3-Win Commitment… ¡Fulfilled!
The ¡FUTURISMOS! team sponsor, the good people of Colle+McVoy, attached a stipulation to our third season funding: win 3 games. They weren’t joking. They even included it in forecasting to their parent company. So we entered this season on a 3-win hook held by Colle+McVoy and backed by their parent company. That’s like owing your best friend money and then having his dad stand behind you saying “that means you owe me 3 bucks” when his dad is the head of the CIA (the current secret-prisons-in-countries-that-allow-torture CIA).
Even though 3 wins was well within reason this season and a natural progression from our first two in which we won 1 and then 2 games respectively, it was a little nerve wracking at times. No longer.
This was our third win of the season. Our albatross has been revived and flew away. Now we can treat our final 2 games of the season the way they ought to. They will be an extended futboling celebration complete with dancing, singing, chanting, laughing, piggy-back rides, and—¿dare we hope?—a dash of Elliot showboating.
Perhaps we ought not get ahead of ourselves.
That Old Saw About The Japanese Character For “Adversity” Also Meaning “Opportunity”
[NOTE: I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’ve heard it in movies plenty and it jives with other tidbits I know about Japanese culture. I’ll ask Sosuke and add a note in the future.]
Nothing about game 7 appeared to bode well for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Our roster was gutted by a Colle+McVoy blowout shindig that claimed the Thursday night lives of all but four of your ¡FUTURISMOS! Adding an inadvertent foot to the groin after a crippling shot to the shin Big Pete was out of town on vacation. With Bobby on board that meant I had a grand total of 5 available futbolers.
Even had I been entertaining the idea of playing a game with 5 players (and rest assured I was if it came to that) the Eternal Blue Sky was having nothing of it. The weather forecast for game time was 90-degree heat with suffocating humidity. 5 wasn’t going to cut it.
The number or cultural/literary/religious sources for something along the lines of “at your darkest hour you will find the light” are endless. It’s Buddhist. It’s Taoist. It’s the sword in the stone and the Lady in the Lake. It’s the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat. It’s Luke realizing the only way to defeat the Emperor is to throw down his sword. It’s probably Judeo-Christian-Islamic (although I can’t say for sure but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt assuming they had the sense to crib from the older, eastern influenced beliefs). It’s the backbone of Genghis Kahn’s military genius. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you if this is a foreign concept because it isn’t particularly United States-ian. In fact it’s the antithesis of United States-ian rugged individualism/defy all laws of physics and reason to pull yourself up by your own boot straps.
Anyway, in our hour of your ¡FUTURISMOS! greatest need forces both supernatural and mundane swept in to save the day.
The Mayor came through with two additional guys: Spencer and Paul, henceforth known as Laddie and Doc. Don’t forget that the Mayor is also responsible for Bobby too.
Meagan Kato came through by having the foresight to have married a totally cool guy who was looking for an opportunity to kick the ball around: Matthew, henceforth known as Kato-san (wait, he speaks some Japanese, I should ask him about the opportunity/adversity thing).
Last but so far from least that I’d say most critically, an erstwhile ¡FUTURISMO! reappeared to literally save the day: Velvet Curtain (aka Heather Prenevost) arrived and brought a comrade, Shannon, henceforth known as Graal (more on her later). This boosted our number of available ladies from a daunting 2 to an acceptable 4.
Overseeing this hodgepodge of newly knighted ¡FUTURISMOS! was the Eternal Blue Sky. Rather than sun blasted heat and crippling humidity the Eternal Blue Sky delivered pre-game storms that knocked the heat down a little and followed up with a light drizzle under one dense, expansive cloudbank. It was still hot and humid, but the drizzle was cool and persistent and without the Sun beating us down the conditions were something just this side of perfect.
Game Time
At game time that Japanese character still looked a lot like adversity though. In my rush to make sure I had enough matching shirts just incase our newly minted ¡FUTURISMOS! showed up way off color palette I managed to forget my boots. To make matters worse I wore flip-flops to the game so I couldn’t play in sneakers Yes, this was humiliating. [Spectra, Eternal Blue Sky bless her, was in attendance and raced off to get them for me.]
As the ref—make that the “Don’t you want to play” Uber-ref, Pong (read: “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the world “jet”)—was set to put the ball in play we had 4 players on the pitch. Elliot in goal; Kato-san, Skywalker, and Li’l Pete. Pong looked at me silently to say “¿what do you want me to do here?”
I looked back silently to say “do what you must and we’ll deal until more people arrive.”
On the other hand our opponents, Team Ramrod, had 3 reserve men and 1 woman on the sideline. I chatted with several of their players before the game and they were a good natured lot. They were also very much aware of the fact they were half a game ahead of us in the league standings. The winner would remain a middle of the pack team. The looser would be sent down to mingle with the bottom dwellers. All of that is to say they were motivated for this game. Motivated and looking to get off to a strong start with a huge numbers advantage.
Then just as Pong was about to whistle the start of the game Bobby and Laddie showed up and were ready in one clean motion from auto to pitch. Pong whistled and we started the game playing 6 against 7 with no reserves.
“Oh, God, Not Him,” thought a Team Ramrod defender as Bobby bared down upon him
Playing down a person really means you play short a forward. It should mean you still defend but can’t score. That is unless someone is capable of being an offense all by her or himself.
Appearances mean nothing in futbol. The fittest, futboling-est looking man or woman can be a worthless klutz. I’ve seen an honest to goodness fat-bordering-on-obese person move like a deer with the ball. I’ve run past people who look like track stars and been smoked by at least one grandma. So at the start of each game no one really knows whom, if anyone, to fear. It took Team Ramrod only a couple of minutes to find out which ¡FUTURISMO! was going to torture them.
As a defender you keep a healthy distance from a person you fear. Rather than try to disposes him or her of the ball you only want to limit the damage they can do (and there most certainly are ladies to fear, Hassle routinely torches defenders who get too close). Before you know who to fear you approach everyone as though they’ll cough up the ball. As the game elapses you can tell who is good by looking at how close people are to them.
When Bobby first got the ball in open space on the Team Ramrod side of the pitch they challenged him not knowing something about Bobby: he can dance with the ball. It’s really a beautiful, silly thing to see. In open space Bobby waltzes with the ball, it goes quiet at the touch of his foot and never gets away from him when he taps it forward, like spinning your partner but never loosing the softest touch of the hand. When the feet of defenders threaten to molest the ball Bobby switches his dance up to Savion Glover-style light speed tap and his partner is protected by feet moving so fast they morph into a cloud of probability shielding the ball.
