A DARK BEGININNG
The final ¡FUTURISMOS! game had a most inauspicious start. Our opponent was Von Raschke’s All Stars. I petitioned the league to schedule our finale against VRAS both because we played them in our most thrilling game of the season (a 2-2 tie in which they leveled in the final minute: see blog entry from 05/06) and they were a great natured lot. Alas, VRAS were a little short at game time only having 5 players plus the keeper. They were one lady short.
“No problem,” you may be saying to yourself aloud right now. “The ¡FUTURISMOS! are famous for an abundance of women. Surely one of the ¡F! ladies would happily side with VRAS both so there could be a proper game AND because VRAS were a good natured lot.”
That’s what I thought.
Katie, a CSC Sports official, and the Captain of VRAS approached to request a lady as we were huddled up before the game. They asked me, the ¡F! Captain, if we might loan them a lady for the game so we could make a sporting go of the season finale. Seeing as we had so many and they so few I granted the request without a moment’s consideration.
The ¡FUTURISMOS! ladies were all standing behind me. I turned around and asked who would play with VRAS.
They replied in unison, “No. It’s the final game of the season and we want to play with our team. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”
I explained that if one of them didn’t play for VRAS there would be no game and therefore there would nothing for anyone to think fun much less think anything else.
Again they replied, “No. It’s the final game of the season and we want to play with our team.”
In the light of obstinacy I made a command decision. We would settle this with a round of Bubblegum, Bubblegum, In A Dish and demanded they all stick a foot out.
Once more they held firm, “No.”
I expect this sort of sheepish selfishness from the likes of Hermione and Stilts (aka Platinum Platter), but ¿Li’l Pete? I wasn’t devastated. No, it was worse—I was disappointed.
Now is the appropriate time to acknowledge I attempted to retire from the ¡FUTURISMOS! a few weeks back. We have improved to the point where we can reasonably expect to play well and even win most every game we play. Dynamo would still lay a hurtin’ on us, but at full strength on a good day we could make them work for it. But a funny thing happened on the way to futbol proficiency: efficacy varies inversely with silliness and turns out I care not for the former and the world for the later.
We had a team meeting. I addressed these concerns with the club and there was widespread agreement that we had lost touch with silliness and we would make a concerted effort to both win and be silly. Placated I withdrew my resignation.
Yet there I was, pleading with half my team to be good sports and play with a worthy opponent for the greater good. ¿And what was a getting? Flack. ¡OY! So in the face of this dismal display of poor sportspersonship I did the only thing I could. As captain of the ¡FUTURISMOS! I can consent to opponent requests. I proactively gave VRAS permission to play with one man who declared himself a lady, declared myself a lady and joined VRAS.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! cried foul and howled in protest. “It’s not right. ¡Not you! You can’t play for them. ¡It’s the last game of the season!”
I was vexed. It was as though the ¡FUTURISMOS! had collectively lost the ability to reason—a common symptom of crowd logic—and could not grasp the reality of the situation. If one of the ¡FUTURISMOS! didn’t play with VRAS there would be no last game of the season. Period. Nothing for anyone to enjoy.
The correct-est thing would have been for a lady to play with them. That wasn’t going to happen and I would have been damned had I not salvaged the game for the greater good of everyone (the ¡FUTURISMOS!, VRAS, CSC Sports, futbol itself, the spirit of play, the very nature of the human soul). So I swapped out my Argentine Blue & Cloud White jersey for a plain white t-shirt and took up sides with my opponent.
One last time: Shame on every ¡FUTURISMO! lady in attendance of the season finale. Not playing with VRAS was poor form.
Enough of that. On to the game.
THE FIRST HALF
[Details are in short supply this week because I didn’t have time to encode much because I had to play significantly more than usual.]
Before anyone out there cries foul about this not being a real game on account of VRAS being short handed (they had the requisite 7 but no subs), let it be known this game was practically speaking over by the 12th minute. The first two ¡FUTURISMOS! goals came within the first 3 minutes and a third was scored somewhere around the 12th. That is to say the score was 3-0 before VRAS—including yours truly—were properly winded.
Elliot and TB scored the first two goals. I can’t remember who scored first. Both goals were mini-breaks with numbers but not all-out jailbreaks where two or three ¡FUTURISMOS! were bearing down on a defenseless keeper. Sohei assisted on both goals (I think… I know he assisted twice).
Around the 12th minute (the midpoint of the first half) Hassle notched her first nugget of the season. ¿What happened? I don’t remember. I just know I was defending on the weak side when she scored. And so it came to pass that the ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving a goal was granted one. I told ya’ll it was only a matter of time before the gods deemed her worthy of the gift.
HALF TIME: ¡FUTURISMOS! 3 — VON RASCHKE’S ALL STARTS 0
The spirits of VRAS were not broken at the half. They were certainly a touch fatigued but far from extinguished. Big Pete offered to switch with me and be the honorary VRAS member for the second half. I declined but he insisted it was for the greater good that I spend the second half with the ¡FUTURISMOS! (and that it was a good trade for VRAS was no doubt somewhere in the back of his mind). So I bid my VRAS comrades adieu and re-upped with the ¡FUTURISMOS!
THE SECOND HALF
Elliot scored his second goal of the game sometime after the 34th minute making the game 4-0. If memory serves it was a classic long distance Elliot dive bomb special. According to Elliot it was meant to be a cross but either he kicked it funny or the wind got it. It happens. Zidane’s “assist” in Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait was clearing a shot that someone just got in the way of. It’s part of the game. But I could be wrong about that.
The VRAS goal was a few minutes latter (maybe I have the goals backwards) and the direct result of Li’l Pete being out of the game. I think she took herself out just to get someone else on for season finale some time. In the resulting vacuum before we Li’l Pete-less defenders got our act together a VRAS guy found himself a good look from 25-feet out and put it in the upper left corner.
That was about it.
IN THE END A FITTING CONCLUSION TO THE SEASON
Despite its ominous prelude this was a perfect game to finish the season with. The combination of the VRAS circumstances and the 2 quick ¡FUTURISMOS! goals meant this game quickly became fun for fun’s sake. Despite the fact that all of our games are in reality fun for fun’s sake it’s easy to loose track of that from time to time. Had I the foresight I would have prayed to the Gods for just such a game. As always, the Gods were one step ahead. “Thank you, Apollo.”
LI’L PETE AWARD
Nobody’s getting it this week. Not because nobody deserved it but because I don’t know who to give it to. Watching half the game from the VRAS perspective made it difficult to follow who was doing what well for the ¡FUTURISMOS! I’d just give it to Li’l Pete but that’s a cop out.
¿You know what? Never mind. VRAS is getting the Li’l Pete Award. With only 7 people total they played a good game. And both of their ladies played the game preceding ours then the 3 guys played a game after. Good show. That's the Li'l Pete Spirit.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT: SERBIAN SQUEAL
It’s late in the game and the ¡FUTURISMOS! are on the attack. We have numbers. It’s looking good. The ball is kicked to the Serbian and she’s set to receive it on the run about 20 feet from the VRAS goal.
The ball took a hop and bounced hard off her shin guard shooting toward the end line. The Serbian squealed in shock. Then to her credit she ran as hard as she could those 20-feet to retrieve it but the dye was cast, the ball lost. Hermione and I were both within 10-feet of her at the time and burst out laughing at the sound and sight.
¡OH!, that brief squeal. Like Team Monday’s 16, it was as though she had been startled by false scare in a horror movie. It belied that she was absolutely engaged mind, body and spirit in receiving that ball and that its unfortunately bounce was a stunning affront to her intentions. Even for the likes of Ronaldinho and Kaká sometimes the ball takes a funny hop and scoots away. The Serbian’s response was appropriate—one I suspect Ronaldinho and Kaká are well acquainted with—and one that had Dr. Faust been on hand he would have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for right then and there.
Thank you, Serbian.
¿DON’T YOU WANT TO PLAY?
I don’t know where the ref was from but he was outstanding. I couldn’t place his accent, he sounded Caribbean-ish, but a couple of things he said made me thing maybe he was either Central or South American. I reckon he was 25, give or take. He kept things moving and left no doubt as to his rulings. During the game he’d even occasionally give pointers or compliments to the players.
At one point I kicked a through ball that none of my teammates could catch up with and it went out of bounds. I turned around to walk back to my position with my head down and he said “No. Get your head up. That was a good ball.” I pointed out it had gone out of bounds. He replied, “You just saw the opportunity before they did. It was good ball.”
I loved that guy.
So late in the game, right after the VRAS goal as a matter of fact, we had just put the ball in play when an errant futbol sailed onto the pitch rolling near the game ball we were playing with. Elliot stopped and put his foot on the game ball. The ref ran over and booted the errant ball off the pitch. Elliot then passed the game ball to the ref to reset play. The ref one-touched it back to Elliot and said “game on.”
Elliot stood dumbfounded with the ball for a moment before saying something like “¿don’t you want to reset it?”
The ref replied without hesitation, “¿Don’t you want play?”
This exchange froze everyone on the pitch for a moment of existential reflection.
“¿Don’t you want to play?”
Elliot replied with the only correct answer—He took off with the ball dancing beneath his feet.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
GAME 8 (Postseason 1 of 2): ¡FUTURISMOS! 0 — Glass Ceiling 1
THE STAGE FOR POSTSEASON GAME 1 (of 2)
This is important: we played this game without Li’l Pete. She was out of town on business. As I’ve mentioned before Li’l Pete is our Captain in Deed, on-pitch coach, and the bedrock of our defense. Last season if she wasn’t playing we weren’t defending. It isn’t like that anymore. I knew we’d be fine but that it would change the complexion of our play.
Complicating Li’l Pete’s absence, Kahn missed her first game as well. Without our fulltime keeper that meant Elliot would spend a whole game betwixt the timbers. This is good as it means we don’t miss a beat in the net but in the exchange we loose our leading scorer and pacesetter upfront.
Pace is unusually important in futbol due to the free flowing, unbroken (as in no timeouts) nature of the game. There are no “plays” like there are in basketball or football americano so you can’t really structure production. Nor can someone consistently dominate the ball and make things happen for themselves and others (that happens now and then but it’s the exception). The vast majority of one’s contributions on the pitch take place in open spaces off the ball: making a dash at the ball from a distance forcing the opponent to chang her/his mind; picking spots to make runs to stress the defense; finding opportune moments to dog a ball handler well beyond your normal sphere of responsibility. In these regards Elliot is our pacesetter. Our “Most Likely To Come Flying Out of Nowhere.”
Even with all of that in mind this game was perfect test of our progress this year. We opened the season against Glass Ceiling and played well in a 0-2 loss. Even without our best defender, starting keeper, and Elliot upfront I still thought we would play well and have as many chances as they did to win.
This was the case.
GOAL GS GUY (20TH min): ¡F! 0 — GS 1
The lone goal of the game was worthy of the distinction of its designation. Out of a scrum before our net a GS Guy ended up with the ball 25-feet away from the goal just beyond the right post. With what little space he had he fired a serious blast high toward the goal.
In the instant I had to process the visual information I assumed the ball would streak safely over the goal. He kicked it too hard at too acute an angle too close to the goal. More proof that what I don’t know would fill the new Wembley. The ball the bottom of the crossbar (perhaps even grazing the right upright) bounced straight down and with its spin skipped into the goal.
It was a shot the keeper, any keeper, would have been powerless to stop. It was kicked too hard and placed too well. Upon asking ¡FUTURISMOS! for their game recollections Skywalker confessed she should have deflected that shot. She was defending the GS Guy and his kick was a perfect shot at her nose. In the no time she had to make a decision she wisely chose facial self-preservation. Had we emerged from the game with a nil-nil draw and one broken nose to show for it I would have calmly suggested Skywalker duck next time.
In futbol, as in life, there are always laws superseding the ones you’re currently playing under.
OUR BEST FIRST HALF CHANCE
The Glass Ceiling keeper was a ringer. I’m not sure whether he is technically one of their teammates because he stuck around and kept for a team in the following game too. He’s the kind of keeper who routinely brings the ball out of the net himself and will advance it past midfield. Some people find this to be showboating. I don’t. It’s a risk and if you’re good enough to take it you should because there’s no law written or no that prohibits it.
Our best chance in the first half was a heart breaker. TB had the ball and a free run at the GS goal from 40-feet out on the right flank. As is TB’s style, he was flying. The GS keeper stepped out to stop him and guessed that TB was going to sneak the ball in on the right and went down to that side to smother the shot. (a good guess because that’s exactly what TB had done a few weeks earlier). ¡BUT he was snookered!
TB then calmly attempted to pick out the far left post. Alas, he missed it by a about a foot. An excellent run and a great chance from TB lacking only a brush from the wing of Hermes’ ankle.
OUR BEST SECOND HALF CHANCE
The ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving of a goal who doesn’t have one yet is Hassle. This is not a condemnation of her play. Quite the contrary. The most famous futboler in the world isn’t a goal scorer. Sir David Beckham’s specialty is facilitating the flow of the football from midfield to the scorers up front. Hassle has excelled at Sir Beckham’s specialty this year and for her efforts she was nearly rewarded a highly polished gem of goal.
After faking out two Glass Ceiling defenders on the left sideline deep in GS territory she had created enough space for herself to get off an attempt from 25-feet out well to the left of the goal. The GS keeper had positioned himself on the left side of the net to deal with Hassle’s approach leaving the right side of the net open. Placing the ball into the right side of the goal from that angle with the keeper playing where he was is an exceedingly difficult shot.
Hassle was up to the challenge.
She chipped the ball toward the upper right-hand corner of the GS goal. From the ball’s early flight it was clear it was going to be close something terrible. The keeper scrambled but was beaten. He dove but was nowhere near covering the exposed corner. It was, as it always is, in the hand of The Fates. Perhaps one of them sneezed (or forgot to sneeze) because the ball didn’t take a final dip to find the belly of the crossbar and instead ricocheted out of bounds.
Hassle squealed and skipped away both in agony over the miss and in ecstasy of the beauty of the effort. I’d say it was robbery, but all we have in this world is on loan anyway as the rightful property of Zeus and Company. They simply didn’t see fit to loan Hassle a goal in this instance. I have no doubt that will soon change.
THE ONLY SOUR NOTE
Late in the second half the GS Keeper had the ball after a shot on goal. He placed it on the ground. His teammates fanned out and positioned themselves as they would on a goal kick. We in turn did the same and prepared to defend the kick.
Then we all just stood there.
It was weird. The GS keeper didn’t kick the ball. He just stood there and in turn everyone just stood in place waiting for him to kick the ball. TB turned to the ref and asked her to implore the keeper to put the ball in play. She replied there was nothing she could do because it was a live ball. It wasn’t a goal kick. He had simply stopped a shot, stood up and dropped the ball to his feet. TB then pushed up to the keeper forcing him to put the ball in play.
What the GS keeper did wasn’t technically illegal but it was beyond doubt poor form. Earlier this year the English Premiership club Arsenal was down 0-1 to someone (let’s say it was Liverpool, it wasn’t Liverpool but they're a dreary lot so this sort of thing wouldn’t be a stretch for them). The Liverpool keeper over the course of the entire second half took his sweet, sweet time putting the ball in play. There isn’t a law mandating a specific time by which the keeper must put the ball in play (there are surprisingly few codified rules in futbol; 17 to be exact and most of them deal with the pitch, uniforms and equipment). It’s discretionary but he was definitely milking it and pushing the limits.
[As the by far and away most litigious society in the world we USAmericans attempt to codify everything right down to the number of seconds in which a person must shoot a free throw after receiving the ball from the official in a basketball game. It’s 10-seconds. There is no advantage in taking an eternity to shoot a free throw. As a matter of fact, as one of the simplest but most nerve racking actions in any sport there is a decided disadvantage to waiting too long because your brain will get in the way of your ability. ¿So why legislate it? Because we USAmericans abhor a legal vacuum. ¿How are we to know right from wrong if it isn’t written down somewhere? There is something disturbed about a society that produces far more lawyers than scientists.]
Arsenal tied the score at 1-all late in the game. Then shortly after scored again to take a 2-1 lead. Monsieur Thierry Henry—Frenchman, Arsenal striker, one of the Earth’s top futbolers and world renowned class act—ran into the net after the second goal, grabbed the ball and thrusted it into the beaten keeper’s chest to make a show of his time wasting tactics. The consensus opinion in the articles I read—and Soccernet's instant polling—about the incident was the keeper had it coming because he was a “time wasting @#*$” (the English papers are a little looser with what defines obscenity).
The GS Keeper with a 1-0 lead late in the game was wasting the clock in a decidedly unsporting fashion. Had Monsieur Henry been there he likely would have sprinted onto the field, dispossessed the keeper of the ball and then made a point of humiliating him by scoring at will to remind him that he ought mind the relative size of his britches. ¡AH, if only Monsieur Henry had been on hand!
FINAL WHISTLE: ¡F! 0 — GS 1
We played well, but not great by our own standards. We had our chances but were off half a step time and again. Sohei had a great chance but couldn’t get himself situated over the ball to get a good shot off. Big Pete (or maybe it was TB, they’re easily confused for one another) nearly had himself a gimmie when the GS keeper initially couldn’t handle a shot and was there to deposit the change in the goal machine (the keeper recovered). I had a header that the keeper actually had to save but I didn’t get any ompth on it… likely because I couldn’t believe I had put myself in position to have a header on goal… and then was stupefied that I had for honest and true managed to hit the ball with my head in such a fashion that it went toward the goal (seriously, I had to reminded this was a real occurrence the next day).
FAUSTIAN MOMENT: FLIGHT OF THE I, MADNLE-BEE
I have to preface this Faustian Moment by telling you that I, Madnle has recently twice been sent off the pitch by Li’l Pete for allowing his competitive temper to reach a curdling point. Nothing like the cusp of fisticuffs, mind you, just getting carried away in the moment and responding a little too vociferously to an opponents’ questionable actions.
The glorious, borderline zany I, Madnle was back in action. The one who warranted a write up of his own a while back (“Ode to Mandle” w/o 4/29). As with a classic I, Madnle performance there were multiple moments for Dr. Faust to choose from.
