apologized to us, but what was done was done.
Yes, of course, it would have been nice had the ref been more aware of Kahn’s state before she blew the whistle. And, yes, it is ultimately our own fault for taking the pitch unready to play. Having said that this was a serious violation of fútboling etiquette. It was positively unsporting. The kind of thing that would have sparked riots in Europe or the Americas south of the Rio Grande.
Part of the beauty of futbol is it is governed by 17 laws, the overwhelming majority of which pertain to the pitch, equipment, and technical aspects of the game (i.e. when an indirect kick is awarded verses a direct kick, how a penalty kick is to be taken). Taking a shot from the set ball to open half when you see the ref has inadvertently whistled play to start before your opponent is set—if the ref had noticed the keeper wasn’t ready she would not have blown the whistle—is tantamount to theft.
Fortunately Karma appears to play a roll under the Eternal Blue Sky and would exact a pinch of balance—more later.
The Rest of the 2nd Half
Down 2-5 seconds into the second half to the #1 team in the league may seem like a daunting challenge. I don’t remember feeling that way and it certainly wasn’t pervasive if anyone felt it at all. From that point the comeback was on.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! scored to make it 3-5. Back in striking distance.
Snowball’s Chance scored again to push it back to 3-6.
Then with nine minutes left we scored. 4-6.
A few minutes later we scored again. 5-6.
Down a goal with roughly 5 minutes to play things got downright intriguing.
Play of the Game: “I’M GOING TO GET YOU, MOTHERF*CKER.”
As I’ve already mentioned on a couple of occasions, the play of the game is the play of the game. I can’t help it. Just like a triangle is a triangle or a perfect circle a perfect circle. I have no say in the matter. The play of not only the 2006 World Cup Final but rather the whole tournament was Zidane’s Headbutt. It will be remembered forever whereas any other play or even the winner will have to looked up to jolt peoples’ memories.
This requires a little set up.
Our 5th goal was scored by Elliot. He had the ball in the Snowball box and was defended by a lady. He shot and she stuck her foot out to block it. Apparently her ankle took the brunt of the boot and she crumbled to the ground. As she tumbled Elliot shot again and the ball went in (I think it ricocheted off their keeper even). The time that elapsed between the lady crumbling and the goal scoring was bang-bang. In other words no time. It was all one continuous play. Elliot didn’t dribble the ball or even take a step. He just shot it again as the lady was tumbling.
Snowball’s Chance protested. On what grounds exactly was hard to say. I think they were making the twin arguments that Elliot had somehow intentionally injured the Snowball lady and that the ref should have stopped play when it was clear someone was injured. Neither argument holds.
The injury was two people going for a ball. It’s normal. It happens all the time (it’s why my right big toe will never be the same, but that guy didn’t foul me either). As for stopping play, by the time it was clear she was actually hurt rather than just down the goal had already been scored. If play stopped every time someone hit the pitch the game would be all stoppage.
The goal stood and Alfredo’s dye was cast.
The injured lady was Alfredo’s wife (we think). And Elliot, the person who crunched her ankle, and Alfred already had a testy relationship. They had already shoved each other prior to that and exchanged words.
Shortly after our 5th goal Alfredo had the ball and was bringing it up the sideline. Elliot dispossessed him of the ball and cleared it. In the course of that play Alfredo kicked Elliot in the back of the leg and scraped him with his cleats. Then as they both turned to trot back up field toward the ball Alfredo turned around to share his feelings with Elliot.
“I’m going to get you, Motherf*cker.”
I had the distinctly weird pleasure/horror of being about 10 feet away from Alfredo when he issued his threat. As the Eternal Blue Sky would have it the ref was only a few feet further away and heard it too.
The ref fumbled in her pocket and produced a yellow card. The first we’ve ever had in a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. Alfredo and several other teammates protested. Arguing that Elliot deserved one for injuring the lady earlier. The ref heard nothing of it and simply said, “get off the pitch, Alfredo.” Snowball’s Chance would play the last couple of minutes without their best player.
FOOTNOTE: Whereas most people were stunned or confused about what was happening as the ref was sending Alfredo off, Bobby didn’t care a lick.
“¿Whose ball, ref?” he kept asking as the ref was still dealing with a recalcitrant Alfredo.
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
When she motioned it was our ball, while steal dealing with Alfredo, Bobby then changed his tune.
“¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! Come on ref, let’s go, time is short.”
Indeed time was short.
Too short.