Bobby tap-danced around the first defender. A second defender awaited him and wisely played him by cutting off the middle of the field and forcing Bobby to the outside where he’d have less of an angle on goal. Bobby waltzed by this defender taking the space she left him and with only oblique angles available to him he calmly slotted the ball near-post past a keeper whom, I’m guessing, had a hard time believing what he was seeing.
This guy could tap, he could waltz, and hit the angles. And after he scored he simply turned around and jogged back up field with only a Buddha sized smile to celebrate his stunning work.
Shorthanded your ¡FUTURISMOS! opened the scoring just a couple minutes into the game.
A few minutes later Team Ramrod leveled with a goal off horrendous defense. I knew we were bound to give up a couple of jailbreak stampedes because good defending is the result of cohesion between the defenders. At that point our backline was Li’l Pete flanked by Kato-san and Laddie. They were bound to get caught compromised a few times just because they didn’t know each other. To everyone’s credit this was the only truly bad defensive breakdown.
Still shorthanded, Bobby struck again.
This time he had the ball in the TR box flanked by two defenders. Bobby spun, tap dancing to protect the ball in a cloud of feet probability. He managed to slip through the two desperate defenders and scored pointblank again.
I can’t remember exactly what time exactly VC and Graal showed up, but it was past the halfway mark of the first half (by the way, that’s when Spectra returned with my shoes too). So we played the majority of the first half down a person. I know Doc showed up before VC and Graal but Bobby didn’t take his first break until after the ladies showed up.
In any event Bobby scored his third goal in the first half right around the time VC and Graal arrived. I don’t remember if either had taken the field yet so I don’t know if all three were scored when we were still short handed. But by the time he scored that third Ramrod had long since learned to maintain a healthy distance from Bobby. I have no doubt every time the he got the ball Ramrod braced themselves the same way we did when we faced Lil’ Diego in last season’s game 7. It seemed he could not be stopped. Get too close and he’ll go around you. Give him too much space and he’ll back you into the goal and walk the ball in.
When Bobby took his first breather of the half I went over to him and enthusiastically pretended to punch him the chest while quietly making that noise you make when mimicking the sound of crowd going wild.
Bobby looked at me in surprise and asked “¿why are you hitting me?”
I explained I was celebrating his stunning 3 goal achievement.
His reply. “Oh, that. I used to be much better. I used to train 4 days a week, 2 hours a day in addition to playing regularly. I used to be fit, but now I am flabby and out of shape.” [Note, Bobby looks to be in about the same shape as Elliot or maybe me.]
Simultaneously boastful and humble. A crushing display of futboling celebrated with the slightest of grins.
Thank you, Bobby.
Li’l Pete’s First Ever ¡FUTURISMOS! Goal
Late in the first half the atmosphere was simmering, stunned joy. What had transpired made almost no sense. We were up 3-1. Ramrod was actually quite good but we managed to stifle them. Their one goal was their only really good scoring opportunity. Yes, they were close on other occasions but only once where I thought we’d dodged a bullet.
The Eternal Blue Sky wanted more from us though. The Eternal Blue Sky wanted some jubilation, some joyous screeching. So it turned up the heat of happiness by illuminating the path to Li’l Pete’s first ever goal as a ¡FUTURISMO!
The play was quite simple. Textbook even. I intercepted a Team Ramrod pass at midfield and passed the ball straight ahead to Laddie who turned up field. A defender stepped to him thereby opening up the middle of pitch. Li’l Pete saw the opening, broke for it and called for the ball. Laddie led Li’l Pete perfectly. She took a touch to settle it on the run and then blasted a shot to the right past the keeper.
Li’l Pete turned up field. Her eyes wide and mouth agape. I was standing in the dead center of the pitch where I had original intercepted the pass. She jogged straight at me and said, half in disbelief, “that’s my first ever goal.”
I just vigorously nodded, no doubt with the stupidest giantest grin on my face.
Li’l Pete jogged right to me in the dead center of the pitch, leapt into my arms, and we both bellowed with the joy the Eternal Blue Sky was looking for.
It should surprise no one who reads the tales of the ¡FUTURISMOS! even intermittently to hear that Li’l Pete is my hands-down most cherished player. She has an award named after her that she repeatedly wins herself, for crying out loud. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my players. Each for different reasons based on who they are (or aren’t) and what they do (or don’t do, or can’t do). Mercifully, the ¡FUTURISMOS! are not my children. They are my players. So I can have a favorite.
Of course it is not only easy but proper to have a favorite when that person is not only eternally willing to absorb punishment doled out by Russian futbol mutants whose legs have been engineered to use small atomic bombs to propel the ball forward BUT ALSO takes herself out of games so others can play even if she doesn’t need the rest.
Had I any sway with the Eternal Blue Sky I would have respectfully submitted that the ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving a goal was Li’l Pete. Of course I have no sway with the Eternal Blue Sky so I can only assume her merit is recognizable beyond the human realm.
Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
Half Time: ¡F! 4 — TR 1
The attitude facing the second half was akin to that of the final day of the Tour de France. It would be nearly ceremonial. The idea of loosing or even drawing this game didn’t exist. I wanted Elliot to get out of the goal and play up so I offered to play keeper.
He looked at me in silence for a moment and said, “I’ll stay in goal.”
I told him I really wanted him to get out in the field so he could play with Bobby and Doc. Elliot must have envisioned me keeping for a moment, weighed a 3 goal cushion, and then declined my offer again.
Then Kato-san walked over and said “I’ll play keeper in the second half.”
Elliot immediately relinquished the gloves.
For the second time this season Elliot turned tending the timbers over to someone he met for the first time ever half an hour earlier and had seen play for a total of, maybe, 15-mintues instead of me.
The Second Half: Elliot's 2-Goal Retort
Team Ramrod actually scored first in the second half. It was several minutes in. The shot was actually a classic Elliot goal. A Ramrod guy was 35-yards out and decided to take a speculative boot. He caught Kato-san playing out a little too far and the ball dropped over his backpedaling outstretched hand and just inside the crossbar. It was good goal.
We were still weren’t flummoxed though and minutes later our cushion was restored.
We earned a corner. The ball was kicked in low. Someone deflected it on the near-post side of the goal. I don’t recall whether it was ¡FUTURISMO! or a Ramrod. The ball ricocheted upward and was moving at a healthy clip. Elliot was standing right in front of the Ramrod keeper and he reacted to that ball with shocking quickness. He headed it right over the Ramrod keeper’s head. I can’t emphasize this point emphatically enough: Elliot did this very deliberately but at lightening speed. He even flicked his head to redirect the ball’s path rather than just letting the ball bounce off his head.