The runner up moment went like this.
Hassle was on the sideline in ¡FUTURISMOS! territory with I, Madnle 6-feet behind backing her up. A GS player was bringing the ball up the line. Hassle dispossessed the GS person of the ball and it popped up behind her. Hassle reached out with her leg behind her to kick the ball away but ended up deflecting it to I, Madnle. With the ball about waste high I, Madnle decided to take a swipe at it rather than settling it on the ground. He wound up and booted that sucker… right into Hassle’s head. The ball went sailing out of bounds and it took Hassle a moment to get her wits about her.
Hand’s down the Faustian Moment was a majestic run I, Madnle made that was equal parts brilliant, joyous and deranged. [A third party observer, Spectra, called out this moment as her favorite of the game.]
I, Madnle took the ball on the right sideline about a quarter of the way up the field from our end line. ¿How do you get a gazelle to run? Set it free. I, Madnle was off. First up the sideline. At midfield he was cut off. To his left was more freedom, a wide-open pitch and he was off again. In the words of Spectra, “I didn’t look like he was running so much as skipping with the ball.”
Halfway across the pitch he slowed down. This was a long time for anyone to run with the ball. Once again the call of the open pitch beckoned. There was a long patch of unobstructed green down the left sideline all the way to the Glass Ceiling left corner.
Another thing about a gazelle, once freed you’ll never get it back.
He was off again. Bounding, skipping with ball down the left sideline all the way down to the Glass Ceiling left corner where the defense finally corner him and brought him down.
¿What happened after that?
I have no idea.
¿Was this run the smart futbol play?
I haven’t the faintest clue.
¿Did he miss any open teammates or chances to do something that might have lead to a chance on goal along the way?
Certainly, but for the sake of Apollo that isn't the point. To watch I, Madnle bounding across the field on a crazy ultimately pointless foray spanning the length of the entire pitch (in total he certainly traveled further than the end line to end line length of the pitch)—It was joy in personified, animal-spirited action.
When I talked to I, Madnle about his majestic run the following day he rolled his eyes, threw his head back, and lamented it’s ultimate pointlessness. No, I didn’t chastise him. That’s the point. At the time it meant everything and in retrospect was devoid of utility.
There isn’t so much as a molecule of doubt in my mind that had Dr. Faust seen I, Madnle’s joyous romp from one end of futbol pitch world to the other he would have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for it right there and then.
It was nice to have the I, Madnle of old back.
FAN UPDATE: ROWLAND & ROCKY
Jody Rowland and Rocky, her shy bulldog, nearly made it to the game. They were entering the stadium just as we were exiting. As regular readers know the critical element in anything is spirit. So despite the fact that neither Jody nor Rocky saw even a moment of the game they made the effort and get the credit.
By the way, to give credit where due Elliot’s fiancé, Big Pete’s wife (Jamie “Godley” Moran), Big Pete’s baby (Li’l Godley Jr.), and Spectra were on hand as well.
I don’t know how to convey to you all how amazing it would be if there were, like, 20 fans there. At a typical game there are no fans. A couple or few at the most… between two teams put together. As far as I can tell the ¡FUTURISMOS! are by far and away the biggest draw in the league. So to have 20 fans there ooing, awing, gasping and clapping (but no booing, you could whistle though if you can whistle that loudly) would be indescribable.
LI’L PETE AWARD
When I was in high school a guy I knew played on the futbol/soccer team. During a game he and an opponent kicked the ball at the same time. It was one of those fluke things, a one-in-billions chance that two people would kick a ball in just such a way at exactly the same instant so that the energy had nowhere to go but into one of their legs. It ended up shattering the bones in the guy I knew’s leg. I don’t mean as in “he broke a bone or two.” I mean as in “it was like bones in his leg exploded.” It was grizzly.
He wore this Frankenstein looking contraption on his leg for a while and then a cast on his entire leg for the rest of the year. At the time I was not disposed to play futbol but any thought of perhaps kicking the ball around was quickly dispelled by a thought of his shattered leg. Ever since taking up the sport a year ago that guy’s leg has been somewhere in the back of my head.
In Postseason Game 1 the specter of that freak accident took corporal form and loomed down upon me.
I was playing left back (a defender). The ball was loose about 15-feet to my right and up field a little. This put the ball dead center of the field about 20-feet from our goal. I raced for it knowing there was a GC guy bearing down on it over my left shoulder. Elliot was also racing for it out of the net over my right shoulder. The back of my mind came to the fore and I realized in half of the instant I had available for thought what was happening: this was leg exploding situation.
The GC guy and I got to the ball at nearly exactly the same time. The only advantage I had was that I didn’t need to kick the ball so much as poke it and he had to kick which takes an extra moment. So there I am about to thrust my leg into to exactly the situation I’ve dreaded from the first moment I kicked a ball and ¿what sustained my resolve to throw my foot out there?
The spirit of Li’l Pete.
Under those circumstances—well within striking distance of our goal—the thought of Li’l Pete doing anything other than throwing whatever she could of herself into that ball is impossible. So I lunged with my right foot extended, poked the ball away, and then received the full force of the GS guy’s boot on my right toe.

I lost site of the world in a momentary white flash. The next instant I could see the ball rolling away up field, out of danger, and my next thought was “ouch, my toe hurts.” My next thought was, “it just stings, I’ll run it off.” A few seconds later I thought, “nope, this isn’t going to wear off.” I got off the pitch as quickly as I could, briefly played another few minutes later on, but we were effectively down a man at that point.

So I’m giving my right big toe the Li’l Pete Award. It bore the brunt of the Li’l Pete spirit and the burden of my own fears in one blinding white flash. Thank you, Right Big Toe, you would have made Li’l Pete proud.
[By the way, the guy who knocked my toe out of the game apologized in the post-game “good game” handshake line. “Sorry about the toe crunch, man.” Glass Ceiling were all-in-all a good natured lot.]
This is important: we played this game without Li’l Pete. She was out of town on business. As I’ve mentioned before Li’l Pete is our Captain in Deed, on-pitch coach, and the bedrock of our defense. Last season if she wasn’t playing we weren’t defending. It isn’t like that anymore. I knew we’d be fine but that it would change the complexion of our play.
Complicating Li’l Pete’s absence, Kahn missed her first game as well. Without our fulltime keeper that meant Elliot would spend a whole game betwixt the timbers. This is good as it means we don’t miss a beat in the net but in the exchange we loose our leading scorer and pacesetter upfront.
Pace is unusually important in futbol due to the free flowing, unbroken (as in no timeouts) nature of the game. There are no “plays” like there are in basketball or football americano so you can’t really structure production. Nor can someone consistently dominate the ball and make things happen for themselves and others (that happens now and then but it’s the exception). The vast majority of one’s contributions on the pitch take place in open spaces off the ball: making a dash at the ball from a distance forcing the opponent to chang her/his mind; picking spots to make runs to stress the defense; finding opportune moments to dog a ball handler well beyond your normal sphere of responsibility. In these regards Elliot is our pacesetter. Our “Most Likely To Come Flying Out of Nowhere.”
Even with all of that in mind this game was perfect test of our progress this year. We opened the season against Glass Ceiling and played well in a 0-2 loss. Even without our best defender, starting keeper, and Elliot upfront I still thought we would play well and have as many chances as they did to win.
This was the case.
GOAL GS GUY (20TH min): ¡F! 0 — GS 1
The lone goal of the game was worthy of the distinction of its designation. Out of a scrum before our net a GS Guy ended up with the ball 25-feet away from the goal just beyond the right post. With what little space he had he fired a serious blast high toward the goal.
In the instant I had to process the visual information I assumed the ball would streak safely over the goal. He kicked it too hard at too acute an angle too close to the goal. More proof that what I don’t know would fill the new Wembley. The ball the bottom of the crossbar (perhaps even grazing the right upright) bounced straight down and with its spin skipped into the goal.
It was a shot the keeper, any keeper, would have been powerless to stop. It was kicked too hard and placed too well. Upon asking ¡FUTURISMOS! for their game recollections Skywalker confessed she should have deflected that shot. She was defending the GS Guy and his kick was a perfect shot at her nose. In the no time she had to make a decision she wisely chose facial self-preservation. Had we emerged from the game with a nil-nil draw and one broken nose to show for it I would have calmly suggested Skywalker duck next time.
In futbol, as in life, there are always laws superseding the ones you’re currently playing under.
OUR BEST FIRST HALF CHANCE
The Glass Ceiling keeper was a ringer. I’m not sure whether he is technically one of their teammates because he stuck around and kept for a team in the following game too. He’s the kind of keeper who routinely brings the ball out of the net himself and will advance it past midfield. Some people find this to be showboating. I don’t. It’s a risk and if you’re good enough to take it you should because there’s no law written or no that prohibits it.
Our best chance in the first half was a heart breaker. TB had the ball and a free run at the GS goal from 40-feet out on the right flank. As is TB’s style, he was flying. The GS keeper stepped out to stop him and guessed that TB was going to sneak the ball in on the right and went down to that side to smother the shot. (a good guess because that’s exactly what TB had done a few weeks earlier). ¡BUT he was snookered!
TB then calmly attempted to pick out the far left post. Alas, he missed it by a about a foot. An excellent run and a great chance from TB lacking only a brush from the wing of Hermes’ ankle.
OUR BEST SECOND HALF CHANCE
The ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving of a goal who doesn’t have one yet is Hassle. This is not a condemnation of her play. Quite the contrary. The most famous futboler in the world isn’t a goal scorer. Sir David Beckham’s specialty is facilitating the flow of the football from midfield to the scorers up front. Hassle has excelled at Sir Beckham’s specialty this year and for her efforts she was nearly rewarded a highly polished gem of goal.
After faking out two Glass Ceiling defenders on the left sideline deep in GS territory she had created enough space for herself to get off an attempt from 25-feet out well to the left of the goal. The GS keeper had positioned himself on the left side of the net to deal with Hassle’s approach leaving the right side of the net open. Placing the ball into the right side of the goal from that angle with the keeper playing where he was is an exceedingly difficult shot.
Hassle was up to the challenge.
She chipped the ball toward the upper right-hand corner of the GS goal. From the ball’s early flight it was clear it was going to be close something terrible. The keeper scrambled but was beaten. He dove but was nowhere near covering the exposed corner. It was, as it always is, in the hand of The Fates. Perhaps one of them sneezed (or forgot to sneeze) because the ball didn’t take a final dip to find the belly of the crossbar and instead ricocheted out of bounds.
Hassle squealed and skipped away both in agony over the miss and in ecstasy of the beauty of the effort. I’d say it was robbery, but all we have in this world is on loan anyway as the rightful property of Zeus and Company. They simply didn’t see fit to loan Hassle a goal in this instance. I have no doubt that will soon change.
THE ONLY SOUR NOTE
Late in the second half the GS Keeper had the ball after a shot on goal. He placed it on the ground. His teammates fanned out and positioned themselves as they would on a goal kick. We in turn did the same and prepared to defend the kick.
Then we all just stood there.
It was weird. The GS keeper didn’t kick the ball. He just stood there and in turn everyone just stood in place waiting for him to kick the ball. TB turned to the ref and asked her to implore the keeper to put the ball in play. She replied there was nothing she could do because it was a live ball. It wasn’t a goal kick. He had simply stopped a shot, stood up and dropped the ball to his feet. TB then pushed up to the keeper forcing him to put the ball in play.
What the GS keeper did wasn’t technically illegal but it was beyond doubt poor form. Earlier this year the English Premiership club Arsenal was down 0-1 to someone (let’s say it was Liverpool, it wasn’t Liverpool but they're a dreary lot so this sort of thing wouldn’t be a stretch for them). The Liverpool keeper over the course of the entire second half took his sweet, sweet time putting the ball in play. There isn’t a law mandating a specific time by which the keeper must put the ball in play (there are surprisingly few codified rules in futbol; 17 to be exact and most of them deal with the pitch, uniforms and equipment). It’s discretionary but he was definitely milking it and pushing the limits.
[As the by far and away most litigious society in the world we USAmericans attempt to codify everything right down to the number of seconds in which a person must shoot a free throw after receiving the ball from the official in a basketball game. It’s 10-seconds. There is no advantage in taking an eternity to shoot a free throw. As a matter of fact, as one of the simplest but most nerve racking actions in any sport there is a decided disadvantage to waiting too long because your brain will get in the way of your ability. ¿So why legislate it? Because we USAmericans abhor a legal vacuum. ¿How are we to know right from wrong if it isn’t written down somewhere? There is something disturbed about a society that produces far more lawyers than scientists.]
Arsenal tied the score at 1-all late in the game. Then shortly after scored again to take a 2-1 lead. Monsieur Thierry Henry—Frenchman, Arsenal striker, one of the Earth’s top futbolers and world renowned class act—ran into the net after the second goal, grabbed the ball and thrusted it into the beaten keeper’s chest to make a show of his time wasting tactics. The consensus opinion in the articles I read—and Soccernet's instant polling—about the incident was the keeper had it coming because he was a “time wasting @#*$” (the English papers are a little looser with what defines obscenity).
The GS Keeper with a 1-0 lead late in the game was wasting the clock in a decidedly unsporting fashion. Had Monsieur Henry been there he likely would have sprinted onto the field, dispossessed the keeper of the ball and then made a point of humiliating him by scoring at will to remind him that he ought mind the relative size of his britches. ¡AH, if only Monsieur Henry had been on hand!
FINAL WHISTLE: ¡F! 0 — GS 1
We played well, but not great by our own standards. We had our chances but were off half a step time and again. Sohei had a great chance but couldn’t get himself situated over the ball to get a good shot off. Big Pete (or maybe it was TB, they’re easily confused for one another) nearly had himself a gimmie when the GS keeper initially couldn’t handle a shot and was there to deposit the change in the goal machine (the keeper recovered). I had a header that the keeper actually had to save but I didn’t get any ompth on it… likely because I couldn’t believe I had put myself in position to have a header on goal… and then was stupefied that I had for honest and true managed to hit the ball with my head in such a fashion that it went toward the goal (seriously, I had to reminded this was a real occurrence the next day).
But all in all it was a highly enjoyable game and a tribute to the extent we've improved. Down two key players (who end up counting for three) and badly outnumbered (they're the only team I've seen with not only as many players as we have but several more) we more than held our own and feel by weight of a angle's breath. A good effort indeed.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT: FLIGHT OF THE I, MADNLE-BEE
I have to preface this Faustian Moment by telling you that I, Madnle has recently twice been sent off the pitch by Li’l Pete for allowing his competitive temper to reach a curdling point. Nothing like the cusp of fisticuffs, mind you, just getting carried away in the moment and responding a little too vociferously to an opponents’ questionable actions.
The glorious, borderline zany I, Madnle was back in action. The one who warranted a write up of his own a while back (“Ode to Mandle” w/o 4/29). As with a classic I, Madnle performance there were multiple moments for Dr. Faust to choose from.
The runner up moment went like this.
Hassle was on the sideline in ¡FUTURISMOS! territory with I, Madnle 6-feet behind backing her up. A GS player was bringing the ball up the line. Hassle dispossessed the GS person of the ball and it popped up behind her. Hassle reached out with her leg behind her to kick the ball away but ended up deflecting it to I, Madnle. With the ball about waste high I, Madnle decided to take a swipe at it rather than settling it on the ground. He wound up and booted that sucker… right into Hassle’s head. The ball went sailing out of bounds and it took Hassle a moment to get her wits about her.
Hand’s down the Faustian Moment was a majestic run I, Madnle made that was equal parts brilliant, joyous and deranged. [A third party observer, Spectra, called out this moment as her favorite of the game.]
I, Madnle took the ball on the right sideline about a quarter of the way up the field from our end line. ¿How do you get a gazelle to run? Set it free. I, Madnle was off. First up the sideline. At midfield he was cut off. To his left was more freedom, a wide-open pitch and he was off again. In the words of Spectra, “I didn’t look like he was running so much as skipping with the ball.”
Halfway across the pitch he slowed down. This was a long time for anyone to run with the ball. Once again the call of the open pitch beckoned. There was a long patch of unobstructed green down the left sideline all the way to the Glass Ceiling left corner.
Another thing about a gazelle, once freed you’ll never get it back.
He was off again. Bounding, skipping with ball down the left sideline all the way down to the Glass Ceiling left corner where the defense finally corner him and brought him down.
¿What happened after that?
I have no idea.
¿Was this run the smart futbol play?
I haven’t the faintest clue.
¿Did he miss any open teammates or chances to do something that might have lead to a chance on goal along the way?
Certainly, but for the sake of Apollo that isn't the point. To watch I, Madnle bounding across the field on a crazy ultimately pointless foray spanning the length of the entire pitch (in total he certainly traveled further than the end line to end line length of the pitch)—It was joy in personified, animal-spirited action.
When I talked to I, Madnle about his majestic run the following day he rolled his eyes, threw his head back, and lamented it’s ultimate pointlessness. No, I didn’t chastise him. That’s the point. At the time it meant everything and in retrospect was devoid of utility.
There isn’t so much as a molecule of doubt in my mind that had Dr. Faust seen I, Madnle’s joyous romp from one end of futbol pitch world to the other he would have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for it right there and then.
It was nice to have the I, Madnle of old back.
FAN UPDATE: ROWLAND & ROCKY
Jody Rowland and Rocky, her shy bulldog, nearly made it to the game. They were entering the stadium just as we were exiting. As regular readers know the critical element in anything is spirit. So despite the fact that neither Jody nor Rocky saw even a moment of the game they made the effort and get the credit.
By the way, to give credit where due Elliot’s fiancé, Big Pete’s wife (Jamie “Godley” Moran), Big Pete’s baby (Li’l Godley Jr.), and Spectra were on hand as well.
I don’t know how to convey to you all how amazing it would be if there were, like, 20 fans there. At a typical game there are no fans. A couple or few at the most… between two teams put together. As far as I can tell the ¡FUTURISMOS! are by far and away the biggest draw in the league. So to have 20 fans there ooing, awing, gasping and clapping (but no booing, you could whistle though if you can whistle that loudly) would be indescribable.
