GAME 2: ¡FUTURISMOS! 0 -- PUNISH!!! 4

SETTING THE SCENE
The scene for Game 2 requires setting because it was unusual. First off it was a late start -- 8:45. There’s something weird about the late starts. It’s like going to see a movie at 10 in the morning: The experience is made up of all the same elements but when you put them together there’s something different about the whole and not for the better.

Where we play normally there are two futbol games being played simultaneously at either end of what is a football americano field. Please bear with me and visualize this for a moment. The sidelines of the pitch are the back of the end zone on a football field and the 40-yard line. The end-lines of the pitch are the sidelines of the football field. Teams gather and pile their stuff in the space between the fields between the 40 yard lines.

This time there was one futbol pitch on one side of the field and two narrow mini-football americano fields on the other side for a league of touch or flag football americano. These min-football americano fields ended on the 45-yard line -- so 5-yards from the sideline of our pitch. The problem here wasn’t that our games got in the way of each other. With the back of their end zones so close to the sideline of our pitch people couldn’t stand in the middle of the field. Turns out all the people and their stuff in the middle of the field make it abundantly clear where the sideline is. Without them the sideline is just a line with lines on either side of it (the other sideline has no lines beyond it so it’s easy to see).

This is a little thing, but there were several instances where ¡FUTURISMOS! or Punish!!! players were befuddled as to whether the ball was in or out of bounds because to figure it out you had to scan the line to determine whether it was the 40-yard line or not. That may not sound like a big deal but try running, kicking a futbol, looking out for defenders, searching for teammates, AND looking up and down a line indistinguishable from others 6-feet on either side of it to find little yellow cones or the number 40.

On top of that football americano players are apparently much quieter than futbol players. Even though there were 3 games being played (2 football americano + 1 futbol) -- one MORE than normal -- it was nearly silent in there. That’s just eerie. Normally there’s a steady din of people cheering, clapping, yelping, etc. The building is basically a huge eco-chamber. That night there were 30-ish people running around playing plus people on the sidelines and it sounded like the Basilica on Tuesday morning.

Put it all together and in a word everything was just off. That extends to the game itself. ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, I’ll tell it like it is. We had an off night and rightly lost 0-4 to Punish!!!. The score was even fair… in a way.


EXAMINATION OF “OFF”
We played well for 37 minutes and 55 seconds. In that time we had as many chances as they did, as well as the best goal opportunity of the game. The power of a Sohei (Mike Caguin) blast even knocked their keeper out of the game (more later). Alas, for the other 10 minutes and 5 seconds we were badly out of sorts and in that time they managed 4 goals.

The shoddy 10 minutes were the first 10 of the game. We were stone slow to adjust to their style. Perhaps we were still high from our wild running in game 1, but our defense was all over the place and rarely where it needed to be. It wasn’t that they had some exotic formations or ran crisp plays. They just attacked and always had someone running to the goal on the weak side.

Twice in the first half they attacked a keeper throw in, either stole the pass outright or won it in a challenge and then had a two-on-one fast break. The odds of scoring on a two-on-one fast break are only slightly worse than they are in basketball. Their third goal came from the same situation but it was a one-on-none break. After those 10 minutes we adjusted and dealt with their attacking style yielding only a few good chances.

The remaining 5-seconds of the 10 minutes 5 seconds occurred 2/3 of the way through the second half. The Serbian (Katie Mileusnic) deflected a pass and in so doing the ball popped up and hit her on the arm. That’s a handball. The ref blows the whistle. Play stops and Punish!!! is awarded the ball at the spot of the infraction. Play then resumes.

A funny thing happened after The Serbian’s handball -- the whistle did not blow.

Off The Serbian’s deflection the ball ended up 20-feet away, centered in front of our goal. Four ¡FUTURISMOS! were near the ball and all of them stopped playing in anticipation of the whistle. Luckily for Punish!!! they had a gentleman who was inured to the power of the whistle.

Blue Shorts Man (as he is known) earlier in the game had put on an astounding demonstration of whistle immunity. There was an infraction of some sort down near the Punish!!! goal. What it was, I can’t say (sometimes you can’t tell), but the ref blew the whistle. Everyone stopped playing except Blue Shorts Man. The ref kept blowing the whistle. He kept playing. The ref blew. He played. Finally Dan Mandle screamed “¡STOP! ¡STOP! ¡STOP! ¡STOP!” After a moment of that Blue Shorts Man awoke from his trance, threw his hands up, and apologized in an Eastern European accent.

I can’t say whether it was actually Blue Shorts Man who noticed the ball untended 20-feet before our net surrounded by inert ¡FUTURISMOS! but for the purposes of this story lets say it was. He booted the ball, it deflected off Hermione’s (Emily Kaiden) leg thereby foiling any chance Kahn (Molly Fitzgerald) had to save it.

As a result we have a new rule. It’s no longer “Play until the whistle.” Now it’s “Play until you hear Dan Mandle bellowing ‘¡STOP!’.”