Our 3-goal lead was restored.
A while latter Elliot scored again by popping the ball underneath a stooping Ramrod keeper at close range. I missed the event itself but Laddie said with the result of an incredible sequence of close quarters passing between Bobby, Doc and Elliot.
Elliot’s second goal closed out the ¡FUTURISMOS! scoring. Ramrod scored once more but there were only about 4 minutes to play and that span passed without any noteworthy attempts that I recall.
The ease of this game is inexplicable. Team Ramrod was all around good. They didn’t have a single person on the team as bad as even I am. I don’t know. The more I play the less I understand. The Eternal Blue Sky alternately taketh away and givith. We were recipients of the later this night.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
So not only did Li’l Pete score her first goal but she was in tiptop, old-school form. As I mentioned, our defense was ragged thanks to odd assortments of people who’d largely never played together before.
Time and again, there was Li’l Pete poking the ball away; backing someone up; getting run over by Ramrods (and on one occasion, me). She didn’t issue her patented screech, but there were grunts galore and endless orders to the backs flanking her to mold our ragtag defense by nothing more than the force of her will.
It was classic Li’l Pete from wire to wire in a way I haven’t see since I don’t know when.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
By the way, the strong runner-up is Velvet Curtain. Her knee was banged up something fierce and she gutted it out the whole way through. Every time I saw her on the sideline I thought “there’s no way she’ll get back in there” and a few minutes later when someone needed a breather back she’d go. A brave and needed effort.
Thank you, VC.
Play of the Game: Several
Any of Bobby’s goals would do it. Li’l Pete’s first ever was a beauty. Elliot headed goal was amazing. Too many to pick one.
Faustian Moment: “I seek… The Graal”
There wasn’t a Faustian Moment in this game so much as there was a Faustian player.
Graal is an old French word. It was adopted by the English language and became “Grail.” As in “Holy Grail.” As in I so enjoyed playing with Shannon and having her on the team so much that I want to kick half the current ladies off to make room for her.
The first thing Graal said to me when she arrived was, “This is my second game… ever.” The blinding twinkle in her eye that accompanied that proclamation assured me this was both true and good. Before I continue I have to say it was hard to believe it was only her second game.
Here are the three moments that exemplified the spirit of Graal.
The Throw In
In the second half the ball went out of bounds and we had a throw in. The person nearest the ball was Graal so she naturally went out of bounds and picked it up to throw it back in. One problem—She had never before in her life executed a futbol throw in. It’s not complicated and there are really only three basic rules governing the procedure (although I have managed to break one of those rules on nearly half of all my throw ins), but it’s certainly something you’d rather practice once before doing it in a game. Not Graal.
She simply asked for the rules as she was throwing it in. Then she threw it in.
The Near Goal
In the final minute of the game I had the ball on the sideline just over mid-pitch in Ramrod territory. There was plenty of space in front of the goal and I booted the ball about chest high into the box hoping a ¡FUTURISMO! would make a run and get a chance to do something with it. And a ¡FUTURISMO! did.
I was expecting it to be Elliot or Bobby or Doc, but no. It was Graal. She burst through a pack of defenders and had a clear chance on the ball. The only thing impeding her was she didn’t know what to do with a chest high ball so instead of heading or chesting it the ball just sailed by her. But she was right there. She saw the play the whole way and put herself in position to make it.
The Laughing
Of course the attribute I prize above all others is the ability to clearly have fun while playing. Graal was an expert at this. The best moment came late in the game. She was chasing down a ball that was rolling toward the keeper. There was no way she was going to get to the ball before either the keeper got it or it ran out of bounds but this did not impede her pace. I yelled from the sideline at her as she was running “if you run so hard you throw up…” and then I waited a moment for the ball to get to the keeper, “…you still won’t get there in time.”
Graal’s response was amazing. She laughed AND kept chasing the ball down even though it was safely in the keeper’s possession. To Graal’s credit her hustle flummoxed the keeper and he made a terrible pass that was intercepted and nearly led to another goal.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been on hand to watch Graal play—and in particular seen her chase that ball down laughing all the way—the good Doctor would have turned to the nearby Lucifer, yelled “¡STOP!” and traded his soul right then and there.
Honorable Mentions For Our Savior ¡FUTURISMOS!
Laddie
The most important thing about Laddie was his style. His boots were so white I wondered if he had purchased them for that game. His shorts were big and appeared to be of the basketball variety. Most importantly, there was his hair. He has that bowl cut grown out shaggy style hair. So Laddie had a personal game within the game of dealing with his hair.
Laddie was clearly determined to make a difference and he did so primarily through running, which he did well. He also assisted Li’l Pete’s on her goal, let us not forget.
Kato-san
He played in the field in the first half. The highlight being a header on a corner kick that, while not exactly being “close” to scoring, was in the neighborhood and elicited an “ooooo” from the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline.
Kato-san switched to keeper in the second half. While he held his own—I was only feet away from one save where I thought “I’m glad that wasn’t me standing in front of that”— but you could tell he was uncomfortable. I mean this in the most charming way possible.
The keeper is exposed in a way no one else is on the pitch. The slightest hesitation or the smallest miscue is blazingly apparent. If someone burns a defender they still have to travel some distance and shoot to score. If someone burns the keeper, that’s it. That’s a goal. So the keeper is on display in a way none of the other players are.
Like Graal he had a moment of learning on the fly. I don’t know what he did but his first goal kick was improper somehow so Pong went over and explained where he had to place the ball and where to kick it so he could do it over again. But my favorite Kato-san keeping moment was this.
He was in the upper right corner of the box and the ball had somehow popped straight up in the air in front of him. A Ramrod lady got under the ball and Kato-san froze like an Apple II computing pie. ¿Should he knock this lady down to get the ball? ¿Whould he back up? And there was a moment where he sort of stuttered forward not knowing how to simultaneously deal with both this woman and the ball (for reference, Elliot would have barreled through that lady to get the ball and we would have been right to do so).
In the end Kato-san choose a novel solution between his apparent options—He essentially stood face to face with the lady and stuck his arms out around her to get the ball so that he would have caught it behind her back. I don’t remember what happened after that, I think the ball bounced off both of them and got away.