LI’L PETE AWARD
When I was in high school a guy I knew played on the futbol/soccer team. During a game he and an opponent kicked the ball at the same time. It was one of those fluke things, a one-in-billions chance that two people would kick a ball in just such a way at exactly the same instant so that the energy had nowhere to go but into one of their legs. It ended up shattering the bones in the guy I knew’s leg. I don’t mean as in “he broke a bone or two.” I mean as in “it was like bones in his leg exploded.” It was grizzly.
He wore this Frankenstein looking contraption on his leg for a while and then a cast on his entire leg for the rest of the year. At the time I was not disposed to play futbol but any thought of perhaps kicking the ball around was quickly dispelled by a thought of his shattered leg. Ever since taking up the sport a year ago that guy’s leg has been somewhere in the back of my head.
In Postseason Game 1 the specter of that freak accident took corporal form and loomed down upon me.
I was playing left back (a defender). The ball was loose about 15-feet to my right and up field a little. This put the ball dead center of the field about 20-feet from our goal. I raced for it knowing there was a GC guy bearing down on it over my left shoulder. Elliot was also racing for it out of the net over my right shoulder. The back of my mind came to the fore and I realized in half of the instant I had available for thought what was happening: this was leg exploding situation.
The GC guy and I got to the ball at nearly exactly the same time. The only advantage I had was that I didn’t need to kick the ball so much as poke it and he had to kick which takes an extra moment. So there I am about to thrust my leg into to exactly the situation I’ve dreaded from the first moment I kicked a ball and ¿what sustained my resolve to throw my foot out there?
The spirit of Li’l Pete.
Under those circumstances—well within striking distance of our goal—the thought of Li’l Pete doing anything other than throwing whatever she could of herself into that ball is impossible. So I lunged with my right foot extended, poked the ball away, and then received the full force of the GS guy’s boot on my right toe.

I lost site of the world in a momentary white flash. The next instant I could see the ball rolling away up field, out of danger, and my next thought was “ouch, my toe hurts.” My next thought was, “it just stings, I’ll run it off.” A few seconds later I thought, “nope, this isn’t going to wear off.” I got off the pitch as quickly as I could, briefly played another few minutes later on, but we were effectively down a man at that point.

So I’m giving my right big toe the Li’l Pete Award. It bore the brunt of the Li’l Pete spirit and the burden of my own fears in one blinding white flash. Thank you, Right Big Toe, you would have made Li’l Pete proud.
[By the way, the guy who knocked my toe out of the game apologized in the post-game “good game” handshake line. “Sorry about the toe crunch, man.” Glass Ceiling were all-in-all a good natured lot.]
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
GAME 7: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Team Monday 3
WE RULE THE BASEMENT
We entered the final “regular season” match with Team Monday with identical 1-4-1 records, hand-in-hand holders of last place. In the last it was Team Monday who broke their record symmetry by besting your ¡FUTURSIMOS! in the Basement Battle. Thus at the conclusion of the “regular season” we stand alone in 10th (last) place. I hope it surprises no one to hear this isn’t even a fraction of the Planck length of the story.
A NOTE ABOUT TEAM MONDAY
I wish we could play teams with Team Monday’s spirit every week. I’ll belabor a couple of their players later but here’s a snapshot of their team spirit. They had a guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Point Break version of Patrick Swayze.
One of the exchanges I had with The Swayze as I was marking him was about how critical floppy hair is in proper futbol. Later on he was near Li’l Pete when she beckoned for I, Madnle to unleash one of his patented “¡Yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah!” screeches. The Swayze turned to Li’l Pete and implored her to ask I, Madnle not to screech again, “Oh, please, it scares me to death when he does that.”
They weren’t a perfectly spirited club, they had one guy in particular I’ll talk about later, but all and all as good an opponent as one can hope for.
THE MATCH GETS UNDER WAY
It had rained the better part of the day so the pitch was wet. Complimenting the wet was the cold, upper 50-degrees and dropping with a brisk wind. Most everyone got ready in pants, sweatshirts, and even stocking caps. It seemed like it was going to be a rough go but the combination of running around and a dying wind made for rather pleasant conditions. No one walked out of the stadium in a stocking cap.
GOAL (12th Min) ELLIOT: ¡F! 1 — TM 0
The game’s first goal was what is now Elliot’s patented strike: a diving long distance bomb.
I might be mistaken but I think I actually set this goal up. I was defending, hovering around midfield when the ball deflected from deep on Team Monday’s end. I was the first to it a little over midfield and quickly passed to Elliot who was to my left and 20 or so feet ahead.
Elliot received the ball 15 yards from Team Monday’s goal and calmly took a speculative boot. It caught the Team Monday keeper out of position, dropping over his outstretched arms. Yet another curling long-distance effort from Elliot.
GOAL (16th Min) BLONDE CAPTAIN LADY: ¡F! 1 — TM 1
I was involved in this one too, but not in a good way.
Again, I was near midfield defending while the ball was deep in Team Monday’s end. The ball was cleared by a Team Monday person and sailed thigh high to my right. I tried to deflect it but it glanced off my shin guard and continued on toward our end line at a considerable pace.
I turned to chase it down but one look told me there was no way I was going to get to it before it went out of bounds. Internally kicking myself because I was sure I had just given up a corner kick, I ran after it but with little hope.
This was my first experience of the magic of Li’l Diego.
There was a guy on Team Monday who maybe came up to my chin. He was the kind of ambiguously ethnic looking person that could have passed for a broad array of peoples from Mexican to Mediterranean but he may have been Middle Eastern (I think his name was Hassan). Whatever his name or ethnicity he will always be Li’l Diego to me because I imagine seeing him was something like seeing THE Diego Maradona play. Both were considerably smaller than everyone else and played with the combined powers of a jackrabbit and a bull.
So I was running after the ball. Not sprinting as though my life depended on it, but still running. Li’l Diego blew by me like I was walking. I then ran as hard as I could but he still easily pulled away from me. I didn’t think there was any way he could save that ball from going out of bounds.
He did.
I didn’t think there was any way he could do anything constructive with it because of his momentum, the end line, and me bearing down on him.
He did that too.
Li’l Diego calmly collected the ball at the end line. Turned in, spotted a teammate, and delivered a spot on pass to Team Monday’s Blonde Lady Captain. She had a wide-open look 20-feet in front of our goal. She scored but Li’l Diego did all the work.
Li’l Diego was just getting started.
HALF TIME: ¡F! 1 — TM 1
I don’t remember anything of note from halftime.
GOAL (30th min) LI’L DIEGO: ¡F! 1 — TM 2
Like I said, Li’l Diego was half jackrabbit, half bull. When he got the ball his neck disappeared because his shoulders hunched up and his hands balled up into fists. He was short and his stride was even shorter making his dribbling look like a CGI special effect from Kung-Fu Hustle.
I don’t remember this goal very well even though I was on the pitch. Li’l Diego took the ball up the left side. He breezed past the left back. Before help could arrive he calmly placed the ball in the opposite corner of the goal… and I do mean corner. From the left side he slipped that ball just inside the right post.
Li’l Diego was not done.
GOAL (35th min) LI’L DIEGO: ¡F! 1 — TM 3
This was the highlight play of the game. Seriously, it was YouTube worthy. I was on the sideline after his first goal through this one and it was honestly electric whenever he got the ball. Even when he got near the ball all of your ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline would gasp and giggle in anticipation of the next crazy display of jackrabbit speed with bullish determination. During dead ball situations we would yell stuff like “untie his shoes.”
Alas, I must point out there was a chink in Li’l Diego’s tiny armor. He was at a minimum arrogant. I have no doubt a few ¡FUTURISMOS! would say he crossed the line into outright dick. It’s hard for me to say because I have to admit that what holds me back from worsening my assessment of his attitude is his stature. He was just this little fella.
This is strictly a matter of physics. Yes, while jostling on a couple of occasions he may have been a touch overly active with his arm in fending me off, but it didn’t effect my ability to play him in, say, the way an elbow from Big Pete would. In any event, whether he was just arrogant or a dick, good lord was he fun to watch.
Li’l Diego was 20-yards in front of our goal and the ball was deep on the Team Monday side of the field. By this point your ¡FUTURISMOS! were chastened, so despite the fact the ball was nowhere near him, there were three ¡FUTURISMO! defenders within arm’s reach of Li’l Diego. A defender immediately behind him and defenders to his left and right.
The ball came sailing to Li’l Diego and he chested it to the ground. His neck disappeared, his hands balled into fists, and the CGI began. This happened so fast I couldn’t see it very well despite the fact I was looking right at it.
Li’l Diego wheeled around, dribbled to the right and past the defender who was right behind him. The defender who was to his right then collapsed on him and he juked to the right, outside the collapsing defender, and rocketed a shot chest high into the right corner of the goal. He beat three defenders and scored. It wasn’t that we were out of position or played him poorly, he simply put on a several second display worthy of El Diego.
A NOTE ABOUT HOW THE CURRENT ¡FUTURISMOS! ARE DIFFERENT THAN THE PAST ¡FUTURISMOS!
The mood on the sideline when we went down 3-1 wasn’t deflated. We knew the odds weren’t great, but c’est la vie. Last year we would have been defeated at that point. We wouldn’t have quit or played less hard, but there would have been the sense that this one was out of reach. Not this year.
Rather than get down we actually ratcheted up the attack knowing we had to make up two goals in just over ten minutes. Our second goal was a fine example of both how our spirit and ability to play the game have changed this season from last.
GOAL (40th min) TB: ¡F! 2 — TM 3
Our second goal was set up because the right defensive back chose an opportune moment to make a run that was equal parts enthusiasm and game recognition.
The right back in question was I, Madnle. He got possession of the ball on our side of midfield with wide-open space in front of him. Rather than pass or stop to take the time to think about what to do he stormed the right flank.
TB ran up the middle with him to compliment his attack. I’m fuzzy on the details but I believe I, Madnle passed to TB in the middle but instead of stopping or retreating he continued his run. TB must have passed back to I, Madnle who took a shot. Either the ball was deflected or the keeper couldn’t control it, but either way the ball ended up bouncing around and found itself at the feet of TB with an open left side of the net.
TB scored, I, Madnle created the opportunity, and with under 10-minutes the play the game was afoot.
THE FINAL 8 MINUTES
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS! poured forward over the last eight minutes and ¡OH! we had our chances. The best of which was an Elliot header off a corner that he angled from the left side of the net to the lower right. The Team Monday keeper had to make a diving, one-handed save to poke it away.

Stilts had a chance served to her on a silver platter. She was filling in on the weak side of an attack and was essentially standing alone 3-feet in front the left post. The ball was passed her way and she opted not to stick her foot out and redirect it into the goal thereby allowing the ball roll out of bounds and letting the opportunity pass. When asked why she declined to take the goal she retorted, “that chance was delivered on a silver platter, I only dine off platinum.” Despite what you may be thinking, I commend Stilts: she has her standards and shan’t stoop. “¡Hear, hear!, Young Lady. Your convictions will warm you when your comrades leave you cold.”
¿How determined where we to get that leveling goal? Even I, as a defender, had pushed up far enough to take a crack on goal from 15-yards out. [It didn’t go in.]
Alas, The Fates have their designs and we weren’t meant to balance the affaire. Our furious efforts in the last moments yielded only a bushel of could-have-beens. Team Monday ended the night by dumping us to move out of the basement. There we find ourselves with but one consolation: our love of the game.
LI’L PETE AWARD
The Li’l Pete Award goes to Li’l Pete herself. Not for any one moment, but for being her usual defensive-bulwark-and-on-pitch-captain self. The only things one is guaranteed to hear at a ¡FUTURISMOS! match are I, Madnle’s bellowing and the sound of Li’l Pete’s voice instructing her comrades. I am Captain in name. Li’l Pete is Captain in deed.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
There were actually several candidates for the Faustian Moment this week (thank Lucifer). I wanted to give it to Team Monday’s number 16. She’s the first player on from another team I’ve actually coveted.
In the opening moments of the game TB had the ball on the right sideline. She came over to defend him and he simply flicked the ball by her and blew past. Nothing fancy, just a quick move she couldn’t keep up with. 16’s reaction, without missing a beat, was to shriek as though something scary had jumped out of a closet in a horror movie that turned out to be harmless cat. She would end up shrieking like this on many occasions.
16’s defining moment game when Team Monday’s keeper was throwing a ball back into play. She was standing roughly 10-feet in front of him and I don’t if he didn’t see her or the ball slipped out of his hand but he through the ball has hard has he could right into her butt. Her reaction was the only appropriate one: she broke down laughing. The ball was there 10-feet in front of her, live, for anyone to get to but she couldn’t move due to laughter.
I want that lady on our squad this summer.
Amazing as it sounds that moment was trumped.
One of the Team Monday guys brought his 10-ish year old daughter to the game. At some point pretty early on he had the ball, screwed up, and turned it over. From the sideline came a little girl’s voice exhorting, “Good try, Dad.” As if that moment weren’t enough to cinch the deal, she also participated in the post-game “good game” handshake line.
I don’t believe in people having children. In my opinion it’s painfully clear at this point we’re making Earth a less interesting place. ¿The existence of one Stephen Jay Gould or Jana Levin is worth how many blown up people or species going extinct because of our collective human actions? I don’t know but I’d wager we crossed that threshold a while back. So if it were up to me the human race would (voluntarily) stop reproducing so Earth can try again at this “intelligence” thing without us mucking up the works. But the sound of that child’s voice reaching out to her dad; it was a reminder that there’s some weird magic in the bond between parents and their children that is to be appreciated in its own right.
Yes, yes, I know human beings are programmed to respond to child-like voices and faces because our babies are so underdeveloped at birth. Hence they take extraordinarily long to mature so we need to have this hyper-responsiveness to be compelled to protect and provide for them until they can for themselves. I know all that and at the same time hearing that kid cheering her dad on, it was transcendent. I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to hear that child’s voice ring out he would have followed suit with his own, yelling “¡STOP!” to Lucifer to exchange his soul on the spot. [He also would have recognized this scene was a perfect inversion of his own where he, an adult, witnessed a field full of children at play.]
That’s the Faustian-est of Faustian Moments. To understand all the elements involved in an event and still be stunned by their totality. That’s the point of not only all of this but everything. To borrow again from Eduardo Galeano—Uruguayan journalist, historian, social critic, futbol fan, & my spiritual comrade:
“… Health is when the body is as free as it can be. The controlled effectiveness of mechanical repetitions, enemy of health, is making soccer sick.”
Now substitute “life” for “soccer.”
What Faust bargained for was wiping his adult perception clean. In his case he was over-educated. I know of no human being, living or dead, who can make that claim. If neither Plato nor William James could then nobody can.
For the vast majority of we not-Fausts the challenge of modern life is staving off the numbing effects of repetitions for the sake of efficacy (read: “life in the modern, cost-benefit addled world”). How quickly we fall prey to its blurring effects (possessions, pecuniary standing, chemical aids) and loose sight of the fact that our vision is impaired. And so we simply forget to remember to cleanse our own perceptions so we can once again see the world for the shocking, phantasmagorical phenomenon it is.
The truly twisted part is it can be so easy to correct. It can be a simple as kicking a ball.
¿WHAT IS “POSTSEASON”?—SEMIOTIC CRISIS
A note about “regular” and “post” season in the CSC league.
Technically CSC draws a distinction between a “regular” and “post” season. There are 7 “regular” season games and 2 “post” season games. Typically what comes to mind when one hears “postseason” is some sort of playoff tournament with the crowning a champion upon its conclusion.
That happens in CSC, but quick in-head arithmetic reveals how many teams can play in such a tournament if there are only two games: 4. So of the 10 teams (or 20, as there were last session) exactly 4 teams play in a tournament framework the likes of which we’re all accustomed (of those four I will be rooting for Dynamo, as always). All the other teams simply play two additional games.
The designation of these non-tournament games as “postseason” creates a semiotic crises in many. The concepts of “postseason” and “playoffs” are so entwined that they have become synonymous in the collective USAmerican conscious but they ought not be.
The definition of “postseason” is “taking place after the end of the regular season.” The definition of “playoffs” is “a series of contests played to determine the winner of a championship.”
You may be thinking, “¡A-HA! See, they are related. The playoffs follow the postseason. Since the season must end for the playoffs to begin they are ipso facto related.” Some of you then go on to think, “Stop trying to get me to face the fact I have been culturally indoctrinated to see the world in zero-sum terms. Everything will be fine once we ‘defeat’ the terrorists and China ‘frees’ more of its people and sectors to ‘compete’ with the USA on equal footing.”
The overwhelming, crushing, invincibly vast majority of the rest of sporting world knows something you don’t:
The playoffs and regular season aren’t mutually exclusive.
In the futboling world—known to me, which is Europe and the Americas south of the Rio Grande—the playoffs and regular season take place concurrently. Even better than that several playoff competitions take place concurrently with the regular season and each other.
Earlier this year the English Premiership clubs Chelsea and Manchester United were playing in their regular season and at least three playoff series at the same time (Carling Cup, FA Cup, and the UEFA Champion’s League Cup). Even now I can scarcely follow it all. There was literally a point at which both teams had been eliminated from the equivalent of their Super Bowl tournament but were still in a thrilling race to win their League “regular season” Cup. Imagine the Twins being eliminated from the World Series but battling the Sox for the American League Central title… and it meant the world to Twins fans.
I’m the first to admit all of this feels weird. I still struggle to grasp the significance of any particular game my favorite club is playing. ¿Which tournament/season is it? ¿Do they need to win? ¿If so how many goals do they need to score compared to how many they allow (depending on the circumstances the correlation gets wonky: a 2-0 win would do it but 3-1 win wouldn’t)?
The upshot of all of this is the definition of a successful season is far more flexible in the futboling world than it is in the USAmerica. The ¡FUTURISMOS! second “regular season" has been an unqualified success. We are a vastly improved club. Everyone is at a minimum competent and that was not the case last time around. Li’l Pete doesn’t have to play a whole game lest our defense disappear. Elliot is beyond a doubt our best scorer but our offense continues to produce attempts and goals when he’s on the sideline.
