Game 1: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — NÜRD 4

OUR FINEST HOUR
NÜRD is new to the league so we had no idea what we were in for. Their name was promising… or at least more promising than a few other new additions: Ernst & Young FC or Dorsey & Whitney or Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, F.C. You know dang well those clubs ain’t gonna be lick a’fun.

Before the game started I saw a few NÜRD guys warming up. Yes, it was hot outside. No, that wasn’t why I was sweating. Watching those dudes warm up was terrifying. I saw a NÜRD guy do something legitimately worthy of a Ronaldinho YouTube clip.

A ball was passed to him on the ground at a healthy pace, he let it roll onto his right foot, cupped it between his foot and shin, whipped his right leg behind him effectively “throwing” the ball off to the left, and it was a perfect pass to a guy who was streaking to the goal. The terrifying part was neither he nor any of his teammates seemed to think a thing of this remarkable little trick (when I told Elliot about it he didn’t believe me).

Usually before the game I mosey over and talk to our opponents introducing myself and the ¡FUTURISMOS!, getting a sense of who we’re playing and setting an amiable tone for the game. I didn’t do that with NÜRD and I won’t lie to you why not.

I was afraid.

Not of them being jerks, I had no sense of that because I was overwhelmed by the sight of them. The combination of watching them warm-up and their physical appearance (they all looked the same—tall, lean, fit) had me seeing visions of Dynamo but worse. Our game against Dynamo was our first ever so we walked into that mauling in ignorant bliss. We are no longer a newborn club and in NÜRD saw a whoopin’.

Without exception, anticipation exaggerates reality. The human mind, being quick and expansive, races out ahead of reality creating worlds that don’t exist. By and by reality reels the mind back in and it’s never as bad (or great) as you feared (or hoped). The game began and NÜRD proved the exception to the rule.

NÜRD was a living, self-sustaining explosion. The game was played at a pace we’d never seen. All six of their people flew… ceaselessly. They flew to the ball, flew to open space, flew with the ball, flew on and off for substitutions. It was stunning and for the first five minutes we were utterly overwhelmed.

Their first goal (more on this later) came in the 3rd minute. The second in the 5th. They weren’t lucky breaks either. They poured down on our goal relentlessly. On the few occasions we had the ball they swarmed us. It was terrifying. I don’t mean that hyperbolically either. I mean it literally.

We’d never even seen a CSC team like NÜRD (and I’ve stuck around and watched non-¡FUTURISMOS! games). Most teams, even the best teams like Dynamo, are a mix of different kinds of players: a few are fast and aggressive; one or two cherry-picking strikers; a few calming players who direct traffic. NÜRD is the first team we’ve seen where every person (save maybe one) played the same way—full bore, sprinting, aggression.

[By the way, they were fun loving too. There were precious few negative exchanges with NÜRD. My interactions with them ranged from enjoyable to nearly jealous she/he didn’t play with us because of her/his attitude.]

To add brimstone to their fire there were a lot of NÜRDs and they were adept at substituting. That meant their pace was unlikely to slacken. For only the second time we faced a team that outnumbered our own and we were far from full-strength to boot. We started the game with 5 guys and only 4 ladies, one of whom we borrowed from another team and none of them were Li’l Pete.

Those first 5 minutes felt like the opening act in a drubbing that would break the spirit of your ¡FUTURISMOS! NÜRD were more talented and coordinated. They outnumbered us and were better conditioned. They thumped us in the opening five minutes in a way we hadn’t been since Dynamo. Nothing indicated the tide would turn meaning a final score along the lines of 15-0 or worse. Honestly, it looked like the end of the ¡FUTURISMOS!

And it was the end.

The end of the original ¡FUTURISMOS! The inaugural season ¡FUTURISMOS! obliterated by Dynamo. The early second season ¡FUTURISMOS! whipped by PUNISH!!! then run over by Red Dragunz. Those ¡FUTURISMOS! are no more.

Game 1 against NÜRD was the coming out party for the ¡FUTURISMOS! of now—the culmination of the becoming that started in the fourth game of last season. Standing at the bottom of the deepest, darkest hole your ¡FUTURISMOS! had ever encountered we obeyed the first law of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.

After those initial 5 minutes we acclimated ourselves to their style. We picked up our pace and did a better job of cutting off their lanes of attack. We even generated a few counter attacks and had a few shots on goal. NÜRD scored twice more in the first half making the halftime score 0-4.

In the second half we slowly climbed our way out of the hole. Elliot switched to keeper and made several quality saves (one spectacular, more on that later) and picked his spots to bring the ball up himself to initiate the attack. Our first goal was a penalty kick. I don’t remember who was fouled in the NÜRD box to generate the chance but TB took the kick.

The NÜRD keeper (the mercenary super-keeper extraordinaire we faced a couple of times last year) guessed left. TB smashed the ball into the upper right. The NÜRD keeper did what every keeper does when she/he guesses wrong, just sort of collapsed as he helplessly watched the ball zip past him the other way. Even had he guessed correctly it would have been a difficult save because of TB’s pace and placement. An excellent penalty kick.

Our second goal came in the final minute and was Big Pete’s first ever. In a near replay of a chance he had a few weeks ago he attacked the goal from the right. The keeper came out to stop him and close down his angles. Rather than attempt to put the ball in the left side of the goal (his approach last time) he sneaked it into the right under the sliding keeper.

The whistle blew seconds later and your ¡FUTURISMOS! had fought back from doom’s doorstep. We didn’t play our best—even after the opening 5 minutes we were downright ragged at times due to fatigue and the curious alignments it often created—and faced an overwhelming team under dire circumstances, down 0-2 after five minutes and 0-4 at halftime.