Doc
Doc is so nicknamed because he was calm and clinical at all times. Whenever the ball got to his feet I immediately relaxed because I knew he wasn’t going to do something crazy and whatever he did it was going to be correct. He had these same properties off the ball as well. Such as this incident:
I was left back. I intercepted a ball and moved forward and then stopped when a Ramrod person stepped toward me. So I had a defender in front of me and defender to the right of me. Doc was beyond the defender to my right and Skywalker was behind me. I looked up and didn’t know where to go with the ball.
Doc very calmly but firmly said, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…” over and over (much to my chagrin not everyone uses the nicknames).
I knew exactly what he meant—“pass the ball to Skywalker because she’ll have better angles to make another pass than you do”—but for some reason I didn’t heed his advice. I passed the ball toward Doc instead.
This was stupid because there was a Ramrod right there. The pass forced Doc to hustle to the Ramrod guy to break up his attempted steal. In the scramble the ball came back to me and we were back where we started.
Rather than get flummoxed Doc calmly and firmly tried again, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…”
This time I took the advice I knew I should have in the first place and passed the ball back to Skywalker. The defenders moved, as Doc knew they would, and Skywalker passed the ball to Doc who then took off up field with it.
Anyone who’s spent much time working with children knows how unique and difficult that level of patience and commitment is.
Spectra
Without whom I would have stood on the sideline in my socks the whole game being ribbed by Pong and Katie.
Thank you, Spectra.
Sadly, I Must Stop Writing
Sorry, I have to quit writing now because I’ve run out of time. I wanted to write about Meagan telling me about Kato-san’s breathless retelling of the game when he got home. I also wanted to write about the magically rolling ball that traveled darn near the length of the field slowly along the sideline when everyone assumed it would roll out and it just… kept… going.
But I can’t.
C’est la vie.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Game 6: ¡FUTURISMOS! 4 — Hoff in the Shower 3
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: or Why The Write-Up Is Short This Week
I have failed you, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans. I thought I’d be able to be reasonable about reading the final Harry Potter by reading a couple chapters a day. Alas, just as Harry’s fate is inextricably intertwined with Lord Voldemort’s so is mine to read about it like a fool.
A Perfectly Normal Game
This game was weird in the sense that it felt perfectly normal. The weather was “nice.” The temperature was in the mid-70’s, I reckon, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the sun took its toll. Yes, I am grateful for the Sun—seeing as how it is the source of life on our planet—but that doesn’t mean I like playing under its gaze.
Our opponent was Hoff in the Shower. Their record and the scores of their games led me to believe this game would be a breeze. Once again I learned the existential nature of the game the hard way. We beat the p450’s 10-3 and they’re half a game out of playoff contention. HITS is tied for last in the league and they put up a dogfight that we narrowly won.
Bobby scored the game’s first goal. Their keeper looked shaky and we looked like we were ready to cruise.
Then they scored and tied but the knot was short lived.
Bobby scored again and so did Big Pete. We went into halftime up 3-1 and looking good. They had threatened a few times and came away empty but we had on many occasions. So headed into the second half we were up 2 goals and felt like we were on the verge of a few more.
Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls
It wasn’t over confidence or slackened effort that caught up with us in the second half. No, HITS just scored a couple good goals and we couldn’t crack the keeper they switched to for the second half.
That keeper, by the way, scored one of their 2 second half goals. He made a save. Dropped the ball on the ground. Took off up field. Scampered by a couple defenders. Then unleashed an excellent blast from 20-yards out to the left of the goal into the lower right corner.
They tied it with just under 10-minutes to play and the life went out of us. Not in a dramatic way that was clearly visible on the pitch. We just lost our zip. We needed a boost and it didn’t look like one was coming. But then with 5-minutes to play Li’l Pete turned everything around.
Energy is still largely a mystery even to the sciences. Energy is a stubborn element. We can harness it. We can use it. But we don’t really understand it. From an empirical standpoint why Li’l Pete’s efforts worked is a mystery.
What Li’l Pete did was want to win. She started yelling, “¡Five minutes left, and we are going to win this game!” At first it had no effect. Then slowly it started to build. As though the spirit of Li’l Pete imbued all the ¡FUTURISMOS! with a will that was lacking. We were quicker to the ball. More decisive in our movement.
And then with a minute to play Li’l Pete’s energy invested in the club paid off.
Bobby lured the keeper out to the right side of the goal then calmly slotted the ball over to Big Pete who was waiting for it on the left. The pass was perfect and Big Pete escorted the ball into the goal to score the game winner.
There was still a couple minutes to play but the game was over. We played neither particularly well nor poorly. It was a normal game and we were a little bit luckier than HITS. C’est la vie.
Play of the Game & Faustian Moment: Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal
I never thought I’d see the day when the Play of the Game and the Faustian Moment are one and the same. Leave it to Big Pete.
Big Pete was running toward the goal and received the ball only about 15-feet from the goal (sorry, I can’t remember who passed it). The keeper was already rushing Big Pete to smother the ball before he got a chance to get off a shot. The keeper and the ball got to Big Pete’s feet at almost the same time. The keeper was sliding sideways and took Big Pete’s feet out from under him. His momentum carried him forward and he ended up doing a kind of flip/summersault over the keeper.
The ball got caught between Big Pete’s feet and he ended up flinging it forward mid-summersault flip. It is important you actually take a moment to imagine this:
Imagine standing still with the ball between your feet. You do summersault and when your feet are straight over your head you let the ball go to throw it forward. That’s what Big Pete did... on the run. So as he flipped over the diving keeper he threw the ball in with his feet into the goal.
Big Pete tumbled into the goal unaware of what happened. Then looked down and saw the ball with him in the net; looked up and saw his teammates cheering; and realized he had scored a stupefying goal worthy of a Ronaldinho.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to witness Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal and his reaction to finding himself in the net with the ball he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at the nearby Lucifer and sold his soul right then and there.
It was brilliant.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
It’s rare to hear the Li’l Pete scream anymore. I’m not sure why. Perhaps there aren’t as many people who kick the ball hard enough. I like to think our defense is better so we don’t leave her alone anymore with people who kick the ball hard enough to kill children (or spindly adults for that matter). So it is a rare treat when we hear the outright scream Li’l Pete issues when she throws herself into a cannon ball.
We got to hear it as Li’l Pete snuffed out HITS final attempt to get the ball down near our goal to score the tying goal. A HITS guy was trying to rifle the ball into the middle from the sideline. Li’l Pete had none of it, threw herself before the cannon, screamed and the ball bounced harmlessly out of bounds.
Game over.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
I have failed you, ¡FUTURISMOS! fans. I thought I’d be able to be reasonable about reading the final Harry Potter by reading a couple chapters a day. Alas, just as Harry’s fate is inextricably intertwined with Lord Voldemort’s so is mine to read about it like a fool.