So rather than see our two forthcoming “postseason” games as meaningless or, worse, demeaning—something along the lines of a parent “racing” his/her 3-year-old—cleanse your mind of it’s warped semiotics and see these games for what they are:
Two more chances to watch your comrades playing a game they find joy in.
We entered the final “regular season” match with Team Monday with identical 1-4-1 records, hand-in-hand holders of last place. In the last it was Team Monday who broke their record symmetry by besting your ¡FUTURSIMOS! in the Basement Battle. Thus at the conclusion of the “regular season” we stand alone in 10th (last) place. I hope it surprises no one to hear this isn’t even a fraction of the Planck length of the story.
A NOTE ABOUT TEAM MONDAY
I wish we could play teams with Team Monday’s spirit every week. I’ll belabor a couple of their players later but here’s a snapshot of their team spirit. They had a guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Point Break version of Patrick Swayze.
One of the exchanges I had with The Swayze as I was marking him was about how critical floppy hair is in proper futbol. Later on he was near Li’l Pete when she beckoned for I, Madnle to unleash one of his patented “¡Yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah,yeah!” screeches. The Swayze turned to Li’l Pete and implored her to ask I, Madnle not to screech again, “Oh, please, it scares me to death when he does that.”
They weren’t a perfectly spirited club, they had one guy in particular I’ll talk about later, but all and all as good an opponent as one can hope for.
THE MATCH GETS UNDER WAY
It had rained the better part of the day so the pitch was wet. Complimenting the wet was the cold, upper 50-degrees and dropping with a brisk wind. Most everyone got ready in pants, sweatshirts, and even stocking caps. It seemed like it was going to be a rough go but the combination of running around and a dying wind made for rather pleasant conditions. No one walked out of the stadium in a stocking cap.
GOAL (12th Min) ELLIOT: ¡F! 1 — TM 0
The game’s first goal was what is now Elliot’s patented strike: a diving long distance bomb.
I might be mistaken but I think I actually set this goal up. I was defending, hovering around midfield when the ball deflected from deep on Team Monday’s end. I was the first to it a little over midfield and quickly passed to Elliot who was to my left and 20 or so feet ahead.
Elliot received the ball 15 yards from Team Monday’s goal and calmly took a speculative boot. It caught the Team Monday keeper out of position, dropping over his outstretched arms. Yet another curling long-distance effort from Elliot.
GOAL (16th Min) BLONDE CAPTAIN LADY: ¡F! 1 — TM 1

I was involved in this one too, but not in a good way.
Again, I was near midfield defending while the ball was deep in Team Monday’s end. The ball was cleared by a Team Monday person and sailed thigh high to my right. I tried to deflect it but it glanced off my shin guard and continued on toward our end line at a considerable pace.
I turned to chase it down but one look told me there was no way I was going to get to it before it went out of bounds. Internally kicking myself because I was sure I had just given up a corner kick, I ran after it but with little hope.
This was my first experience of the magic of Li’l Diego.
There was a guy on Team Monday who maybe came up to my chin. He was the kind of ambiguously ethnic looking person that could have passed for a broad array of peoples from Mexican to Mediterranean but he may have been Middle Eastern (I think his name was Hassan). Whatever his name or ethnicity he will always be Li’l Diego to me because I imagine seeing him was something like seeing THE Diego Maradona play. Both were considerably smaller than everyone else and played with the combined powers of a jackrabbit and a bull.
So I was running after the ball. Not sprinting as though my life depended on it, but still running. Li’l Diego blew by me like I was walking. I then ran as hard as I could but he still easily pulled away from me. I didn’t think there was any way he could save that ball from going out of bounds.
He did.
I didn’t think there was any way he could do anything constructive with it because of his momentum, the end line, and me bearing down on him.
He did that too.
Li’l Diego calmly collected the ball at the end line. Turned in, spotted a teammate, and delivered a spot on pass to Team Monday’s Blonde Lady Captain. She had a wide-open look 20-feet in front of our goal. She scored but Li’l Diego did all the work.
Li’l Diego was just getting started.
HALF TIME: ¡F! 1 — TM 1
I don’t remember anything of note from halftime.
GOAL (30th min) LI’L DIEGO: ¡F! 1 — TM 2
Like I said, Li’l Diego was half jackrabbit, half bull. When he got the ball his neck disappeared because his shoulders hunched up and his hands balled up into fists. He was short and his stride was even shorter making his dribbling look like a CGI special effect from Kung-Fu Hustle.
I don’t remember this goal very well even though I was on the pitch. Li’l Diego took the ball up the left side. He breezed past the left back. Before help could arrive he calmly placed the ball in the opposite corner of the goal… and I do mean corner. From the left side he slipped that ball just inside the right post.
Li’l Diego was not done.
GOAL (35th min) LI’L DIEGO: ¡F! 1 — TM 3
This was the highlight play of the game. Seriously, it was YouTube worthy. I was on the sideline after his first goal through this one and it was honestly electric whenever he got the ball. Even when he got near the ball all of your ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline would gasp and giggle in anticipation of the next crazy display of jackrabbit speed with bullish determination. During dead ball situations we would yell stuff like “untie his shoes.”
Alas, I must point out there was a chink in Li’l Diego’s tiny armor. He was at a minimum arrogant. I have no doubt a few ¡FUTURISMOS! would say he crossed the line into outright dick. It’s hard for me to say because I have to admit that what holds me back from worsening my assessment of his attitude is his stature. He was just this little fella.
This is strictly a matter of physics. Yes, while jostling on a couple of occasions he may have been a touch overly active with his arm in fending me off, but it didn’t effect my ability to play him in, say, the way an elbow from Big Pete would. In any event, whether he was just arrogant or a dick, good lord was he fun to watch.
Li’l Diego was 20-yards in front of our goal and the ball was deep on the Team Monday side of the field. By this point your ¡FUTURISMOS! were chastened, so despite the fact the ball was nowhere near him, there were three ¡FUTURISMO! defenders within arm’s reach of Li’l Diego. A defender immediately behind him and defenders to his left and right.
The ball came sailing to Li’l Diego and he chested it to the ground. His neck disappeared, his hands balled into fists, and the CGI began. This happened so fast I couldn’t see it very well despite the fact I was looking right at it.
Li’l Diego wheeled around, dribbled to the right and past the defender who was right behind him. The defender who was to his right then collapsed on him and he juked to the right, outside the collapsing defender, and rocketed a shot chest high into the right corner of the goal. He beat three defenders and scored. It wasn’t that we were out of position or played him poorly, he simply put on a several second display worthy of El Diego.
A NOTE ABOUT HOW THE CURRENT ¡FUTURISMOS! ARE DIFFERENT THAN THE PAST ¡FUTURISMOS!
The mood on the sideline when we went down 3-1 wasn’t deflated. We knew the odds weren’t great, but c’est la vie. Last year we would have been defeated at that point. We wouldn’t have quit or played less hard, but there would have been the sense that this one was out of reach. Not this year.
Rather than get down we actually ratcheted up the attack knowing we had to make up two goals in just over ten minutes. Our second goal was a fine example of both how our spirit and ability to play the game have changed this season from last.
GOAL (40th min) TB: ¡F! 2 — TM 3

Our second goal was set up because the right defensive back chose an opportune moment to make a run that was equal parts enthusiasm and game recognition.
The right back in question was I, Madnle. He got possession of the ball on our side of midfield with wide-open space in front of him. Rather than pass or stop to take the time to think about what to do he stormed the right flank.
TB ran up the middle with him to compliment his attack. I’m fuzzy on the details but I believe I, Madnle passed to TB in the middle but instead of stopping or retreating he continued his run. TB must have passed back to I, Madnle who took a shot. Either the ball was deflected or the keeper couldn’t control it, but either way the ball ended up bouncing around and found itself at the feet of TB with an open left side of the net.
TB scored, I, Madnle created the opportunity, and with under 10-minutes the play the game was afoot.
THE FINAL 8 MINUTES
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS! poured forward over the last eight minutes and ¡OH! we had our chances. The best of which was an Elliot header off a corner that he angled from the left side of the net to the lower right. The Team Monday keeper had to make a diving, one-handed save to poke it away.

Stilts had a chance served to her on a silver platter. She was filling in on the weak side of an attack and was essentially standing alone 3-feet in front the left post. The ball was passed her way and she opted not to stick her foot out and redirect it into the goal thereby allowing the ball roll out of bounds and letting the opportunity pass. When asked why she declined to take the goal she retorted, “that chance was delivered on a silver platter, I only dine off platinum.” Despite what you may be thinking, I commend Stilts: she has her standards and shan’t stoop. “¡Hear, hear!, Young Lady. Your convictions will warm you when your comrades leave you cold.”
¿How determined where we to get that leveling goal? Even I, as a defender, had pushed up far enough to take a crack on goal from 15-yards out. [It didn’t go in.]
Alas, The Fates have their designs and we weren’t meant to balance the affaire. Our furious efforts in the last moments yielded only a bushel of could-have-beens. Team Monday ended the night by dumping us to move out of the basement. There we find ourselves with but one consolation: our love of the game.
LI’L PETE AWARD
The Li’l Pete Award goes to Li’l Pete herself. Not for any one moment, but for being her usual defensive-bulwark-and-on-pitch-captain self. The only things one is guaranteed to hear at a ¡FUTURISMOS! match are I, Madnle’s bellowing and the sound of Li’l Pete’s voice instructing her comrades. I am Captain in name. Li’l Pete is Captain in deed.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
There were actually several candidates for the Faustian Moment this week (thank Lucifer). I wanted to give it to Team Monday’s number 16. She’s the first player on from another team I’ve actually coveted.
In the opening moments of the game TB had the ball on the right sideline. She came over to defend him and he simply flicked the ball by her and blew past. Nothing fancy, just a quick move she couldn’t keep up with. 16’s reaction, without missing a beat, was to shriek as though something scary had jumped out of a closet in a horror movie that turned out to be harmless cat. She would end up shrieking like this on many occasions.
16’s defining moment game when Team Monday’s keeper was throwing a ball back into play. She was standing roughly 10-feet in front of him and I don’t if he didn’t see her or the ball slipped out of his hand but he through the ball has hard has he could right into her butt. Her reaction was the only appropriate one: she broke down laughing. The ball was there 10-feet in front of her, live, for anyone to get to but she couldn’t move due to laughter.
I want that lady on our squad this summer.
Amazing as it sounds that moment was trumped.
One of the Team Monday guys brought his 10-ish year old daughter to the game. At some point pretty early on he had the ball, screwed up, and turned it over. From the sideline came a little girl’s voice exhorting, “Good try, Dad.” As if that moment weren’t enough to cinch the deal, she also participated in the post-game “good game” handshake line.
I don’t believe in people having children. In my opinion it’s painfully clear at this point we’re making Earth a less interesting place. ¿The existence of one Stephen Jay Gould or Jana Levin is worth how many blown up people or species going extinct because of our collective human actions? I don’t know but I’d wager we crossed that threshold a while back. So if it were up to me the human race would (voluntarily) stop reproducing so Earth can try again at this “intelligence” thing without us mucking up the works. But the sound of that child’s voice reaching out to her dad; it was a reminder that there’s some weird magic in the bond between parents and their children that is to be appreciated in its own right.
Yes, yes, I know human beings are programmed to respond to child-like voices and faces because our babies are so underdeveloped at birth. Hence they take extraordinarily long to mature so we need to have this hyper-responsiveness to be compelled to protect and provide for them until they can for themselves. I know all that and at the same time hearing that kid cheering her dad on, it was transcendent. I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to hear that child’s voice ring out he would have followed suit with his own, yelling “¡STOP!” to Lucifer to exchange his soul on the spot. [He also would have recognized this scene was a perfect inversion of his own where he, an adult, witnessed a field full of children at play.]
That’s the Faustian-est of Faustian Moments. To understand all the elements involved in an event and still be stunned by their totality. That’s the point of not only all of this but everything. To borrow again from Eduardo Galeano—Uruguayan journalist, historian, social critic, futbol fan, & my spiritual comrade:
“… Health is when the body is as free as it can be. The controlled effectiveness of mechanical repetitions, enemy of health, is making soccer sick.”
Now substitute “life” for “soccer.”
What Faust bargained for was wiping his adult perception clean. In his case he was over-educated. I know of no human being, living or dead, who can make that claim. If neither Plato nor William James could then nobody can.
For the vast majority of we not-Fausts the challenge of modern life is staving off the numbing effects of repetitions for the sake of efficacy (read: “life in the modern, cost-benefit addled world”). How quickly we fall prey to its blurring effects (possessions, pecuniary standing, chemical aids) and loose sight of the fact that our vision is impaired. And so we simply forget to remember to cleanse our own perceptions so we can once again see the world for the shocking, phantasmagorical phenomenon it is.
The truly twisted part is it can be so easy to correct. It can be a simple as kicking a ball.
¿WHAT IS “POSTSEASON”?—SEMIOTIC CRISIS
A note about “regular” and “post” season in the CSC league.
Technically CSC draws a distinction between a “regular” and “post” season. There are 7 “regular” season games and 2 “post” season games. Typically what comes to mind when one hears “postseason” is some sort of playoff tournament with the crowning a champion upon its conclusion.
That happens in CSC, but quick in-head arithmetic reveals how many teams can play in such a tournament if there are only two games: 4. So of the 10 teams (or 20, as there were last session) exactly 4 teams play in a tournament framework the likes of which we’re all accustomed (of those four I will be rooting for Dynamo, as always). All the other teams simply play two additional games.
The designation of these non-tournament games as “postseason” creates a semiotic crises in many. The concepts of “postseason” and “playoffs” are so entwined that they have become synonymous in the collective USAmerican conscious but they ought not be.
The definition of “postseason” is “taking place after the end of the regular season.” The definition of “playoffs” is “a series of contests played to determine the winner of a championship.”
You may be thinking, “¡A-HA! See, they are related. The playoffs follow the postseason. Since the season must end for the playoffs to begin they are ipso facto related.” Some of you then go on to think, “Stop trying to get me to face the fact I have been culturally indoctrinated to see the world in zero-sum terms. Everything will be fine once we ‘defeat’ the terrorists and China ‘frees’ more of its people and sectors to ‘compete’ with the USA on equal footing.”
The overwhelming, crushing, invincibly vast majority of the rest of sporting world knows something you don’t:
The playoffs and regular season aren’t mutually exclusive.
In the futboling world—known to me, which is Europe and the Americas south of the Rio Grande—the playoffs and regular season take place concurrently. Even better than that several playoff competitions take place concurrently with the regular season and each other.
Earlier this year the English Premiership clubs Chelsea and Manchester United were playing in their regular season and at least three playoff series at the same time (Carling Cup, FA Cup, and the UEFA Champion’s League Cup). Even now I can scarcely follow it all. There was literally a point at which both teams had been eliminated from the equivalent of their Super Bowl tournament but were still in a thrilling race to win their League “regular season” Cup. Imagine the Twins being eliminated from the World Series but battling the Sox for the American League Central title… and it meant the world to Twins fans.
I’m the first to admit all of this feels weird. I still struggle to grasp the significance of any particular game my favorite club is playing. ¿Which tournament/season is it? ¿Do they need to win? ¿If so how many goals do they need to score compared to how many they allow (depending on the circumstances the correlation gets wonky: a 2-0 win would do it but 3-1 win wouldn’t)?
The upshot of all of this is the definition of a successful season is far more flexible in the futboling world than it is in the USAmerica. The ¡FUTURISMOS! second “regular season" has been an unqualified success. We are a vastly improved club. Everyone is at a minimum competent and that was not the case last time around. Li’l Pete doesn’t have to play a whole game lest our defense disappear. Elliot is beyond a doubt our best scorer but our offense continues to produce attempts and goals when he’s on the sideline.
So rather than see our two forthcoming “postseason” games as meaningless or, worse, demeaning—something along the lines of a parent “racing” his/her 3-year-old—cleanse your mind of it’s warped semiotics and see these games for what they are:
Two more chances to watch your comrades playing a game they find joy in.
Monday, May 7, 2007
GAME 6: ¡FUTURISMOS! 0 – Snowball’s Chance 1
Dear ¡FUTURISMOS! fan, the sixth game of the season was an ideal case study in the existential nature of the game. All of the ingredients were present for a beautiful game: near perfect weather, two clubs fresh off wins feeling good, & correctly minded opponents. Yet the game lacked any flicker of the dimmest spark.
If like Camus -- co-founder of Existentialism and one-time goaltender who credited the later as the foundation of the former -- you were inclined to look for the greater meaning in things, this exploration would be a metaphor for life. But I won’t bore you with any of that because I know how busy you are, valued ¡FUTURISMOS! fan.
A GENERAL DESCRPTION OF PLAY IN THE FIRST HALF
There was no “there” there.
Not that it wasn’t without chances and people playing hard. It had both. We generated significantly more opportunities than they did. In fact our first half keeper, Elliot, was actually bored. Yet despite the fact we were by far and away the better team of the half we couldn’t net a goal.
Something was amiss. ¿What? No one can say. But the energy was weird and the general state of play left much to be desired. We would suffer for our goal-less superior half.
A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PLAY IN THE SECOND HALF
There continued to be no “there” there.
The second half was a replay of the first but reverse the jerseys. For some reason Snowball’s Chance was the better side from the get go. It didn’t appear either side did anything demonstrably different. The tide simply turned.
THE GAME’S LONE GOAL (24th-ish Minute): ¡F! 0 -- SC 1
A Snowball guy intercepted a goal kick roughly 30-yards from our goal. He advanced 15 yards dribbling to the center of the field. No ¡FUTURISMO! defender stepped to him in time to impede his shot and as such he had a wide open look. It was good shot and it went into the goal from 15-ish yards out.
A GENERAL DESRPTION OF THE PLAY FOR THE REMAINDER
Another 14-mintues passed. There were some entertaining moments and we had our chances but nothing came of them. Then the game was over and we had lost.