The Last Couple of Minutes
We had two more stellar chances in the last couple of minutes. Each was thwarted by an excellent diving save from the Snowball keeper. Alas, the Snowball keeper saved the game for them and they—the #1 team in the league—left the pitch clinging for dear life to a win they didn’t even come close to deserving.
Or so it seemed at the time. Little did we know at that point that we had at some point scored the leveling goal. Truth be told, a tie is the correct outcome. How that tie came about is the domain of the Eternal Blue Sky. If you want to know more head outside, look up, and ask.
Who Scored
Elliot scored twice. Bobby and TB each scored one. And Belle (aka Shawna Lavelle) scored her first of the season. ¡HUZZAH!
There is a lost sixth goal in the mix as well. The likely candidates for ownership are Elliot, TB, Hassle, Bobby, Sohei, and Belle. Take your pick and congratulate her or him... then go outside and give the Eternal Blue Sky a nod as well.
LI’L PETE AWARD: I'm Not Sure, Several People
I feel like several people are deserving this week. Hermione selflessly threw herself before a charging Snowball guy just feet away from the goal earning herself a nice bruise in exchange for thwarting a likely goal. The Mayor held down her side of the defensive backfield. Li’l Pete was her usual self. I played the entire game at left back because the other four guys on hand were all forwards by nature (and we’d need them there to increase our odds of scoring) and didn’t fall on my face, didn’t get burnt, and even almost scored… an own goal. This is why my recollections are fragmented because I literally had no time to encode anything.
So the Li’l Pete Award winners are those who put in the bulk of their time in the backfield: Li’l Pete, Mayor, Hermione, and me.
Faustian Moment: Pretty, shiny, ball… ¡Weeeeeeee!
The Faustian Moment this week was also my one serious lapse, which unfortunately led directly to a Snowball goal.
I was marking Alfredo. Snowball’s Chance had the ball in the corner and Alfredo and I were standing in front of our goal. A ¡FUTURISMO! stole the ball and cleared it. Everyone started trotting up field to follow the ball except Alfredo who stood still in front of our goal. That meant I stood still in front of our goal with him.
Near midfield a Snowballer stole the ball back and immediately kicked it high into the air toward Alfredo and me.
What I should have done was stand there with Alfredo to at least make him jostle with me to get at the ball. Here’s what I did do.
As I mentioned earlier the Eternal Blue Sky was particularly gorgeous that night. The flood lights were on too so there two different hues of light playing off each other. As the ball sailed into the air I became transfixed by its shinny hallo of bright white light (thanks to the floodlights accenting it) set against the brilliant blue sky and the golden white clouds. As all children do when under the spell of a bubble gently wafting through the air, I tottered toward it.
I wish I could at least say I had left the man I was marking undefended because I thought I had a better bead on the flight of the ball and intended to make a play on it. Alas, I cannot. I was simply enthralled (which now means “capture the fascinated attention of with magic” but in Middle English meant “enslaved,” both definitions fit here).
There is a point at which the force behind an object sent into the air is at equilibrium with the force of gravity. In that instant the object hangs exactly perfectly in the vertical plane—moving neither up nor down. In that moment it is at rest in regard to gravity. They are at peace with one another.
To call that point a “moment” is too long. To say it “pauses” is an exaggeration. This is what the phrase “a twinkling of an eye” was invented for.
I toddled out toward the pretty bauble floating on the upside-down ocean at sunset. I watched it rise. In a twinkle of my eye I saw the ball/bauble become one with gravity. When the ball was directly over my head—well over my head, I couldn’t have jumped and hit with my hand—gravity won and it started its downward fall. I turned around to watch it continue its path toward the pitch.
Down it went.
Down.
Until something got in its way.
The head of Alfredo, the guy I was supposed to be defending. And with his head he redirected the ball into the far corner of the net for a goal.
Beyond a doubt I yielded that goal but I take back what I said a bit ago. I don’t wish I could say I left my mark undefended because I had a better track on the ball. I’m glad I became enthralled by the simple majesty of the moment. I only hope that next time I’m able to both appreciate the beauty of the moment AND keep the person I’m defending within arm’s length. These things should not be mutually exclusive.
Alas, they might be. That’s why had Dr. Faust been on hand to witness my bewitching I have little doubt he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
Fan update: An entire family plus Spectra
I don’t really expect people to come to games anymore so I had dropped this section, but this was a special occasion. Erica (¿sp?), TB’s wife, was on hand with her parents and dog. In addition Spectra was an honorary member of their family for the evening.
Thank you, TB’s in-laws.
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