A Perfectly Normal Game
This game was weird in the sense that it felt perfectly normal. The weather was “nice.” The temperature was in the mid-70’s, I reckon, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the sun took its toll. Yes, I am grateful for the Sun—seeing as how it is the source of life on our planet—but that doesn’t mean I like playing under its gaze.
Our opponent was Hoff in the Shower. Their record and the scores of their games led me to believe this game would be a breeze. Once again I learned the existential nature of the game the hard way. We beat the p450’s 10-3 and they’re half a game out of playoff contention. HITS is tied for last in the league and they put up a dogfight that we narrowly won.
Bobby scored the game’s first goal. Their keeper looked shaky and we looked like we were ready to cruise.
Then they scored and tied but the knot was short lived.
Bobby scored again and so did Big Pete. We went into halftime up 3-1 and looking good. They had threatened a few times and came away empty but we had on many occasions. So headed into the second half we were up 2 goals and felt like we were on the verge of a few more.
Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls
It wasn’t over confidence or slackened effort that caught up with us in the second half. No, HITS just scored a couple good goals and we couldn’t crack the keeper they switched to for the second half.
That keeper, by the way, scored one of their 2 second half goals. He made a save. Dropped the ball on the ground. Took off up field. Scampered by a couple defenders. Then unleashed an excellent blast from 20-yards out to the left of the goal into the lower right corner.
They tied it with just under 10-minutes to play and the life went out of us. Not in a dramatic way that was clearly visible on the pitch. We just lost our zip. We needed a boost and it didn’t look like one was coming. But then with 5-minutes to play Li’l Pete turned everything around.
Energy is still largely a mystery even to the sciences. Energy is a stubborn element. We can harness it. We can use it. But we don’t really understand it. From an empirical standpoint why Li’l Pete’s efforts worked is a mystery.
What Li’l Pete did was want to win. She started yelling, “¡Five minutes left, and we are going to win this game!” At first it had no effect. Then slowly it started to build. As though the spirit of Li’l Pete imbued all the ¡FUTURISMOS! with a will that was lacking. We were quicker to the ball. More decisive in our movement.
And then with a minute to play Li’l Pete’s energy invested in the club paid off.
Bobby lured the keeper out to the right side of the goal then calmly slotted the ball over to Big Pete who was waiting for it on the left. The pass was perfect and Big Pete escorted the ball into the goal to score the game winner.
There was still a couple minutes to play but the game was over. We played neither particularly well nor poorly. It was a normal game and we were a little bit luckier than HITS. C’est la vie.
Play of the Game & Faustian Moment: Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal
I never thought I’d see the day when the Play of the Game and the Faustian Moment are one and the same. Leave it to Big Pete.
Big Pete was running toward the goal and received the ball only about 15-feet from the goal (sorry, I can’t remember who passed it). The keeper was already rushing Big Pete to smother the ball before he got a chance to get off a shot. The keeper and the ball got to Big Pete’s feet at almost the same time. The keeper was sliding sideways and took Big Pete’s feet out from under him. His momentum carried him forward and he ended up doing a kind of flip/summersault over the keeper.
The ball got caught between Big Pete’s feet and he ended up flinging it forward mid-summersault flip. It is important you actually take a moment to imagine this:
Imagine standing still with the ball between your feet. You do summersault and when your feet are straight over your head you let the ball go to throw it forward. That’s what Big Pete did... on the run. So as he flipped over the diving keeper he threw the ball in with his feet into the goal.
Big Pete tumbled into the goal unaware of what happened. Then looked down and saw the ball with him in the net; looked up and saw his teammates cheering; and realized he had scored a stupefying goal worthy of a Ronaldinho.
I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been there to witness Big Pete’s Ronaldinho Summersault Goal and his reaction to finding himself in the net with the ball he would have yelled “¡STOP!” at the nearby Lucifer and sold his soul right then and there.
It was brilliant.
Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
It’s rare to hear the Li’l Pete scream anymore. I’m not sure why. Perhaps there aren’t as many people who kick the ball hard enough. I like to think our defense is better so we don’t leave her alone anymore with people who kick the ball hard enough to kill children (or spindly adults for that matter). So it is a rare treat when we hear the outright scream Li’l Pete issues when she throws herself into a cannon ball.
We got to hear it as Li’l Pete snuffed out HITS final attempt to get the ball down near our goal to score the tying goal. A HITS guy was trying to rifle the ball into the middle from the sideline. Li’l Pete had none of it, threw herself before the cannon, screamed and the ball bounced harmlessly out of bounds.
Game over.
Thank you, Li’l Pete.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Game 5: ¡FUTURISMOS! 6 — Snowball’s Chance 6
One Phantom Goal Begets Another
When this game ended I thought we'd lost 5-6 on a cheap goal (see below). Then a couple days later I check the score online and it said we tied 6-6. I reckoned there was some funny book keeping to even out that cheap shot goal that never shouldn't have been. Then a day later I checked again and Snowball's Chance was awarded a mystery goal of their own.
So we ended up loosing after all. But instead of just a cheap shot goal it was a cheap shot goal and a phantom goal. What a way to go down.
By the way, I wrote the whole entry thinking we’d lost and posted it. Then I found out we tied, wrote the section “This Just In… Literally” and made a few revisions throughout to adjust for the tie. Now that we lost again I just don’t have the energy to go back and make more corrections. Sorry about the confusion, although I’m certain no one will read this so whatever.
This Just In… Literally (revised minutes after I finished the entry below)
Apparently I missed a goal.
I just checked the league standings and we tied Snowball’s Chance last week. ¡WE TIED THE NUMBER ONE TEAM IN THE LEAGUE! ¡AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’d write more but I have to run around reveling in our belated quasi-triumph.
If you read the rest of the recap--which I wrote thinking we had lost by a goal--you will see why this missed goal that was is particularly sweet.
“¡Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky!”
The Eternal Blue Sky
The basis of many Mongols’ religious beliefs—including Genghis Kahn’s—is the Eternal Blue Sky. I believe we open skied, prairie dwelling peoples from the other side of the world can relate. Game 5 against Snowball’s Chance was played under an awe inspiring display of the Eternal Blue Sky.
The game started at 8:45pm, early sunset. Overhead was a blue sky with furrows of fat, rolling clouds filled with the gold of sunset. My agnosticism buckled under the weight of the grandeur of the Eternal Blue Sky.