LI’L BABY GODLEY SIGHTING
Jamie “Godley” Moran was on hand with her newly minted child. Both were well behaved and neither made any noise. One slept the whole time.
LI’L PETE AWARD, FAUSTIAN MOMENT, SPECIAL ACCOMIDATIONS
Excised per public opinion.
If like Camus -- co-founder of Existentialism and one-time goaltender who credited the later as the foundation of the former -- you were inclined to look for the greater meaning in things, this exploration would be a metaphor for life. But I won’t bore you with any of that because I know how busy you are, valued ¡FUTURISMOS! fan.
A GENERAL DESCRPTION OF PLAY IN THE FIRST HALF
There was no “there” there.
Not that it wasn’t without chances and people playing hard. It had both. We generated significantly more opportunities than they did. In fact our first half keeper, Elliot, was actually bored. Yet despite the fact we were by far and away the better team of the half we couldn’t net a goal.
Something was amiss. ¿What? No one can say. But the energy was weird and the general state of play left much to be desired. We would suffer for our goal-less superior half.
A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PLAY IN THE SECOND HALF
There continued to be no “there” there.
The second half was a replay of the first but reverse the jerseys. For some reason Snowball’s Chance was the better side from the get go. It didn’t appear either side did anything demonstrably different. The tide simply turned.
THE GAME’S LONE GOAL (24th-ish Minute): ¡F! 0 -- SC 1
A Snowball guy intercepted a goal kick roughly 30-yards from our goal. He advanced 15 yards dribbling to the center of the field. No ¡FUTURISMO! defender stepped to him in time to impede his shot and as such he had a wide open look. It was good shot and it went into the goal from 15-ish yards out.
A GENERAL DESRPTION OF THE PLAY FOR THE REMAINDER
Another 14-mintues passed. There were some entertaining moments and we had our chances but nothing came of them. Then the game was over and we had lost.
LI’L BABY GODLEY SIGHTING
Jamie “Godley” Moran was on hand with her newly minted child. Both were well behaved and neither made any noise. One slept the whole time.
LI’L PETE AWARD, FAUSTIAN MOMENT, SPECIAL ACCOMIDATIONS
Excised per public opinion.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
GAME 5: ¡FUTURISMOS! 3 – GLEEFUL UNICORNS 2
In case your math skills are wonky or you just can’t believe the logical conclusion from reading the score: your ¡FUTURISMOS! won their first proper game ever.* A full season-and-a-half of play and we finally netted more sacked onions than our opponent in a contest thereby resulting in a notch in the column labeled with a “W” rather than one of the columns with an “L” or “D.”
We couldn’t have begged Zeus for a better stage upon which to receive our first victory. It was a beautiful evening. We started just before the sunset and finished under the stage lights of a field illuminated at night. It was warm and a steady wind blew from sideline to sideline. As such it seemed the Olympians themselves decided to plus-up the occasion; perhaps as a reward for amiably playing through a season-and-a-half of their capricious whims.
Initially it seemed even our opponent was hand selected by Artemis, the Gleeful Unicorns. What better combatants for a story book ending than magical creatures of times long gone against techno-magical beings from a time we may never reach.
Alas, Pan was at work when our opponents chose their name.
*We technically won our final game of last season by forfeit because our opponent didn’t show up.
THE GLEEFUL UNICORNS: WHEN IRONY ISN’T IRONIC
Stated flatly, the Gleeful Unicorns played without any detectible joy or a trace of magic. A more accurate name would have been something along the lines of the Angry Jerks. Not that all of them were angry or jerks, but the age old axiom about the ratio of good fruit to bad that spoils the lot applies here.
Case in point.
Late in the second half a Gleeful Unicorn guy was sprinting toward our goal with the ball. I.Madnle came streaking out of nowhere and stepped in front of the guy to boot the ball away, which he did sending the ball out of bounds. A collision ensued and the Unicorn guy crumpled to the ground, writhing in pain. No foul was called because it was a perfectly legal play.
Because the ball went out of the bounds play stopped. I.Madnle offered his hand to the downed Unicorn who took it without looking up at him. When the Unicorn saw it was the hand of his opponent he barked, “¡Get your hands off me! ¡I can get up myself!” and angrily yanked his hand away.
This is the height of poor sportsmanship. Even at the highest echelons of futbol -- being played by people paid outrageous sums of money whose existences depend on the outcomes of games -- opponents routinely help each other up. In fact, it is considered poor form NOT to offer a downed opponent your hand under those circumstances.
Before the game I wondered if the name Gleeful Unicorns was ironic. It was… or rather it is meant to be but its creators clearly don’t understand that we live in a post-ironic world. Due to an overdose of Gen-X hipsters wearing Spice Girls t-shirts in the ‘90’s (I wore mine earnestly -- honestly) the nature of irony was forced to evolve beyond simply stating something the opposite of the truth (most of those Gen-X hipsters really didn’t like the Spice Girls, ¿get it? it’s funny… on the other hand I actually did).
As such irony now exists in a kind of limbo where to be ironic a statement has to be incongruously true. Such that the initial reading of the statement would lead one to think you surely don’t like/want X (i.e. old fashioned irony), but you really do want/like X. For instance, yelling “Freebird” at a concert. Once upon a time that was ironic because the shouter didn’t really want the band to play “Freebird.” Oddly enough, it turns out “Freebird” is a perfect number for a band to riff off and because of its accelerated tempo in its final turn lends itself to a wild crescendo that nicely closes a show. A fact I experienced first hand thanks to Built to Spill.
When you’re a team of angry jerks, calling yourselves the Gleeful Unicorns is like calling a skinny person “fatty.” Whatever extent it conforms to the dictionary definition of “ironic” is trumped by its outdated lameness. Much like a bushel of lovely apples spoiled by a few foul ones who have confused themselves for likes of Zidane, Kaka, and Ronaldo but would fare now better against their kind than either you or I (and I don’t even know who you are).
THE GOAL EQUATION: WHEN DATA YEILDS RESULTS
The equation that predicts scoring in futbol has three variables: skill, luck, and number of opportunities. Ideally you’d have high numbers in all three, but any one can offset the others. The most important of the three factors is number of opportunities because it most directly reduces the need for high numbers in the other categories. If you can pour the ball into your opponents penalty box it doesn’t matter how uncoordinated your team is, get enough awkward flailings at the ball and it’ll start going into the net.
Last season we relied exclusively on skill (predominantly Little Johnny England getting the ball and doing a bunch of fancy stuff) and luck but generated precious few chances because we didn’t have a coordinated attack. This season from game one I saw we had flipped our equation in favor of number of chances.
With Hassle, Skywalker, and TB ranging on the sidelines with Elliot and Sohei in the middle, our attack became a coordinated one where the ball moved freely from the wings to the center and back. It’s harder to defend a ball on the move than person with the ball. It would only take time for the equation to start cranking out goals thanks to our dramatically increase number of chances. I had pegged game four -- the midpoint of the season -- for the equation to catch up with us.
It did. And in game 5 it continued to hum along.
GOAL (9th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 1 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 0
Skywalker brought the ball up the left wing. She made a move to get her defender out of position so she could center the ball where Elliot laid in wait. The ball got by him (perhaps because of deflection off a defender) and appeared to be bouncing out of harms way. But…
¡NAY!
For the warrior monk Sohei -- true to his instinctual, self-evident affirming Buddhist nature -- was backing up the play and put himself in the right place at the right time. [¿How did you know where to the ball would be? “¿How does the raindrop find the root of the Bodhi Tree?”] He swept in and with his first touch cranked his first goal of the season into the lower right corner.
GOAL (11th minute) ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 0
This time TB was streaking to the goal on the left side without a defender anywhere near him. I was filling the middle running with no defender near me. This was as sure a goal as there is. A two-on-none break.
The only problem was I was the one in middle and my touch is as supple as our President’s foreign policy is subtle. Compound that with I was so open that I had time-a-plenty to think of all of the ways I would screw this up when TB passed me the ball, and surely he was going to pass me the ball. He had to. The keeper was playing his approach and I was literally all by myself in the middle of the goal. A pass to me and I’d have the whole right side of the net to myself with time enough to drop to my hands and knees and nose the ball in (provided I hadn’t already kicked it over the goal, a distinct possibility).
Once again, the Fates had it their way (perhaps to protect me from myself).
TB decided to take matters into his own feet. He shot the ball just to the right of the keeper, who was sliding to the ground in an effort to stop it. The ball found its way through between the keeper’s arm and side before he had time to hit the ground to close that window. The ball momentarily disappeared in his garish (and seemingly fun heralding, alas) shirt and emerged with enough pace to find its way safely into the back of net.
TB’s first goal of the season.
Two goals. Two minutes. Two different ¡FUTURISMOS! The equation was cranking.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TEAM MOOD WITH A 2-0 LEAD
As you might imagine, leading 2-0 half way through the first half when you’ve never won a game has a particular feeling. But that feeling isn’t joy so much as dizziness. We knew there was a long way to go, so there wasn’t jubilant celebrating, but a 2-0 lead felt something like a lunar landing.
Lest we get ahead of ourselves, Hades narrowed the gap with the aid of Hermes.
GOAL ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 1
The Gleeful Unicorns first goal really was a thing of beauty.
They were awarded a free kick at midfield. The guy that took it lofted a perfect, shinning rainbow of a boot with a target 3-yards in front of our left goal post. Standing in wait in the pot-of-goal was one of the ungentlemanly Unicorn men. He out-leapt his defender and snapped a perfect header into the lower right corner of the goal.
Most of your ¡FUTURISMOS! clapped in appreciation of one heck of an effort. Then we experienced a curious sensation when we saw the un-gentlemanly goal-scoring unicorn run to the middle of the field stooped over with his index finger protruding from the middle of his head. This “unicorn celebration” should have been charming or at least fun. Instead it was sour because we’d already experience the antiquated irony of their team name.
The feeling was the opposite of watching Zidane headbutt Materazzi. While that filthy, lying, lowlife got what was coming to him and Zidane’s ejection didn’t effect the game’s outcome (penalties are just a protracted coin-flip), you still can’t cheer violent conduct no matter how satisfying. In the end the whole affair left you torn.
Watching a grown man prance like a unicorn should inspire joy. ¿But if he’s a jerk who minutes before nearly had his earring torn out as a result of foolishly attempting to head a waist-high ball that Bran~D was clearing and then huffed around and heatedly waved off an apology from Bran~D (who didn’t owe him one anyway and was just being sporting to offer)? Then the unicorn prancing has a different felling. Something more like perversion.
HALFTIME: ¡FUTURIMSOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 1
Having a 2-1 lead at halftime when you’ve never won a game feels good. We were playing well and even though many of the Gleeful Unicorns were darn good with the ball they hadn’t mounted much of an attack. Again, there was no jubilation. Just good feelings made even better with the arrival of two C+M fans, Lisa “Dish” Carlson and Christine “Sherpa” Scherping.
I walked over to them to give them my camera so they could take pictures of the game. As soon as they saw the camera they started modeling. When I told them I was offering them the camera so they could take pictures of us -- the people actually doing something -- they both pouted. I took a couple pictures, they were placated and even returned the favor by taking some of us. Their shrieking exhortations and full-throated laughter was a welcome boost throughout the second half.
We went into the second half spirits high, cheered on by Dish and Sherpa and silently emboldened by Elliot’s fiancé and Skywalker’s roommate.
GOAL (28th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 2
It didn’t take long after halftime for the Gleeful Unicorns to make us all a queasy again with their unicorn celebration.
A Unicorn guy had the ball a little over midfield approaching our goal. I ran at him, he stopped and made like he was going to kick the ball. I leapt in the air in hopes of blocking it and he calmly didn’t kick the ball and ran with it into the middle of the field. I looked up to see him dancing with the ball a little more and was slow to run him down.
He moved back in my direction and I started at him but by then it was too late. He’d found an opening and fired from 15-ish yards out to the far post. Kahn made a good effort but it got past her and inside the post.
It was good goal and largely (if not exclusively) my fault for biting on that ball fake and then not hustling to make up for the gaff.
NERVOUS MAKING TIME
The Gleeful Unicorns were strong for the opening ten minutes of the second half. They didn’t have any crazy near misses or anything but they looked more likely than we to take the lead. It wasn’t that our attack petered out or our pace slackened. They were just playing well.
Sohei and I were standing next to each other on the sideline for much of this time. Before he ran on the field for TB he turned to me and said, “As sure as the tide goes out, it comes in.” A true Buddhist monk warrior even in the collectively turbulent mind-state as it appeared the game was slipping away.
GOAL (40th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 3 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 2
Thanks to the hustle of Hassle (I think) we earned a corner kick. Elliot was taking the corner and I distinctly remember looking up at him and thinking, “Why is he taking the kick? He should be in the box trying to score.” Turns out scoring was what he had in mind.
Elliot’s corner kick was actually an intentional shot on goal. Rather than lofting the ball into the box for a possible header, he kicked it low (about head high), hard, and bent it so it had a chance to curl into the goal. The keeper was caught off guard and even though he had the ball in his chest he couldn’t control it and lost it into the goal.
Elliot’s fourth goal of the season put your ¡FUTURISMOS! up again with roughly 8-minutes left to play.
GOAL DISALLOWED (44th minute)
TB nearly delivered the coup de grace a few minutes after Elliot put us up. The ball was loose 5 yards in front of the Gleeful Unicorns goal. TB had a defender in his face and the ball a few feet to his right. He lashed out and struck a marvelous shot around his defender that ended up in the right corner of the net.
Unfortunately in the course of the shot TB ended up falling down in order to reach the ball. In CSC Sports you cannot kick the ball while you’re on the ground or make any effort to slide to kick the ball. The ref ruled TB’s shot a slide and waved off the goal.
A close call for sure but in any event a wonderful effort by TB worthy of his second goal of the game even if it didn’t go down in the official score keeper’s tabulation.
THE FINAL MINUTES
Of course the final minutes took forever. But they were well under control without any truly nervous moments. In fact we controlled the ball for much of it and even had some action down in front of their goal.
The final Gleeful Unicorn chance was snuffed out by Bran~D (or perhaps it was Elliot) who poked the ball away from a Unicorn just outside the penalty box on the end line and booted it out of bounds on the sideline. I glanced at my watch and knew this throw-in would be their last chance.
It was. Nothing came of it. The ref blew the whistle.
The game was over and we had won.
POST-GAME
We did not go crazy. The only screeching was courtesy Dish and Sherpa. The smiles on the faces of your ¡FUTURISMOS! were big, dumb, and a little dazed. I hugged everyone. Li’l Pete poured water over my head.
There was joy. We had a much higher degree of lingering on the sideline than we normally do. Far more people stuck around than usual and we went out for a celebratory drink afterward.
But mixed with joy was no small measure of grumbling about the Gleeful Unicorns.
IT’S NEITHER ABOUT WINNING/LOOSING NOR HOW YOU PLAYED THE GAME
It’s about whether you’re a jerk or not.
Playing against jerks is not fun. Beating them isn’t really fun either. You know they don’t learn anything as a result of the defeat so conversely any joy you feel from beating them is like reveling in the defeat of night by the dawn.
For those of you who think “they’re just competing hard” that’s rubbish. No one competes harder than I.Madnle, he borders on deranged, and there is no trace of jerk in him. There is absolutely nothing inherent in the game that requires someone to be a jerk.
We’re all playing futbol because we like it. We aren’t getting paid for it. We don’t get some hard, tangible thing from it. Playing futbol should be something we all have in common and can revel in together even when we’re playing against each other. Indeed, we should be reveling in it precisely because we ARE playing against each other as that’s when the game is most fun.
But there’s nothing fun about a jerk. They are to joy what a black hole is to light.
LI’L PETE AWARD
Giving it to Hassle is getting a little ridiculous because getting decked is just part of her game. Once again on a variety of occasions Hassle was found splayed out on the pitch thanks to a shove or tangled feet. And it just didn't matter for the next instant she was back it... and getting decked again moments latter.
We couldn’t have begged Zeus for a better stage upon which to receive our first victory. It was a beautiful evening. We started just before the sunset and finished under the stage lights of a field illuminated at night. It was warm and a steady wind blew from sideline to sideline. As such it seemed the Olympians themselves decided to plus-up the occasion; perhaps as a reward for amiably playing through a season-and-a-half of their capricious whims.
Initially it seemed even our opponent was hand selected by Artemis, the Gleeful Unicorns. What better combatants for a story book ending than magical creatures of times long gone against techno-magical beings from a time we may never reach.
Alas, Pan was at work when our opponents chose their name.
*We technically won our final game of last season by forfeit because our opponent didn’t show up.
THE GLEEFUL UNICORNS: WHEN IRONY ISN’T IRONIC
Stated flatly, the Gleeful Unicorns played without any detectible joy or a trace of magic. A more accurate name would have been something along the lines of the Angry Jerks. Not that all of them were angry or jerks, but the age old axiom about the ratio of good fruit to bad that spoils the lot applies here.
Case in point.
Late in the second half a Gleeful Unicorn guy was sprinting toward our goal with the ball. I.Madnle came streaking out of nowhere and stepped in front of the guy to boot the ball away, which he did sending the ball out of bounds. A collision ensued and the Unicorn guy crumpled to the ground, writhing in pain. No foul was called because it was a perfectly legal play.
Because the ball went out of the bounds play stopped. I.Madnle offered his hand to the downed Unicorn who took it without looking up at him. When the Unicorn saw it was the hand of his opponent he barked, “¡Get your hands off me! ¡I can get up myself!” and angrily yanked his hand away.
This is the height of poor sportsmanship. Even at the highest echelons of futbol -- being played by people paid outrageous sums of money whose existences depend on the outcomes of games -- opponents routinely help each other up. In fact, it is considered poor form NOT to offer a downed opponent your hand under those circumstances.
Before the game I wondered if the name Gleeful Unicorns was ironic. It was… or rather it is meant to be but its creators clearly don’t understand that we live in a post-ironic world. Due to an overdose of Gen-X hipsters wearing Spice Girls t-shirts in the ‘90’s (I wore mine earnestly -- honestly) the nature of irony was forced to evolve beyond simply stating something the opposite of the truth (most of those Gen-X hipsters really didn’t like the Spice Girls, ¿get it? it’s funny… on the other hand I actually did).