Character coheres in flames. You love Luke Skywalker because Darth Vader had to cut off his hand in order for him to become a Jedi. You love Buffy Summers because she returned from the dead (multiple times) and had to kill her vampire boyfriend (multiple times) in order to finally destroy Sunnydale’s Hellmouth.

¡FUTURISMOS! fans, facing NÜRD we lost a hand, died a couple of times, and started dating vampires… all in the inferno of the opening 5 minutes. In the second half we stood up to our evil father, returned from the dead and killed our vampire significant others by shutting NÜRD out and striking back twice to make it a respectable affair.

We aren’t Jedi or Vampire Slayers yet. No, that’s still on the horizon. But now that horizon is simply the other side of the continent rather than in a galaxy far, far away.

It was hand down my proudest hour as a ¡FUTURISMO!

LI’L PETE AWARD: ELLIOT
The entire team deserves the Li’l Pete Award this week but Elliot was a cut above anyone on either side while he tended the timbers in the second half. He turned away a bushel of wicked NÜRD blasts and had the best save I’ve seen in a CSC game.

A NÜRD guy had a free run at the goal. A one-on-none break. The odds of scoring on a one-on-none break in futbol are just about as high as they are in basketball. The NÜRD guy shot to Elliot’s left. Caught leaning to his right Elliot did the only thing he could. He threw his legs out, laying flat out in the air, and caught the ball with the toe of his shoe flicking it away where a ¡FUTURISMO! booted it clear.

A stymied one-on-none by laying his whole body on the line. Li’l Pete would have been proud.

FAUSTIAN MOMENT: ELLIOT, TOO SEXY FOR THAT SHIRT
Elliot is one of my favorite people. Unlike most of my favorite people, “silly” is not a word that comes to mind when I think of Elliot. Perhaps the Elliot who exists outside the ¡FUTURISMOS! or C+M is different than the one I see and this story will seem like no big deal. If that’s true, for those of you who know the non-¡FUTURISMOS!/C+M Elliot assume Dr. Faust knows the one I do.

In futbol the keeper has to wear a different colored shirt from the rest of the team because different rules apply to him/her. Elliot and Kahn decided to switch at halftime making Elliot the keeper in the second half.

One problem: the only shirt available with substantially different colors was Kahn’s. That meant the only shirt available for 6’+ Elliot was 5’6”-ish, skinny Kahn’s. Elliot looked dismayed as he took Kahn’s shirt and slipped it on over his own.

In his comically undersized, belly shirt Elliot stood there like a wet puppy. Hermione’s ever-ready camera appeared. Elliot stood still for a picture. Then an amazing thing happened. Elliot struck a silly pose for another picture by flexing and making a comically mean face.

In his belly shirt Elliot faced the second best team we’ve ever played (by a wide margin, I don’t know who the 3rd team would be) and shut them out for a half.

I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been on hand to see Elliot throw himself before thundering volley after thundering volley—and make the afore mentioned miraculous save—in his teensy-weensy belly shirt he would have had no choice but to yell “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and trade his soul right then and there.

PLAY OF THE GAME: NÜRD’s 1st Goal
[This description is hard to follow because the brilliance in it is so technical. I have no doubt Eduardo Galeano can better tell it but he was unavailable.]

The play of the game knows no club boundaries and this week it belonged to NÜRD. Their first goal was the most exquisitely choreographed and beautifully executed I’ve seen in a CSC game. My words won’t do it justice but they’re all I have.

Keep in mind what I’m going to describe happened fast and smooth. There was no fumbling. No extra fractions of a second to settle the ball. Absolutely no hesitation. It was like a diagram come to life.

Red Socks, a NÜRD guy, received the ball 20 feet from our goal just off the left post and sprinted straight across the field rather than attacking the goal. The ¡FUTURISMOS! center back (the middle defender) was waiting for him the middle of the field ready to cut him off when he turned toward the goal. But he didn’t turn toward the goal.

When Red Socks got level with the center back (meaning they were in a straight line perpendicular to the goal) he had to move with Red Socks to cut him off thereby vacating the middle of the pitch. At that point Red Socks stepped over the ball and with his trailing foot tapped it straight back AWAY from the goal while he continued to move across the field.

It took the center back a second to respond to the conflicting information (guy going one way and the ball another) and shift his momentum away from Red Socks toward the ball. That second was all NÜRD needed because another guy was already running straight up the middle of the pitch in anticipation of the pass. That second NÜRD guy had a head of steam, a slowly rolling ball headed right for him and nothing between him and the goal. The keeper was dead in the water and NÜRD opened the game with a professional grade goal.

FAN UPDATE: KLAIR, DANI & CO.
You have all been outclassed by a 19-year-old University student, her twin sister and two of their friends. Klair, a dear young friend of mine, made it to the game with her twin sister Dani, whom I also hold dear but don’t know as well. They brought two of their friends whose name I won’t reveal because I’m a little hazy on them (sorry about that, ya’ll, I’m bad with names).

They were sitting in the bleachers behind our goal. I didn’t realize they were there and at one point they yelled my name—“¡SAWYER!”—after I’d deflected a ball. The ball was kicked away out of bounds and I turned to see who it was. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and they were too far away for me to make out. I played a particularly poor game that night and I thought it was people I didn’t know mocking me by simply reading my name off my jersey (no foolin’).

They arrived after the first five minutes so when I walked over after the game to see if I knew these people the first thing they asked me was “did you win?” They asked in all sincerity. I told you we held our own after the first 5 minutes.

Thank you Klair, Dani & Company. Our first four fans of the season. ¿Will C+M match your output in the final 8 games combined? By definition it’ll be close… but I doubt it.