Our opponent was a worthy of the setting. Snowball’s Chance—in spite of their name—is the #1 team in the league. In their first four games they scored no fewer nor allowed more than 3 goals (we’ve been shut out once and prior to last week hadn’t scored more than 2 goals). Two weeks ago they beat the same NÜRD team I once presumed invincible.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! entered the game on a high after last week’s 10 goal blow up and in decent attendance shape. Five ladies were on hand: Li’l Pete, Hassle, Mayor, Belle, and Hermione (¡in her new black socks!). Five gents as well: Elliot, TB, Sohei, Bobby, and yours truly. And, of course, our Keeper, Kahn.
For reasons I’ll elaborate on later I have few overarching thoughts about the game and only spotty specific memories but it went more or like this:
We quickly opened with a goal.
They quickly scored to level.
Then they scored again.
And again.
And again.
Their four goals were all scored over the middle stretch of the first half. Even though they weren’t dominating us in terms of overwhelming quality of play or suburb ball control it felt like they were way out ahead of us. And they were, 1-4 is a sizeable gap. But we scored again making the halftime score 2-4.
Half Time: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Snowball’s Chance 4
No one was down at the half. Even though we behind a healthy two goals the attitude was “it’s only two.” Keep in mind that prior to last week the most goals we’d scored in a game was 2. So entering the second half against the #1 team we were trailing by as many goals as we’d scored in any of our first 3 games. So “it’s only two” was a quantum leap in ¡FUTURISMOS! attitude towards onion sack deposits.
The Most Controversial Goal in ¡FUTURISMOS! history
The second half opened with controversy. Snowball’s Chance had the ball. For those unaccustomed with the ways of fútbol, the halves open thusly: the ball is placed at center pitch, the ref blows the whistle, and someone on the team with the ball has to one-touch the ball (meaning you have to kick it rather than run with it). In my history of watching and playing the sport—both in person and in video game—every time a half commences the team with the ball starts by passing the ball to a teammate. Usually it’s a person standing within 5 feet of the passer.
Unfortunately the ref blew the whistle before Kahn was ready. She was still fiddling with the gloves. The Snowball guy taking the opening tap—Alfredo, more on him later—saw Kahn wasn’t ready and so rather than passing the ball to a teammate he shot it. Kahn, along with everyone else on the pitch, was caught totally off guard. She picked the ball’s flight up late, stumbled over to it and while still fumbling with her gloves got in front of it to deflect it but the bounce rolled it into the net giving Snowball’s Chance a 5-2 lead.
A dazed Kahn looked up at the ref and held her hands up to show her that she hadn’t even put her gloves on yet. The ref winced and apologized to us, but what was done was done.
Yes, of course, it would have been nice had the ref been more aware of Kahn’s state before she blew the whistle. And, yes, it is ultimately our own fault for taking the pitch unready to play. Having said that this was a serious violation of fútboling etiquette. It was positively unsporting. The kind of thing that would have sparked riots in Europe or the Americas south of the Rio Grande.
Part of the beauty of futbol is it is governed by 17 laws, the overwhelming majority of which pertain to the pitch, equipment, and technical aspects of the game (i.e. when an indirect kick is awarded verses a direct kick, how a penalty kick is to be taken). Taking a shot from the set ball to open half when you see the ref has inadvertently whistled play to start before your opponent is set—if the ref had noticed the keeper wasn’t ready she would not have blown the whistle—is tantamount to theft.
Fortunately Karma appears to play a roll under the Eternal Blue Sky and would exact a pinch of balance—more later.
The Rest of the 2nd Half
Down 2-5 seconds into the second half to the #1 team in the league may seem like a daunting challenge. I don’t remember feeling that way and it certainly wasn’t pervasive if anyone felt it at all. From that point the comeback was on.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! scored to make it 3-5. Back in striking distance.
Snowball’s Chance scored again to push it back to 3-6.
Then with nine minutes left we scored. 4-6.
A few minutes later we scored again. 5-6.
Down a goal with roughly 5 minutes to play things got downright intriguing.
Play of the Game: “I’M GOING TO GET YOU, MOTHERF*CKER.”
As I’ve already mentioned on a couple of occasions, the play of the game is the play of the game. I can’t help it. Just like a triangle is a triangle or a perfect circle a perfect circle. I have no say in the matter. The play of not only the 2006 World Cup Final but rather the whole tournament was Zidane’s Headbutt. It will be remembered forever whereas any other play or even the winner will have to looked up to jolt peoples’ memories.
This requires a little set up.
Our 5th goal was scored by Elliot. He had the ball in the Snowball box and was defended by a lady. He shot and she stuck her foot out to block it. Apparently her ankle took the brunt of the boot and she crumbled to the ground. As she tumbled Elliot shot again and the ball went in (I think it ricocheted off their keeper even). The time that elapsed between the lady crumbling and the goal scoring was bang-bang. In other words no time. It was all one continuous play. Elliot didn’t dribble the ball or even take a step. He just shot it again as the lady was tumbling.
Snowball’s Chance protested. On what grounds exactly was hard to say. I think they were making the twin arguments that Elliot had somehow intentionally injured the Snowball lady and that the ref should have stopped play when it was clear someone was injured. Neither argument holds.
The injury was two people going for a ball. It’s normal. It happens all the time (it’s why my right big toe will never be the same, but that guy didn’t foul me either). As for stopping play, by the time it was clear she was actually hurt rather than just down the goal had already been scored. If play stopped every time someone hit the pitch the game would be all stoppage.
The goal stood and Alfredo’s dye was cast.
The injured lady was Alfredo’s wife (we think). And Elliot, the person who crunched her ankle, and Alfred already had a testy relationship. They had already shoved each other prior to that and exchanged words.
Shortly after our 5th goal Alfredo had the ball and was bringing it up the sideline. Elliot dispossessed him of the ball and cleared it. In the course of that play Alfredo kicked Elliot in the back of the leg and scraped him with his cleats. Then as they both turned to trot back up field toward the ball Alfredo turned around to share his feelings with Elliot.
“I’m going to get you, Motherf*cker.”
I had the distinctly weird pleasure/horror of being about 10 feet away from Alfredo when he issued his threat. As the Eternal Blue Sky would have it the ref was only a few feet further away and heard it too.
The ref fumbled in her pocket and produced a yellow card. The first we’ve ever had in a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. Alfredo and several other teammates protested. Arguing that Elliot deserved one for injuring the lady earlier. The ref heard nothing of it and simply said, “get off the pitch, Alfredo.” Snowball’s Chance would play the last couple of minutes without their best player.