As such irony now exists in a kind of limbo where to be ironic a statement has to be incongruously true. Such that the initial reading of the statement would lead one to think you surely don’t like/want X (i.e. old fashioned irony), but you really do want/like X. For instance, yelling “Freebird” at a concert. Once upon a time that was ironic because the shouter didn’t really want the band to play “Freebird.” Oddly enough, it turns out “Freebird” is a perfect number for a band to riff off and because of its accelerated tempo in its final turn lends itself to a wild crescendo that nicely closes a show. A fact I experienced first hand thanks to Built to Spill.
When you’re a team of angry jerks, calling yourselves the Gleeful Unicorns is like calling a skinny person “fatty.” Whatever extent it conforms to the dictionary definition of “ironic” is trumped by its outdated lameness. Much like a bushel of lovely apples spoiled by a few foul ones who have confused themselves for likes of Zidane, Kaka, and Ronaldo but would fare now better against their kind than either you or I (and I don’t even know who you are).
THE GOAL EQUATION: WHEN DATA YEILDS RESULTS
The equation that predicts scoring in futbol has three variables: skill, luck, and number of opportunities. Ideally you’d have high numbers in all three, but any one can offset the others. The most important of the three factors is number of opportunities because it most directly reduces the need for high numbers in the other categories. If you can pour the ball into your opponents penalty box it doesn’t matter how uncoordinated your team is, get enough awkward flailings at the ball and it’ll start going into the net.
Last season we relied exclusively on skill (predominantly Little Johnny England getting the ball and doing a bunch of fancy stuff) and luck but generated precious few chances because we didn’t have a coordinated attack. This season from game one I saw we had flipped our equation in favor of number of chances.
With Hassle, Skywalker, and TB ranging on the sidelines with Elliot and Sohei in the middle, our attack became a coordinated one where the ball moved freely from the wings to the center and back. It’s harder to defend a ball on the move than person with the ball. It would only take time for the equation to start cranking out goals thanks to our dramatically increase number of chances. I had pegged game four -- the midpoint of the season -- for the equation to catch up with us.
It did. And in game 5 it continued to hum along.
GOAL (9th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 1 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 0
Skywalker brought the ball up the left wing. She made a move to get her defender out of position so she could center the ball where Elliot laid in wait. The ball got by him (perhaps because of deflection off a defender) and appeared to be bouncing out of harms way. But…
¡NAY!
For the warrior monk Sohei -- true to his instinctual, self-evident affirming Buddhist nature -- was backing up the play and put himself in the right place at the right time. [¿How did you know where to the ball would be? “¿How does the raindrop find the root of the Bodhi Tree?”] He swept in and with his first touch cranked his first goal of the season into the lower right corner.
GOAL (11th minute) ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 0
This time TB was streaking to the goal on the left side without a defender anywhere near him. I was filling the middle running with no defender near me. This was as sure a goal as there is. A two-on-none break.
The only problem was I was the one in middle and my touch is as supple as our President’s foreign policy is subtle. Compound that with I was so open that I had time-a-plenty to think of all of the ways I would screw this up when TB passed me the ball, and surely he was going to pass me the ball. He had to. The keeper was playing his approach and I was literally all by myself in the middle of the goal. A pass to me and I’d have the whole right side of the net to myself with time enough to drop to my hands and knees and nose the ball in (provided I hadn’t already kicked it over the goal, a distinct possibility).
Once again, the Fates had it their way (perhaps to protect me from myself).
TB decided to take matters into his own feet. He shot the ball just to the right of the keeper, who was sliding to the ground in an effort to stop it. The ball found its way through between the keeper’s arm and side before he had time to hit the ground to close that window. The ball momentarily disappeared in his garish (and seemingly fun heralding, alas) shirt and emerged with enough pace to find its way safely into the back of net.
TB’s first goal of the season.
Two goals. Two minutes. Two different ¡FUTURISMOS! The equation was cranking.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TEAM MOOD WITH A 2-0 LEAD
As you might imagine, leading 2-0 half way through the first half when you’ve never won a game has a particular feeling. But that feeling isn’t joy so much as dizziness. We knew there was a long way to go, so there wasn’t jubilant celebrating, but a 2-0 lead felt something like a lunar landing.
Lest we get ahead of ourselves, Hades narrowed the gap with the aid of Hermes.
GOAL ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 1
The Gleeful Unicorns first goal really was a thing of beauty.
They were awarded a free kick at midfield. The guy that took it lofted a perfect, shinning rainbow of a boot with a target 3-yards in front of our left goal post. Standing in wait in the pot-of-goal was one of the ungentlemanly Unicorn men. He out-leapt his defender and snapped a perfect header into the lower right corner of the goal.
Most of your ¡FUTURISMOS! clapped in appreciation of one heck of an effort. Then we experienced a curious sensation when we saw the un-gentlemanly goal-scoring unicorn run to the middle of the field stooped over with his index finger protruding from the middle of his head. This “unicorn celebration” should have been charming or at least fun. Instead it was sour because we’d already experience the antiquated irony of their team name.
The feeling was the opposite of watching Zidane headbutt Materazzi. While that filthy, lying, lowlife got what was coming to him and Zidane’s ejection didn’t effect the game’s outcome (penalties are just a protracted coin-flip), you still can’t cheer violent conduct no matter how satisfying. In the end the whole affair left you torn.
Watching a grown man prance like a unicorn should inspire joy. ¿But if he’s a jerk who minutes before nearly had his earring torn out as a result of foolishly attempting to head a waist-high ball that Bran~D was clearing and then huffed around and heatedly waved off an apology from Bran~D (who didn’t owe him one anyway and was just being sporting to offer)? Then the unicorn prancing has a different felling. Something more like perversion.
HALFTIME: ¡FUTURIMSOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 1
Having a 2-1 lead at halftime when you’ve never won a game feels good. We were playing well and even though many of the Gleeful Unicorns were darn good with the ball they hadn’t mounted much of an attack. Again, there was no jubilation. Just good feelings made even better with the arrival of two C+M fans, Lisa “Dish” Carlson and Christine “Sherpa” Scherping.
I walked over to them to give them my camera so they could take pictures of the game. As soon as they saw the camera they started modeling. When I told them I was offering them the camera so they could take pictures of us -- the people actually doing something -- they both pouted. I took a couple pictures, they were placated and even returned the favor by taking some of us. Their shrieking exhortations and full-throated laughter was a welcome boost throughout the second half.
We went into the second half spirits high, cheered on by Dish and Sherpa and silently emboldened by Elliot’s fiancé and Skywalker’s roommate.
GOAL (28th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 2
It didn’t take long after halftime for the Gleeful Unicorns to make us all a queasy again with their unicorn celebration.
A Unicorn guy had the ball a little over midfield approaching our goal. I ran at him, he stopped and made like he was going to kick the ball. I leapt in the air in hopes of blocking it and he calmly didn’t kick the ball and ran with it into the middle of the field. I looked up to see him dancing with the ball a little more and was slow to run him down.
He moved back in my direction and I started at him but by then it was too late. He’d found an opening and fired from 15-ish yards out to the far post. Kahn made a good effort but it got past her and inside the post.
It was good goal and largely (if not exclusively) my fault for biting on that ball fake and then not hustling to make up for the gaff.
NERVOUS MAKING TIME
The Gleeful Unicorns were strong for the opening ten minutes of the second half. They didn’t have any crazy near misses or anything but they looked more likely than we to take the lead. It wasn’t that our attack petered out or our pace slackened. They were just playing well.
Sohei and I were standing next to each other on the sideline for much of this time. Before he ran on the field for TB he turned to me and said, “As sure as the tide goes out, it comes in.” A true Buddhist monk warrior even in the collectively turbulent mind-state as it appeared the game was slipping away.
GOAL (40th minute): ¡FUTURISMOS! 3 -- GLEEFUL UNICORNS 2
Thanks to the hustle of Hassle (I think) we earned a corner kick. Elliot was taking the corner and I distinctly remember looking up at him and thinking, “Why is he taking the kick? He should be in the box trying to score.” Turns out scoring was what he had in mind.
Elliot’s corner kick was actually an intentional shot on goal. Rather than lofting the ball into the box for a possible header, he kicked it low (about head high), hard, and bent it so it had a chance to curl into the goal. The keeper was caught off guard and even though he had the ball in his chest he couldn’t control it and lost it into the goal.
Elliot’s fourth goal of the season put your ¡FUTURISMOS! up again with roughly 8-minutes left to play.
GOAL DISALLOWED (44th minute)
TB nearly delivered the coup de grace a few minutes after Elliot put us up. The ball was loose 5 yards in front of the Gleeful Unicorns goal. TB had a defender in his face and the ball a few feet to his right. He lashed out and struck a marvelous shot around his defender that ended up in the right corner of the net.
Unfortunately in the course of the shot TB ended up falling down in order to reach the ball. In CSC Sports you cannot kick the ball while you’re on the ground or make any effort to slide to kick the ball. The ref ruled TB’s shot a slide and waved off the goal.
A close call for sure but in any event a wonderful effort by TB worthy of his second goal of the game even if it didn’t go down in the official score keeper’s tabulation.
THE FINAL MINUTES
Of course the final minutes took forever. But they were well under control without any truly nervous moments. In fact we controlled the ball for much of it and even had some action down in front of their goal.
The final Gleeful Unicorn chance was snuffed out by Bran~D (or perhaps it was Elliot) who poked the ball away from a Unicorn just outside the penalty box on the end line and booted it out of bounds on the sideline. I glanced at my watch and knew this throw-in would be their last chance.
It was. Nothing came of it. The ref blew the whistle.
The game was over and we had won.
We did not go crazy. The only screeching was courtesy Dish and Sherpa. The smiles on the faces of your ¡FUTURISMOS! were big, dumb, and a little dazed. I hugged everyone. Li’l Pete poured water over my head.
There was joy. We had a much higher degree of lingering on the sideline than we normally do. Far more people stuck around than usual and we went out for a celebratory drink afterward.
But mixed with joy was no small measure of grumbling about the Gleeful Unicorns.
IT’S NEITHER ABOUT WINNING/LOOSING NOR HOW YOU PLAYED THE GAME
It’s about whether you’re a jerk or not.
Playing against jerks is not fun. Beating them isn’t really fun either. You know they don’t learn anything as a result of the defeat so conversely any joy you feel from beating them is like reveling in the defeat of night by the dawn.
For those of you who think “they’re just competing hard” that’s rubbish. No one competes harder than I.Madnle, he borders on deranged, and there is no trace of jerk in him. There is absolutely nothing inherent in the game that requires someone to be a jerk.
We’re all playing futbol because we like it. We aren’t getting paid for it. We don’t get some hard, tangible thing from it. Playing futbol should be something we all have in common and can revel in together even when we’re playing against each other. Indeed, we should be reveling in it precisely because we ARE playing against each other as that’s when the game is most fun.
But there’s nothing fun about a jerk. They are to joy what a black hole is to light.
LI’L PETE AWARD
Giving it to Hassle is getting a little ridiculous because getting decked is just part of her game. Once again on a variety of occasions Hassle was found splayed out on the pitch thanks to a shove or tangled feet. And it just didn't matter for the next instant she was back it... and getting decked again moments latter.
That's the Li'l Pete spirit.
SPECIAL ACCOMIDATION: I.MADNLE
I didn’t think it possible for I.Madnle to play with more enthusiasm than he normally does. Once again, never underestimate I.Madnle. He was all over the place both on the pitch and with his cheering. Hassle credits him with lifting her spirits at one point as his “¡Let’s Go Blue!” cut through a stiff wind and exhorted her onward when she was ready to let down.
His personal highlight was the afore mentioned dispossession of the ball from the attacking Unicorn that resulted in the shocking display of poor sportsmanship. Not far behind was free kick he took from midfield near the sideline. Without a thought he fired it at the goal -- a ridiculously distant attempt. For just a moment it looked like the keeper had misjudged the ball and it was going to bounce over his head for a goal. In that moment it looked like I.Madnle was going to have a perfect game.
Instead he’ll have to settle for a merely brilliant one.
FAN UPDATE: A STUNNING TURNOUT -- DISH & SHERPA
Not only did we get our first win but we had our first ever instance of multiple C+M comrades attending. As I mentioned earlier, at half time Lisa “Dish” Carlson and Christine “Sherpa” Scherping arrived. Their presence, cheers, and looking up to see them taking pictures of themselves made all the difference.
That raises the C+M fan season total to a staggering 4.
Along with Skywalker’s roommate and Elliot’s fiancé we had a right proper hoard behind us. You think it doesn’t make a difference, but it does.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
Much to my chagrin it is my duty to report to you, dear ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, that there wasn’t a Faustian Moment in game 5. This has caused me a great deal of distress. ¿What is the point of this endeavor if not to liberate our spirits, if only for fleeting moments?
I talked to several ¡FUTURISMOS! the day after the game to see if any of them had a Faustian Moment. They all revolved around either winning or sticking it to a jerk Unicorn one way or another. This had Goethe spinning in the philosophical ether and Camus scrambling to assure him with a pickup game.
It isn’t that the game wasn’t fun; it was. And it isn’t that the game was without its moments of levity; it had them. It’s just that in the end it appears the game was about winning and sticking it to some jerks. Neither is valuable in and of itself. Neither could be further away from what Dr. Faust would trade his soul for.
Yes, I want to win. I even find myself getting caught up in thinking about winning streaks and that sort of thing, but I quickly admonish myself for it. I want to win because it’s preferable relative to its alternatives. But given the choice between:
Winning all of our games but doing so against the Gleeful Unicorns every week;
OR
Loosing every game but against opponents who recognize we are playing a game;
I don’t think there’s a choice.
I have no doubt some of you are guffawing or snorting at that thinking something along the lines of “pfffft… loser.” So in the venerable tradition of deferring to someone whose credentials are fancier than your own, I’m going to quote a passage from a source far more learned than I on the subject of futbol.
Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan stunted futboler turned journalist, historian, social critic, and futbol fan. He wrote, among other things, a transcendent book called El fútbol a sol y sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow), which is one of best things I’ve ever read regardless of subject matter. I quote from the section titled “Serious and in Series.”
“According to those who understand the root meaning of words, to play is to joke… To win without magic, without surprise or beauty, isn’t that worse than losing? In 1994, during the Spanish championship, Real Madrid was defeated by Sporting from Gijón. But the men of Real Madrid played with enthusiasm, a word that originally meant ‘having the gods within.’ The coach, Jorge Valdano, beamed at the players in the dressing room: ‘When you play like that,’ he told them, ‘it’s okay to lose.’”
SPECIAL ACCOMIDATION: I.MADNLE
I didn’t think it possible for I.Madnle to play with more enthusiasm than he normally does. Once again, never underestimate I.Madnle. He was all over the place both on the pitch and with his cheering. Hassle credits him with lifting her spirits at one point as his “¡Let’s Go Blue!” cut through a stiff wind and exhorted her onward when she was ready to let down.
His personal highlight was the afore mentioned dispossession of the ball from the attacking Unicorn that resulted in the shocking display of poor sportsmanship. Not far behind was free kick he took from midfield near the sideline. Without a thought he fired it at the goal -- a ridiculously distant attempt. For just a moment it looked like the keeper had misjudged the ball and it was going to bounce over his head for a goal. In that moment it looked like I.Madnle was going to have a perfect game.
Instead he’ll have to settle for a merely brilliant one.
FAN UPDATE: A STUNNING TURNOUT -- DISH & SHERPA
Not only did we get our first win but we had our first ever instance of multiple C+M comrades attending. As I mentioned earlier, at half time Lisa “Dish” Carlson and Christine “Sherpa” Scherping arrived. Their presence, cheers, and looking up to see them taking pictures of themselves made all the difference.
That raises the C+M fan season total to a staggering 4.
Along with Skywalker’s roommate and Elliot’s fiancé we had a right proper hoard behind us. You think it doesn’t make a difference, but it does.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
Much to my chagrin it is my duty to report to you, dear ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, that there wasn’t a Faustian Moment in game 5. This has caused me a great deal of distress. ¿What is the point of this endeavor if not to liberate our spirits, if only for fleeting moments?
I talked to several ¡FUTURISMOS! the day after the game to see if any of them had a Faustian Moment. They all revolved around either winning or sticking it to a jerk Unicorn one way or another. This had Goethe spinning in the philosophical ether and Camus scrambling to assure him with a pickup game.
It isn’t that the game wasn’t fun; it was. And it isn’t that the game was without its moments of levity; it had them. It’s just that in the end it appears the game was about winning and sticking it to some jerks. Neither is valuable in and of itself. Neither could be further away from what Dr. Faust would trade his soul for.
Yes, I want to win. I even find myself getting caught up in thinking about winning streaks and that sort of thing, but I quickly admonish myself for it. I want to win because it’s preferable relative to its alternatives. But given the choice between:
Winning all of our games but doing so against the Gleeful Unicorns every week;
OR
Loosing every game but against opponents who recognize we are playing a game;
I don’t think there’s a choice.
I have no doubt some of you are guffawing or snorting at that thinking something along the lines of “pfffft… loser.” So in the venerable tradition of deferring to someone whose credentials are fancier than your own, I’m going to quote a passage from a source far more learned than I on the subject of futbol.
Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan stunted futboler turned journalist, historian, social critic, and futbol fan. He wrote, among other things, a transcendent book called El fútbol a sol y sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow), which is one of best things I’ve ever read regardless of subject matter. I quote from the section titled “Serious and in Series.”
“According to those who understand the root meaning of words, to play is to joke… To win without magic, without surprise or beauty, isn’t that worse than losing? In 1994, during the Spanish championship, Real Madrid was defeated by Sporting from Gijón. But the men of Real Madrid played with enthusiasm, a word that originally meant ‘having the gods within.’ The coach, Jorge Valdano, beamed at the players in the dressing room: ‘When you play like that,’ he told them, ‘it’s okay to lose.’”