EXAMINATION OF “ON”
Again, our offense generated several excellent scoring chances. Skywalker (Natalie Lucas) and The Hoff (Kristy Hoffman’s placeholder nickname) are particular adept at working the ball up the sideline and getting it into the middle where Electric Elliot (Brian Litzinger), TB (Tim Blevins), or Sohei (Mike Caguin) get a chance on goal.

Sohei had the shot of the game for either side. From roughly 25-feet he had a clear blast that was headed into the net about head-high and just inside the post. The Punish!!! keeper made a terrific, all-out dive to save it. It was hard to see what happened next, but I’m guessing the keeper fell on the ball as he crashed to the pitch. The game stopped for nearly 5-mintues to tend to the injured Punish!!! keeper. He left the game and didn’t return. In fact he disappeared after that. The only thing better than Sohei’s shot was the save. It was beautiful stuff… except for the injury.

Our passing has so improved that at times we pass excessively rather than take shots. This is a good problem. So what’s keeping us off the books? Two things:

1) Rust. It takes us an extra moment to gather the ball to get a shot off. That moment will disappear by mid-season and that will make all the difference.
2) Fate. It’s no coincidence that futbol is the only sport that has directly led to the formation of a philosophy (Existentialism). More often than not the difference between a goal and a miss lingers on the border of the metaphysical. For those who don’t believe me please review Zidane’s header in the ’06 World Cup Final.

The rust will leave of its own accord. The Fates are fickle, which is the classic blessing and curse. They’ll come around.

After the atrocious 10-minutes the defense was solid for the rest of game under the domain of Kahn’s keeping (Molly Fitzgerald) -- including a handful of terrific saves -- and the direction of Li’l Pete (Sarah Pollpeter).

Speaking of Li’l Pete

LI’L PETE AWARD
We haven’t had a classic Li’l Pete moment yet this year from Li’l Pete. She has yet to stop a Russian mutant death shot blast on her own and doesn’t have a futbol shaped bruise anywhere on her body. I think that’s partially because our team is better so we don’t need Li’l Pete to be the defense all by herself, but more likely that we’ve only played two games. The first Li’l Pete moment of the season was shared by Kahn and Hermione (Emily Kaiden) during our rough 10-minute opening.

Punish!!! took a shot on goal and it was deflect by Kahn. The ball was rolling away and Kahn dove on top of it. A Punish!!! lady was there kicking at the ball and somehow Hermione ended up on her knees so the ball was between her leg and Khan’s body. All the while this Punish!!! lady was wildly kicking away at the Khan -- who was laying on the ground -- and Hermione -- who was on her knees. From the sideline it looked for all the world like this Punish!!! was just wailing away at a defenseless tandem of Kahn and Hermione. For some reason the ref actually allowed to this to go on a couple of moments before she blew the whistle.

Being viciously attacked, risking loss of flesh, that’s the Li’l Pete way.


FAUSTIAN MOMENT
The replacement keeper for Punish!!! wasn’t a proper keeper. Every chance he got he’d run the ball out as far as he could, a few times well into our side of the field. One time he took the ball out near the sideline and ended up loosing it somehow and the ball made its way to the middle of the field where Sohei received it roughly 20-feet from the Punish!!! goal.

There was no one in front of the Punish!!! net. No keeper, no defender. No one. The net was literally empty. Sohei settled the ball, wound up his right leg, and booted the ball… off his left foot. The ball spun away to the right nowhere near the goal and was shortly thereafter cleared.

I was back on the ¡FUTURISMOS! side of the pitch marking a Punish!!! guy. As the ball spun away he turned around and stared at me. The look on that guy’s face. His mouth and eyes were agape. He was simultaneously horrified and entertained.

If Dr. Faust had been looking over my shoulder to see Sohei with that open net before him, the ball spin off, and then the Punish!!! guy turn around with that look on his face I have no doubt he would have happily shouted “stop” at Lucifer to trade his soul.


FAREWELL, PRETTY BOY BRAN~D
Game 2 was also Pretty Boy Bran~D’s (Brandon Smith) last game of the season as he’s off to help a friend with his softball team. Bran~D was beyond a doubt the most improved male player since the inception of the ¡FUTURISMOS! to the point where he was our best male defender. Bran~D will be missed.

We can only hope he sees the folly in his decision when he realizes futbol is the most likely candidate for THE GAME GODS PLAY PROVIDED THERE ARE ANY. Slow-pitch Softball on the other hand is WHAT PASSES AS SPORT FOR, WAIT -- WHO ARE WE KIDDING -- NOBODY.


EVERYONE HATES MIKE CAGUIN AND TIM BLEVINS EXCEPT KATE ACHHAMER
We did manage to tie the attendance record for Colle+McVoy employees in Game 2. Kate Achhamer was there with gentleman in tow. Thank you, Ms. Achhamer. Your support is dear to us and should be rewarded with $10.

That matches the C+M fan total from last season when L-Wad showed up once. It also means everyone at Colle+McVoy, Exponent, and Mobium – save Ms. Achhamer and the ¡FUTURISMOS! – hates Mike Caguin and Tim Blevins.

Wow. That’s bold stuff from you all. Especially Tony Saucier. Good luck, my fellow non-¡FUTURISMOS!/non-Ms. Achhamer coworkers. I wouldn’t want to be in your collective shoes.