FOOTNOTE: Whereas most people were stunned or confused about what was happening as the ref was sending Alfredo off, Bobby didn’t care a lick.
“¿Whose ball, ref?” he kept asking as the ref was still dealing with a recalcitrant Alfredo.
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
When she motioned it was our ball, while steal dealing with Alfredo, Bobby then changed his tune.
“¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! Come on ref, let’s go, time is short.”
Indeed time was short.
Too short.
The Last Couple of Minutes
We had two more stellar chances in the last couple of minutes. Each was thwarted by an excellent diving save from the Snowball keeper. Alas, the Snowball keeper saved the game for them and they—the #1 team in the league—left the pitch clinging for dear life to a win they didn’t even come close to deserving.
Or so it seemed at the time. Little did we know at that point that we had at some point scored the leveling goal. Truth be told, a tie is the correct outcome. How that tie came about is the domain of the Eternal Blue Sky. If you want to know more head outside, look up, and ask.
Who Scored
Elliot scored twice. Bobby and TB each scored one. And Belle (aka Shawna Lavelle) scored her first of the season. ¡HUZZAH!
There is a lost sixth goal in the mix as well. The likely candidates for ownership are Elliot, TB, Hassle, Bobby, Sohei, and Belle. Take your pick and congratulate her or him... then go outside and give the Eternal Blue Sky a nod as well.
LI’L PETE AWARD: I'm Not Sure, Several People
I feel like several people are deserving this week. Hermione selflessly threw herself before a charging Snowball guy just feet away from the goal earning herself a nice bruise in exchange for thwarting a likely goal. The Mayor held down her side of the defensive backfield. Li’l Pete was her usual self. I played the entire game at left back because the other four guys on hand were all forwards by nature (and we’d need them there to increase our odds of scoring) and didn’t fall on my face, didn’t get burnt, and even almost scored… an own goal. This is why my recollections are fragmented because I literally had no time to encode anything.
So the Li’l Pete Award winners are those who put in the bulk of their time in the backfield: Li’l Pete, Mayor, Hermione, and me.
Faustian Moment: Pretty, shiny, ball… ¡Weeeeeeee!
The Faustian Moment this week was also my one serious lapse, which unfortunately led directly to a Snowball goal.
I was marking Alfredo. Snowball’s Chance had the ball in the corner and Alfredo and I were standing in front of our goal. A ¡FUTURISMO! stole the ball and cleared it. Everyone started trotting up field to follow the ball except Alfredo who stood still in front of our goal. That meant I stood still in front of our goal with him.
Near midfield a Snowballer stole the ball back and immediately kicked it high into the air toward Alfredo and me.
What I should have done was stand there with Alfredo to at least make him jostle with me to get at the ball. Here’s what I did do.
As I mentioned earlier the Eternal Blue Sky was particularly gorgeous that night. The flood lights were on too so there two different hues of light playing off each other. As the ball sailed into the air I became transfixed by its shinny hallo of bright white light (thanks to the floodlights accenting it) set against the brilliant blue sky and the golden white clouds. As all children do when under the spell of a bubble gently wafting through the air, I tottered toward it.
I wish I could at least say I had left the man I was marking undefended because I thought I had a better bead on the flight of the ball and intended to make a play on it. Alas, I cannot. I was simply enthralled (which now means “capture the fascinated attention of with magic” but in Middle English meant “enslaved,” both definitions fit here).
There is a point at which the force behind an object sent into the air is at equilibrium with the force of gravity. In that instant the object hangs exactly perfectly in the vertical plane—moving neither up nor down. In that moment it is at rest in regard to gravity. They are at peace with one another.
To call that point a “moment” is too long. To say it “pauses” is an exaggeration. This is what the phrase “a twinkling of an eye” was invented for.
I toddled out toward the pretty bauble floating on the upside-down ocean at sunset. I watched it rise. In a twinkle of my eye I saw the ball/bauble become one with gravity. When the ball was directly over my head—well over my head, I couldn’t have jumped and hit with my hand—gravity won and it started its downward fall. I turned around to watch it continue its path toward the pitch.
Down it went.
Down.
Until something got in its way.
The head of Alfredo, the guy I was supposed to be defending. And with his head he redirected the ball into the far corner of the net for a goal.
Beyond a doubt I yielded that goal but I take back what I said a bit ago. I don’t wish I could say I left my mark undefended because I had a better track on the ball. I’m glad I became enthralled by the simple majesty of the moment. I only hope that next time I’m able to both appreciate the beauty of the moment AND keep the person I’m defending within arm’s length. These things should not be mutually exclusive.
Alas, they might be. That’s why had Dr. Faust been on hand to witness my bewitching I have little doubt he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
Fan update: An entire family plus Spectra
I don’t really expect people to come to games anymore so I had dropped this section, but this was a special occasion. Erica (¿sp?), TB’s wife, was on hand with her parents and dog. In addition Spectra was an honorary member of their family for the evening.
Thank you, TB’s in-laws.
When this game ended I thought we'd lost 5-6 on a cheap goal (see below). Then a couple days later I check the score online and it said we tied 6-6. I reckoned there was some funny book keeping to even out that cheap shot goal that never shouldn't have been. Then a day later I checked again and Snowball's Chance was awarded a mystery goal of their own.
So we ended up loosing after all. But instead of just a cheap shot goal it was a cheap shot goal and a phantom goal. What a way to go down.
By the way, I wrote the whole entry thinking we’d lost and posted it. Then I found out we tied, wrote the section “This Just In… Literally” and made a few revisions throughout to adjust for the tie. Now that we lost again I just don’t have the energy to go back and make more corrections. Sorry about the confusion, although I’m certain no one will read this so whatever.
This Just In… Literally (revised minutes after I finished the entry below)
Apparently I missed a goal.
I just checked the league standings and we tied Snowball’s Chance last week. ¡WE TIED THE NUMBER ONE TEAM IN THE LEAGUE! ¡AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’d write more but I have to run around reveling in our belated quasi-triumph.
If you read the rest of the recap--which I wrote thinking we had lost by a goal--you will see why this missed goal that was is particularly sweet.
“¡Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky!”
The Eternal Blue Sky
The basis of many Mongols’ religious beliefs—including Genghis Kahn’s—is the Eternal Blue Sky. I believe we open skied, prairie dwelling peoples from the other side of the world can relate. Game 5 against Snowball’s Chance was played under an awe inspiring display of the Eternal Blue Sky.