Saturday, May 5, 2007
GAME 4: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2- Von Raschke All-Stars 2
Now your ¡FUTURISMOS! have something indisputable in common with Le Grand Zidane: Playing under the stars suits us. Never mind that during a night game, thanks to the floodlights, the stars are every bit as visible as they are at noon. Atmosphere is felt rather than seen and for our first ever game outdoors -- which just so happened to be in the dead of night (we didn’t get underway until shortly after 10) -- the atmosphere was something just this side of Olympian with the anticipation of our celestial spectators.
¿Would your ¡FUTURISMOS! live up to the grandeur of the setting?

Considering Big Pete was home with Godley tending to their day-old child Li’l Godley Jr… ¿could we?
The answer isn’t “yes”… it’s “¡HELL YES!”
WELCOME BACK, PRETTY BOY BRAN~D. NOW BE SO KIND AS TO IMPREGNATE LI’L PETE.
After a one game hiatus Bran~D was back in action. Initially we assumed he returned because of his undying love of futbol and his ¡FUTURISMOS! A few minutes into the game he clarified where exactly he intended to place his afore mentioned love.
Bran~D was running back with his head up field and Li’l Pete was running up with her head up field. Neither saw the other (or so Bran~D claims) and the collided. Rather than let Li’l Pete tumble Bran~D decided to ride her to the ground. So he grabbed her around the waist and then as gently as he is able he guided her to the ground and mounted her.
After the game I inquired with the CSC Sports official as to whether this was the first recorded incident of a player attempting to impregnate another on the field during the game. She shook her head and said “futbol isn’t the other international language for nothin’.”
No word yet on how Li’l Pete and Bran~D are going to deal with custody of their futbol love child, but a name has been selected: Godley.
GOAL (8th minute) ¡F! 0 -- VRAS 1: THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE OBLONG FOOTBALL
Everyone I’ve talked to about what happened here has a different story, which is the heart of any good mystery. Here’s what everyone agrees about.
VRAS had the ball and were bringing it up the middle of the field roughly 40-feet from our goal. A football americano rolled onto the pitch somewhere near the futbol. VRAS scored a moment later. There was a minor uproar as several ¡FUTURISMOS! descended upon the ref arguing the goal should be disallowed due to the football americano interference. The ref agreed but claimed that since he has already counted the goal he couldn’t take it back. I lodged a formal complaint with the CSC Sports official nearby and we continued the game under formal protest.
The question very much in doubt is to what extent that football americano actually influenced the play. Some say the football americano darn near touched the futbol. Others say it was nearby but not that close. Some claim they thought play had stopped for the ball to be cleared, others don’t. It may have been the case that the VRAS player who scored the goal actually shot because he thought play had stopped and just teed off for practice (like a basketball player shooting a three before heading to the bench after a timeout was called). At least some contingent of VRAS believed the goal should have been disallowed.
Such is the existential nature of futbol. ¿Did a ref really see Zidane headbutt that filthy Italian who got what was coming to him? ¿How could the ref had seen the Liverpool goal that knocked Chelsea out of the Champion’s League in 2005? ¿How safe would we be from Terrorists who want to feed our freedom to their atomic powered, cyborg-Communist children if Al Gore had pushed for a total Florida recount in 2000?
No one knows. But the goal stood and VRAS lead 1-0.
GOAL (16th minute) ¡F! 1 -- VRAS 1: ELLIOT WOULD LIKE FISH WITH THAT CHIP
The football americano goal lead didn’t last the half.
Elliot’s second goal of the season was reminiscent of his first, and both seemingly the result of Harry Potter-like interference. From roughly 20-feet out, dead center Elliot chipped the ball toward the goal with the VRAS keeper playing 10-feet out. She was caught hopelessly out of position and her only recourse was a prayer to Zeus. As the Fates would have it Zeus was busy contemplating the fate of the child he had recently conceived while disguised as Pretty Boy Bran~D and her prayer fell on preoccupied ears.
Elliot’s chip once again fell over the hand of helpless keeper and under the crossbar. The score was leveled and Elliot had netted his second beauty of the season.
HALF TIME ¡F! 1 -- VON RASCHKE ALL-STARS 1
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! played a beautiful first half. We switched back to a 3-3 formation and it worked wonders. It shored up our defense but didn’t slacken our attack. There was exactly one noteworthy defensive lapse – a two-on-none break for VRAS that Khan snuffed out with ease.
We did not have the ten-minute blues that plagued us the previous games. Our pace never wavered and -- Hera help us -- we even did a good job of getting the ball in from goal kicks and throw-ins (bugaboo areas for us in the past). We actually look something like a futbol team now.
Easily our best half of the season.
HASSLE DOING WHAT SHE DOES: MAKING PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY HER
The 1-1 score stood until roughly the 40th minute (there are 48 in a game).
Hassle (Kristy Hoffman’s new, and I think permanent, nickname) is likely our most annoying player in the eyes of our opponents. She’s our most deft ball handler, often deploying a series of fakes and shifting her relation to the ball to get her defender out of position. She, along with Elliot, is also our most consistent hounder of opponents with the ball. Put together and I suspect she quickly garners a bad reputation with our opponents. A suspicion bore out by the fact that in three games she has already been flattened by an opposing man twice. The second flattening set up our second goal on the night.
Hassle had the ball just inside the VRAS box. A VRAS guy came steaming in from behind her. I don’t know if she had paused to deploy a fake or two, but whatever the case the VRAS guy misjudged something because he just ran through her. Imagine running full speed behind an unsuspecting person and all out Lawrence Taylor-style flying tackling them from behind. The kind of the thing where if you’re luck/un-lucky you might kill the person you’re tackling.
That’s what this looked like. The whole sideline gasped as she slammed to the ground and then immediately starting screeching at the ref. The CSC Sports official lady came over to calm us down assuring us it was under control.
The ref awarded us a penalty kick, and if ever a PK were deserved it was then.
GOAL (40th minute) ¡F! 2 -- VRAS 1: ELLIOT… ONCE AGAIN
Elliot took the penalty. He drilled the ball to the lower left corner. The VRAS keeper guessed correctly and blocked it, but she couldn’t control it. Elliot was on the ball in a flash and deposited it into the right corner over the prostrate keeper.
That’s all there is to say about that. Elliot’s second goal of the night and third of the season, accounting for all ¡FUTURISMOS! goals thus far this year.
EIGHT GIDDY AND EXCRUCIATING MINUTES
Elliot’s second goal gave your ¡FUTURISMOS! a 2-1 lead with under eight minutes to play. You can’t imagine the bewildering feeling that elicited on the sideline for the next seven minutes.
Every cleared ball was greeted with boisterous cheers. Every success, no matter how small, was serenaded with giddy, almost delirious applause: a good pass, hustling down an errant ball, just kicking the ball far away – all of it hailed with jubilant but frantic energy.
We were going to win this game. Our first ever outright win. VRAS hadn’t mounted a serious threat the entire second half. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had played sound defense the entire game. The minutes dwindled.
Five minutes. Looking promising.
Four minutes. The end was within our grasp.
Three minutes. The end was sitting on the end of our middle finger.
Two minutes. A sure thing. Thoughts of a jubilant mobbing of the field dancing through our heads.
One minute. Absolutely in the bag.
GOAL (48th, and final, minute) ¡F! 2 -- VRAS 2: A SEEING EYE SNIPE IF EVER ONE WERE KICKED
In the last minute of the game (literally, I checked my watch) Zeus changed his mind. A VRAS guy had the ball roughly 25-feet out just off the left side of the goal. He found a sliver of an opening and took a shot aimed at the right goal post. It was an impossible angle, in traffic.
¿What can you say? Sometimes the Gods of futbol smile and apparently that guy had burned a whole goat and poured out a bottle of Champaign in offering earlier that night because his shot defied the odds and found that lower right corner.
The goal was not the result of either shabby defense or goal keeping. There was one itsy-bitsy window and that guy found it.
The ball was put in play but second later the final whistle blew.
Final score: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- Von Raschke All-Stars 2
THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF NON-DEFEAT
As a result of our draw with Von Raschke All-Stars your ¡FUTURISMOS! are in last place no longer. ¡We have rocketed into the 9th spot (second to last)! While we narrowly missed our first win by less than a minute what shouldn’t be overlooked was we played our best game ever.
From start to finish we looked like a little futbol club. This will sound stupid, but we looked for and then passed the ball to each other. We cleared the ball when we were trouble. We get people running to the goal on the wings when someone has the ball in the center. Someone is usually sneaking up the backside of the play to pounce on crosses or fumbled defensive exchanges.
We’re no longer a collection of people who like to play futbol. We’re like a little futbol club now. Our baby steps over the past season and a half became our first stride in game 4. I can only pray to Athena that she sees fit to guide us along as our first stride becomes a second and before we know it we’re off and running.
LI’L PETE AWARD
The winner this week is Hassle for her afore mentioned railroading leading to our penalty kick. It really did look like a fully-grown man running full speed and then spearing a child from behind. The most correct description would have to be “blown up.” It looked like that guy blew up Hassle.
In the words of Li’l Pete, “I’d let some guy blow me up multiple times a game just so long as it meant I’d score.”
Li’l Pete is one of our bona fide stars so she can phrase things however she wants.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
In the absence of a clear Faustian Moment this week I’m going to relate a personal one.
Coming into Lady Season Death Strikers I was clearly the worst person on the team and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Back when the ¡FUTURISMOS! were formed nearly a year ago I started out at about the same level as several other people who hadn’t played futbol since elementary school or ever. Whereas they’ve all improved greatly I hadn’t at all.
My touch was atrocious. I actually let the ball go under my foot and out of bounds on a couple of occasions. Worse, I had no feel for the game. No matter what the situation I’d have to think about what I was supposed to do before doing it. Of course by the time I figured it out the play was over and I was left standing there looking stupid.
So I seriously contemplated quitting the team before the season or perhaps relegating myself to a non-playing manager roll. Rather than making it a formal thing I reckoned I’d just sort of repeat what happened last year and make myself the last person on the bench only playing when absolutely necessary.
Once again, never question the Fates.
Turns out our men’s bench is considerably shorter this year so hiding on it wasn’t an option and over the course of this season I’ve actually improved a little. I still get caught thinking now and then, but most of the time I react to a situation rather than analyze it. My touch is still dreadful, but it’s something less than utterly pathetic now. All of this crystallized in my watershed moment.
I was playing right forward. We worked the ball up the left side and I was sneaking in on the weak side to receive a cross or take a crack at anything that got loose in the middle. The ball was passed to me about 15-feet in front the goal. I controlled the ball with my right foot but had a defender right in front of me. She was playing me to go to my right, which was absolutely the correct thing to do because I’m right footed.
With nowhere to go to my right, I flicked the ball with right foot back toward the middle and my left foot. I was jostling with the defender all the while and I’m even worse with my left foot than my right, but I managed to actually control the ball again and kick it in the general direction of the goal (albeit not terribly hard). I looked up to see the ball roll right into the arms of the keeper but had she not been there the ball would have actually gone into the net.
I had a shot on goal.
My first ever and I had to maneuver to take it… and with my left foot no less. All of it essentially without thinking.
It sounds so simple as to be dumb when you say it: you stop a rolling ball with your foot, the defender is playing you right, so you move left and kick a ball. Such is the nature of play. The more you think about it the dumber and more pointless it seems. That’s why children are so good at it and why adults are nearly incapable of it. Because children just know what’s important and adults have to think about it.
Play also happens to be on the very short list of what makes life worth living. That’s why I’m sure had Dr. Faust seen what I felt when I looked up to see the keeper calmly collecting my feeble shot he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
¿Would your ¡FUTURISMOS! live up to the grandeur of the setting?
Considering Big Pete was home with Godley tending to their day-old child Li’l Godley Jr… ¿could we?
The answer isn’t “yes”… it’s “¡HELL YES!”
WELCOME BACK, PRETTY BOY BRAN~D. NOW BE SO KIND AS TO IMPREGNATE LI’L PETE.
After a one game hiatus Bran~D was back in action. Initially we assumed he returned because of his undying love of futbol and his ¡FUTURISMOS! A few minutes into the game he clarified where exactly he intended to place his afore mentioned love.
Bran~D was running back with his head up field and Li’l Pete was running up with her head up field. Neither saw the other (or so Bran~D claims) and the collided. Rather than let Li’l Pete tumble Bran~D decided to ride her to the ground. So he grabbed her around the waist and then as gently as he is able he guided her to the ground and mounted her.
After the game I inquired with the CSC Sports official as to whether this was the first recorded incident of a player attempting to impregnate another on the field during the game. She shook her head and said “futbol isn’t the other international language for nothin’.”
No word yet on how Li’l Pete and Bran~D are going to deal with custody of their futbol love child, but a name has been selected: Godley.
GOAL (8th minute) ¡F! 0 -- VRAS 1: THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE OBLONG FOOTBALL
Everyone I’ve talked to about what happened here has a different story, which is the heart of any good mystery. Here’s what everyone agrees about.
VRAS had the ball and were bringing it up the middle of the field roughly 40-feet from our goal. A football americano rolled onto the pitch somewhere near the futbol. VRAS scored a moment later. There was a minor uproar as several ¡FUTURISMOS! descended upon the ref arguing the goal should be disallowed due to the football americano interference. The ref agreed but claimed that since he has already counted the goal he couldn’t take it back. I lodged a formal complaint with the CSC Sports official nearby and we continued the game under formal protest.
The question very much in doubt is to what extent that football americano actually influenced the play. Some say the football americano darn near touched the futbol. Others say it was nearby but not that close. Some claim they thought play had stopped for the ball to be cleared, others don’t. It may have been the case that the VRAS player who scored the goal actually shot because he thought play had stopped and just teed off for practice (like a basketball player shooting a three before heading to the bench after a timeout was called). At least some contingent of VRAS believed the goal should have been disallowed.
Such is the existential nature of futbol. ¿Did a ref really see Zidane headbutt that filthy Italian who got what was coming to him? ¿How could the ref had seen the Liverpool goal that knocked Chelsea out of the Champion’s League in 2005? ¿How safe would we be from Terrorists who want to feed our freedom to their atomic powered, cyborg-Communist children if Al Gore had pushed for a total Florida recount in 2000?
No one knows. But the goal stood and VRAS lead 1-0.
GOAL (16th minute) ¡F! 1 -- VRAS 1: ELLIOT WOULD LIKE FISH WITH THAT CHIP
The football americano goal lead didn’t last the half.
Elliot’s second goal of the season was reminiscent of his first, and both seemingly the result of Harry Potter-like interference. From roughly 20-feet out, dead center Elliot chipped the ball toward the goal with the VRAS keeper playing 10-feet out. She was caught hopelessly out of position and her only recourse was a prayer to Zeus. As the Fates would have it Zeus was busy contemplating the fate of the child he had recently conceived while disguised as Pretty Boy Bran~D and her prayer fell on preoccupied ears.
Elliot’s chip once again fell over the hand of helpless keeper and under the crossbar. The score was leveled and Elliot had netted his second beauty of the season.
HALF TIME ¡F! 1 -- VON RASCHKE ALL-STARS 1
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! played a beautiful first half. We switched back to a 3-3 formation and it worked wonders. It shored up our defense but didn’t slacken our attack. There was exactly one noteworthy defensive lapse – a two-on-none break for VRAS that Khan snuffed out with ease.
We did not have the ten-minute blues that plagued us the previous games. Our pace never wavered and -- Hera help us -- we even did a good job of getting the ball in from goal kicks and throw-ins (bugaboo areas for us in the past). We actually look something like a futbol team now.
Easily our best half of the season.
HASSLE DOING WHAT SHE DOES: MAKING PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY HER
The 1-1 score stood until roughly the 40th minute (there are 48 in a game).
Hassle (Kristy Hoffman’s new, and I think permanent, nickname) is likely our most annoying player in the eyes of our opponents. She’s our most deft ball handler, often deploying a series of fakes and shifting her relation to the ball to get her defender out of position. She, along with Elliot, is also our most consistent hounder of opponents with the ball. Put together and I suspect she quickly garners a bad reputation with our opponents. A suspicion bore out by the fact that in three games she has already been flattened by an opposing man twice. The second flattening set up our second goal on the night.
Hassle had the ball just inside the VRAS box. A VRAS guy came steaming in from behind her. I don’t know if she had paused to deploy a fake or two, but whatever the case the VRAS guy misjudged something because he just ran through her. Imagine running full speed behind an unsuspecting person and all out Lawrence Taylor-style flying tackling them from behind. The kind of the thing where if you’re luck/un-lucky you might kill the person you’re tackling.
That’s what this looked like. The whole sideline gasped as she slammed to the ground and then immediately starting screeching at the ref. The CSC Sports official lady came over to calm us down assuring us it was under control.
The ref awarded us a penalty kick, and if ever a PK were deserved it was then.
GOAL (40th minute) ¡F! 2 -- VRAS 1: ELLIOT… ONCE AGAIN
Elliot took the penalty. He drilled the ball to the lower left corner. The VRAS keeper guessed correctly and blocked it, but she couldn’t control it. Elliot was on the ball in a flash and deposited it into the right corner over the prostrate keeper.
That’s all there is to say about that. Elliot’s second goal of the night and third of the season, accounting for all ¡FUTURISMOS! goals thus far this year.
EIGHT GIDDY AND EXCRUCIATING MINUTES
Elliot’s second goal gave your ¡FUTURISMOS! a 2-1 lead with under eight minutes to play. You can’t imagine the bewildering feeling that elicited on the sideline for the next seven minutes.
Every cleared ball was greeted with boisterous cheers. Every success, no matter how small, was serenaded with giddy, almost delirious applause: a good pass, hustling down an errant ball, just kicking the ball far away – all of it hailed with jubilant but frantic energy.
We were going to win this game. Our first ever outright win. VRAS hadn’t mounted a serious threat the entire second half. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had played sound defense the entire game. The minutes dwindled.
Four minutes. The end was within our grasp.
Three minutes. The end was sitting on the end of our middle finger.
Two minutes. A sure thing. Thoughts of a jubilant mobbing of the field dancing through our heads.
One minute. Absolutely in the bag.
GOAL (48th, and final, minute) ¡F! 2 -- VRAS 2: A SEEING EYE SNIPE IF EVER ONE WERE KICKED
In the last minute of the game (literally, I checked my watch) Zeus changed his mind. A VRAS guy had the ball roughly 25-feet out just off the left side of the goal. He found a sliver of an opening and took a shot aimed at the right goal post. It was an impossible angle, in traffic.
¿What can you say? Sometimes the Gods of futbol smile and apparently that guy had burned a whole goat and poured out a bottle of Champaign in offering earlier that night because his shot defied the odds and found that lower right corner.
The goal was not the result of either shabby defense or goal keeping. There was one itsy-bitsy window and that guy found it.
The ball was put in play but second later the final whistle blew.
Final score: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 -- Von Raschke All-Stars 2
THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF NON-DEFEAT
As a result of our draw with Von Raschke All-Stars your ¡FUTURISMOS! are in last place no longer. ¡We have rocketed into the 9th spot (second to last)! While we narrowly missed our first win by less than a minute what shouldn’t be overlooked was we played our best game ever.
From start to finish we looked like a little futbol club. This will sound stupid, but we looked for and then passed the ball to each other. We cleared the ball when we were trouble. We get people running to the goal on the wings when someone has the ball in the center. Someone is usually sneaking up the backside of the play to pounce on crosses or fumbled defensive exchanges.
We’re no longer a collection of people who like to play futbol. We’re like a little futbol club now. Our baby steps over the past season and a half became our first stride in game 4. I can only pray to Athena that she sees fit to guide us along as our first stride becomes a second and before we know it we’re off and running.
LI’L PETE AWARD
The winner this week is Hassle for her afore mentioned railroading leading to our penalty kick. It really did look like a fully-grown man running full speed and then spearing a child from behind. The most correct description would have to be “blown up.” It looked like that guy blew up Hassle.
In the words of Li’l Pete, “I’d let some guy blow me up multiple times a game just so long as it meant I’d score.”
Li’l Pete is one of our bona fide stars so she can phrase things however she wants.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
In the absence of a clear Faustian Moment this week I’m going to relate a personal one.
Coming into Lady Season Death Strikers I was clearly the worst person on the team and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Back when the ¡FUTURISMOS! were formed nearly a year ago I started out at about the same level as several other people who hadn’t played futbol since elementary school or ever. Whereas they’ve all improved greatly I hadn’t at all.
My touch was atrocious. I actually let the ball go under my foot and out of bounds on a couple of occasions. Worse, I had no feel for the game. No matter what the situation I’d have to think about what I was supposed to do before doing it. Of course by the time I figured it out the play was over and I was left standing there looking stupid.
So I seriously contemplated quitting the team before the season or perhaps relegating myself to a non-playing manager roll. Rather than making it a formal thing I reckoned I’d just sort of repeat what happened last year and make myself the last person on the bench only playing when absolutely necessary.
Once again, never question the Fates.
Turns out our men’s bench is considerably shorter this year so hiding on it wasn’t an option and over the course of this season I’ve actually improved a little. I still get caught thinking now and then, but most of the time I react to a situation rather than analyze it. My touch is still dreadful, but it’s something less than utterly pathetic now. All of this crystallized in my watershed moment.
I was playing right forward. We worked the ball up the left side and I was sneaking in on the weak side to receive a cross or take a crack at anything that got loose in the middle. The ball was passed to me about 15-feet in front the goal. I controlled the ball with my right foot but had a defender right in front of me. She was playing me to go to my right, which was absolutely the correct thing to do because I’m right footed.
With nowhere to go to my right, I flicked the ball with right foot back toward the middle and my left foot. I was jostling with the defender all the while and I’m even worse with my left foot than my right, but I managed to actually control the ball again and kick it in the general direction of the goal (albeit not terribly hard). I looked up to see the ball roll right into the arms of the keeper but had she not been there the ball would have actually gone into the net.
I had a shot on goal.
My first ever and I had to maneuver to take it… and with my left foot no less. All of it essentially without thinking.
It sounds so simple as to be dumb when you say it: you stop a rolling ball with your foot, the defender is playing you right, so you move left and kick a ball. Such is the nature of play. The more you think about it the dumber and more pointless it seems. That’s why children are so good at it and why adults are nearly incapable of it. Because children just know what’s important and adults have to think about it.
Play also happens to be on the very short list of what makes life worth living. That’s why I’m sure had Dr. Faust seen what I felt when I looked up to see the keeper calmly collecting my feeble shot he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
Friday, May 4, 2007
GAME 3: ¡FUTURISMOS! 1 – Red Dragonz 5
I’m really going to try and keep this one short, but I make no promises. On the other hand Game 3 promised to be our worst of the season and it lived up to its word.
Hitherto we had played all of games at the University of Minnesota. Game 3 was our first at our new location, Holy Angels in Richfield. The new field is superior to the old in terms of its condition and the goals are now twice as wide (probably along the lines of 16-feet wide -- whereas the old goals were roughly 8-feet wide). At least for Game 3 the pitch was also in a dome, which was just cool. But our first game in Richfield had an unfortunate start time -- 6pm.
Seriously. ¿Who in Hades can make it to Richfield by 6pm from downtown Minneapolis? And 6pm actually means 5:45 to give oneself time to gear up and run around for a minute. That’s just ridiculous. At least it was for us. Red Dragonz had no problem.
Before the game started I knew we were going to be short D.Hoff, Skywalker, Sohei, TB, and VC. For those keeping track at home that’s half our starters, two of our most reliable ball handlers, our most active and scrappy forward, AND the possessor of our most potent shot.
When the game started it was worse. In addition to the absences above Li’l Pete, Stilts, Serbian, and Hermione were nowhere to be seen. That’s a lot of names to keep straight so here’s the translation: We started the game with one lady on the pitch, The Mayor (Kahn was in the net, but the Keeper is gender neutral). Since you must have 3 men and 3 women on the pitch (not counting the keeper) that meant we started the game short 2 people; playing 5 against their 7.
Li’l Pete showed up shortly after the game began, Stilts a couple minutes after that and Red Dragonz didn’t take advantage of their early advantage (it would turn out they didn’t need to), but the frantic confusion of those opening minutes defined our first half.
ONE SHINING MOMENT
Flying radically in the face of everything you’ve just read, your ¡FUTURISMOS! actually had a lead in this game courtesy our first goal of the season. Elliot was its proud creator and it was gem.
From 25-yards out on to the left side of the goal Elliot took a speculative boot. The keeper was appropriately about 10-feet in front of the goal protecting its left side. Elliot’s shot was a high archer to the right pole. It soared over the head of a defender who craned her head up and then back to track it. The keeper backpedaled, at first casually because it appeared for all the world that the ball would sail safely over the net.
Then the ball took a pronounced dive. Oh yes, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, Elliot had bent the ball a little like a person famous for doing so. The keeper was effectively hung out to dry at that point. He had to keep backpedaling because he couldn’t break stride to turn around. The keeper fell backwards in a desperate last gasp to tap the ball away and it dropped just over his outstretched hand, just under the crossbar, and just inside the post. ¡GOAL!
It was a remarkable effort. It may have taken us three games to score a goal but it was well worth the wait. ¡Hazah to Elliot! A truly beautiful effort.
A POINT I HAVE BEEN RELUCTANT TO CONCEED BUT IS PLAIN AS DAY
Elliot’s goal came just shy of the half way through the first half. Our collapse came a few minutes later. Red Dragonz just poured it on and we were powerless to stem the tide. I think they scored all five of their goals during those brutal ten minutes (and truth be told there were at least two goals they missed thanks to dumb luck).
¿What happened to your beloved ¡FUTURISMOS!? Our team collapse was a result of our near physical collapse. We had one lady and one gentleman in reserve and we aren’t fit enough to get away with that. When I came off the pitch for the first time with about 5 minutes left in the first half I thought I was going to throw up. Literally. I stood there on sidelines concentrating, “do not throw up. You will not throw up.”
Red Dragonz had no lady reserves, two guys, and suffered no ill effects. They play year ‘round and it showed. We don’t and it showed. We should be able to offset our inferior conditioning with our numbers, but when we’re significantly short we’re nearly crippled.
The combination of fatigue calming our nerves and half time to get over the initial panic righted our ship in the second half. We settled down and played them even (I can’t remember whether they got one in the second half or not). But the damage was done.
LI’L PETE AWARD
Even though we had our first Li’l Pete moment courtesy Li’l Pete herself – she took a wicked blast in the corner deflecting the ball out of bounds and issued her trademark scream/squeak – this week’s winner is Hermione.
Elliot was the goalkeeper (he and Kahn switched in the second half). I can’t remember if it was a corner kick or a cross, but the ball came into the box high and Elliot punched it way. The ball wasn’t cleared though and a Red Dragon ended up with it and a wide-open right side of the net. The only thing standing in the way of their sixth goal turned out to be Hermione’s face. The Red Dragon took a shot and Hermione saved the day with her cheek.
That’s the Li’l Pete way, Hermione. You lived up to your hero’s standard and she’s proud of you.
A NEARLY DECAPITATED KEEPER
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! nearly injured their second keeper in as many weeks. Big Pete had the ball and a clear path to the goal. The keeper came running out at him and started to slide as he approached Big Pete, which is standard keeping procedure. Big Pete decided to blast away rather than get around the keeper. He wound up and blasted the ball right into the keeper’s throat. The ball ricocheted out of bounds, traveling a good 30-yards. From where I was -- trailing the play by about 20-yards -- I thought Big Pete had killed him. After a few moments of throat clutching the keeper was fine, but oh my goodness was it scary.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
For the first time the Faustian Moment belonged to a non-¡FUTURISMO!. I thought long and hard about a tactful way of saying this and here’s what I came up with: one of the Red Dragon ladies looked more like Rosanne Bar than Mia Hamm. She was 40+-ish, far from svelte and her teammates called her “Ma.”
Not that 40+-year-old, far-from-svelte parents can’t be good futbolers, but if you passed one on the street there’s no way your first thought is going to be, “I bet she/he is one heck of a futboler.” Again, I just want to be abundantly clear on this point. It isn’t like when I saw this lady I thought “ha, what a joke.” It’s more like when I saw her I didn’t think anything of her at all (as opposed to the Ninja women of Dynamo who looked -- and were -- formidable).
Pretty early in the game Red Dragonz had a corner kick. The kick was to the near post and Ma came flying out of the pack, leapt in the air, headed the ball, and missed what would have been a pretty spectacular goal by about a foot (to the left). I swear to Zidane I saw the thing in slow motion.
She was actually in the air -- her right leg straight down and her left trailing behind her -- and she snapped her head in an effort to not only redirect the ball but get something on it. We ran up field next to each other after the play and I said “Dude, that was great effort.” She replied, “thanks honey, but a great effort would have been two feet to the right,” and then laughed.
If Dr. Faust had seen Ma’s narrowly missed flying header followed by her humble, good-natured chatter I have no doubt he would have happily shouted “stop” at Lucifer to trade his soul.
FAN UPDATE
We may be down in the in the league standings, but our fan turn out has been astonishing. We pulverized last years C+M fan record (1) when Laurie Christen showed up with husband and child in tow. That’s two Colle+McOmrade fans in three games. At this pace we may set a record that can’t be beat.
Thank you, Laurie Christen. We all hope Andrew’s obsession with robot vampires is just a very weird phase.
Hitherto we had played all of games at the University of Minnesota. Game 3 was our first at our new location, Holy Angels in Richfield. The new field is superior to the old in terms of its condition and the goals are now twice as wide (probably along the lines of 16-feet wide -- whereas the old goals were roughly 8-feet wide). At least for Game 3 the pitch was also in a dome, which was just cool. But our first game in Richfield had an unfortunate start time -- 6pm.
Seriously. ¿Who in Hades can make it to Richfield by 6pm from downtown Minneapolis? And 6pm actually means 5:45 to give oneself time to gear up and run around for a minute. That’s just ridiculous. At least it was for us. Red Dragonz had no problem.
Before the game started I knew we were going to be short D.Hoff, Skywalker, Sohei, TB, and VC. For those keeping track at home that’s half our starters, two of our most reliable ball handlers, our most active and scrappy forward, AND the possessor of our most potent shot.
When the game started it was worse. In addition to the absences above Li’l Pete, Stilts, Serbian, and Hermione were nowhere to be seen. That’s a lot of names to keep straight so here’s the translation: We started the game with one lady on the pitch, The Mayor (Kahn was in the net, but the Keeper is gender neutral). Since you must have 3 men and 3 women on the pitch (not counting the keeper) that meant we started the game short 2 people; playing 5 against their 7.
Li’l Pete showed up shortly after the game began, Stilts a couple minutes after that and Red Dragonz didn’t take advantage of their early advantage (it would turn out they didn’t need to), but the frantic confusion of those opening minutes defined our first half.
ONE SHINING MOMENT
Flying radically in the face of everything you’ve just read, your ¡FUTURISMOS! actually had a lead in this game courtesy our first goal of the season. Elliot was its proud creator and it was gem.
From 25-yards out on to the left side of the goal Elliot took a speculative boot. The keeper was appropriately about 10-feet in front of the goal protecting its left side. Elliot’s shot was a high archer to the right pole. It soared over the head of a defender who craned her head up and then back to track it. The keeper backpedaled, at first casually because it appeared for all the world that the ball would sail safely over the net.
Then the ball took a pronounced dive. Oh yes, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, Elliot had bent the ball a little like a person famous for doing so. The keeper was effectively hung out to dry at that point. He had to keep backpedaling because he couldn’t break stride to turn around. The keeper fell backwards in a desperate last gasp to tap the ball away and it dropped just over his outstretched hand, just under the crossbar, and just inside the post. ¡GOAL!
It was a remarkable effort. It may have taken us three games to score a goal but it was well worth the wait. ¡Hazah to Elliot! A truly beautiful effort.
A POINT I HAVE BEEN RELUCTANT TO CONCEED BUT IS PLAIN AS DAY
Elliot’s goal came just shy of the half way through the first half. Our collapse came a few minutes later. Red Dragonz just poured it on and we were powerless to stem the tide. I think they scored all five of their goals during those brutal ten minutes (and truth be told there were at least two goals they missed thanks to dumb luck).
¿What happened to your beloved ¡FUTURISMOS!? Our team collapse was a result of our near physical collapse. We had one lady and one gentleman in reserve and we aren’t fit enough to get away with that. When I came off the pitch for the first time with about 5 minutes left in the first half I thought I was going to throw up. Literally. I stood there on sidelines concentrating, “do not throw up. You will not throw up.”
Red Dragonz had no lady reserves, two guys, and suffered no ill effects. They play year ‘round and it showed. We don’t and it showed. We should be able to offset our inferior conditioning with our numbers, but when we’re significantly short we’re nearly crippled.
The combination of fatigue calming our nerves and half time to get over the initial panic righted our ship in the second half. We settled down and played them even (I can’t remember whether they got one in the second half or not). But the damage was done.
LI’L PETE AWARD
Even though we had our first Li’l Pete moment courtesy Li’l Pete herself – she took a wicked blast in the corner deflecting the ball out of bounds and issued her trademark scream/squeak – this week’s winner is Hermione.
Elliot was the goalkeeper (he and Kahn switched in the second half). I can’t remember if it was a corner kick or a cross, but the ball came into the box high and Elliot punched it way. The ball wasn’t cleared though and a Red Dragon ended up with it and a wide-open right side of the net. The only thing standing in the way of their sixth goal turned out to be Hermione’s face. The Red Dragon took a shot and Hermione saved the day with her cheek.
That’s the Li’l Pete way, Hermione. You lived up to your hero’s standard and she’s proud of you.
A NEARLY DECAPITATED KEEPER
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! nearly injured their second keeper in as many weeks. Big Pete had the ball and a clear path to the goal. The keeper came running out at him and started to slide as he approached Big Pete, which is standard keeping procedure. Big Pete decided to blast away rather than get around the keeper. He wound up and blasted the ball right into the keeper’s throat. The ball ricocheted out of bounds, traveling a good 30-yards. From where I was -- trailing the play by about 20-yards -- I thought Big Pete had killed him. After a few moments of throat clutching the keeper was fine, but oh my goodness was it scary.
FAUSTIAN MOMENT
For the first time the Faustian Moment belonged to a non-¡FUTURISMO!. I thought long and hard about a tactful way of saying this and here’s what I came up with: one of the Red Dragon ladies looked more like Rosanne Bar than Mia Hamm. She was 40+-ish, far from svelte and her teammates called her “Ma.”
Not that 40+-year-old, far-from-svelte parents can’t be good futbolers, but if you passed one on the street there’s no way your first thought is going to be, “I bet she/he is one heck of a futboler.” Again, I just want to be abundantly clear on this point. It isn’t like when I saw this lady I thought “ha, what a joke.” It’s more like when I saw her I didn’t think anything of her at all (as opposed to the Ninja women of Dynamo who looked -- and were -- formidable).
Pretty early in the game Red Dragonz had a corner kick. The kick was to the near post and Ma came flying out of the pack, leapt in the air, headed the ball, and missed what would have been a pretty spectacular goal by about a foot (to the left). I swear to Zidane I saw the thing in slow motion.
She was actually in the air -- her right leg straight down and her left trailing behind her -- and she snapped her head in an effort to not only redirect the ball but get something on it. We ran up field next to each other after the play and I said “Dude, that was great effort.” She replied, “thanks honey, but a great effort would have been two feet to the right,” and then laughed.
If Dr. Faust had seen Ma’s narrowly missed flying header followed by her humble, good-natured chatter I have no doubt he would have happily shouted “stop” at Lucifer to trade his soul.
FAN UPDATE
We may be down in the in the league standings, but our fan turn out has been astonishing. We pulverized last years C+M fan record (1) when Laurie Christen showed up with husband and child in tow. That’s two Colle+McOmrade fans in three games. At this pace we may set a record that can’t be beat.
Thank you, Laurie Christen. We all hope Andrew’s obsession with robot vampires is just a very weird phase.
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