The game started at 8:45pm, early sunset. Overhead was a blue sky with furrows of fat, rolling clouds filled with the gold of sunset. My agnosticism buckled under the weight of the grandeur of the Eternal Blue Sky.
Our opponent was a worthy of the setting. Snowball’s Chance—in spite of their name—is the #1 team in the league. In their first four games they scored no fewer nor allowed more than 3 goals (we’ve been shut out once and prior to last week hadn’t scored more than 2 goals). Two weeks ago they beat the same NÜRD team I once presumed invincible.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! entered the game on a high after last week’s 10 goal blow up and in decent attendance shape. Five ladies were on hand: Li’l Pete, Hassle, Mayor, Belle, and Hermione (¡in her new black socks!). Five gents as well: Elliot, TB, Sohei, Bobby, and yours truly. And, of course, our Keeper, Kahn.
For reasons I’ll elaborate on later I have few overarching thoughts about the game and only spotty specific memories but it went more or like this:
We quickly opened with a goal.
They quickly scored to level.
Then they scored again.
And again.
And again.
Their four goals were all scored over the middle stretch of the first half. Even though they weren’t dominating us in terms of overwhelming quality of play or suburb ball control it felt like they were way out ahead of us. And they were, 1-4 is a sizeable gap. But we scored again making the halftime score 2-4.
Half Time: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Snowball’s Chance 4
No one was down at the half. Even though we behind a healthy two goals the attitude was “it’s only two.” Keep in mind that prior to last week the most goals we’d scored in a game was 2. So entering the second half against the #1 team we were trailing by as many goals as we’d scored in any of our first 3 games. So “it’s only two” was a quantum leap in ¡FUTURISMOS! attitude towards onion sack deposits.
The Most Controversial Goal in ¡FUTURISMOS! history
The second half opened with controversy. Snowball’s Chance had the ball. For those unaccustomed with the ways of fútbol, the halves open thusly: the ball is placed at center pitch, the ref blows the whistle, and someone on the team with the ball has to one-touch the ball (meaning you have to kick it rather than run with it). In my history of watching and playing the sport—both in person and in video game—every time a half commences the team with the ball starts by passing the ball to a teammate. Usually it’s a person standing within 5 feet of the passer.
Unfortunately the ref blew the whistle before Kahn was ready. She was still fiddling with the gloves. The Snowball guy taking the opening tap—Alfredo, more on him later—saw Kahn wasn’t ready and so rather than passing the ball to a teammate he shot it. Kahn, along with everyone else on the pitch, was caught totally off guard. She picked the ball’s flight up late, stumbled over to it and while still fumbling with her gloves got in front of it to deflect it but the bounce rolled it into the net giving Snowball’s Chance a 5-2 lead.
A dazed Kahn looked up at the ref and held her hands up to show her that she hadn’t even put her gloves on yet. The ref winced and apologized to us, but what was done was done.
Yes, of course, it would have been nice had the ref been more aware of Kahn’s state before she blew the whistle. And, yes, it is ultimately our own fault for taking the pitch unready to play. Having said that this was a serious violation of fútboling etiquette. It was positively unsporting. The kind of thing that would have sparked riots in Europe or the Americas south of the Rio Grande.
Part of the beauty of futbol is it is governed by 17 laws, the overwhelming majority of which pertain to the pitch, equipment, and technical aspects of the game (i.e. when an indirect kick is awarded verses a direct kick, how a penalty kick is to be taken). Taking a shot from the set ball to open half when you see the ref has inadvertently whistled play to start before your opponent is set—if the ref had noticed the keeper wasn’t ready she would not have blown the whistle—is tantamount to theft.
Fortunately Karma appears to play a roll under the Eternal Blue Sky and would exact a pinch of balance—more later.
The Rest of the 2nd Half
Down 2-5 seconds into the second half to the #1 team in the league may seem like a daunting challenge. I don’t remember feeling that way and it certainly wasn’t pervasive if anyone felt it at all. From that point the comeback was on.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! scored to make it 3-5. Back in striking distance.
Snowball’s Chance scored again to push it back to 3-6.
Then with nine minutes left we scored. 4-6.
A few minutes later we scored again. 5-6.
Down a goal with roughly 5 minutes to play things got downright intriguing.
Play of the Game: “I’M GOING TO GET YOU, MOTHERF*CKER.”
As I’ve already mentioned on a couple of occasions, the play of the game is the play of the game. I can’t help it. Just like a triangle is a triangle or a perfect circle a perfect circle. I have no say in the matter. The play of not only the 2006 World Cup Final but rather the whole tournament was Zidane’s Headbutt. It will be remembered forever whereas any other play or even the winner will have to looked up to jolt peoples’ memories.
This requires a little set up.
Our 5th goal was scored by Elliot. He had the ball in the Snowball box and was defended by a lady. He shot and she stuck her foot out to block it. Apparently her ankle took the brunt of the boot and she crumbled to the ground. As she tumbled Elliot shot again and the ball went in (I think it ricocheted off their keeper even). The time that elapsed between the lady crumbling and the goal scoring was bang-bang. In other words no time. It was all one continuous play. Elliot didn’t dribble the ball or even take a step. He just shot it again as the lady was tumbling.
Snowball’s Chance protested. On what grounds exactly was hard to say. I think they were making the twin arguments that Elliot had somehow intentionally injured the Snowball lady and that the ref should have stopped play when it was clear someone was injured. Neither argument holds.
The injury was two people going for a ball. It’s normal. It happens all the time (it’s why my right big toe will never be the same, but that guy didn’t foul me either). As for stopping play, by the time it was clear she was actually hurt rather than just down the goal had already been scored. If play stopped every time someone hit the pitch the game would be all stoppage.
The goal stood and Alfredo’s dye was cast.
The injured lady was Alfredo’s wife (we think). And Elliot, the person who crunched her ankle, and Alfred already had a testy relationship. They had already shoved each other prior to that and exchanged words.
Shortly after our 5th goal Alfredo had the ball and was bringing it up the sideline. Elliot dispossessed him of the ball and cleared it. In the course of that play Alfredo kicked Elliot in the back of the leg and scraped him with his cleats. Then as they both turned to trot back up field toward the ball Alfredo turned around to share his feelings with Elliot.
“I’m going to get you, Motherf*cker.”
I had the distinctly weird pleasure/horror of being about 10 feet away from Alfredo when he issued his threat. As the Eternal Blue Sky would have it the ref was only a few feet further away and heard it too.
The ref fumbled in her pocket and produced a yellow card. The first we’ve ever had in a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. Alfredo and several other teammates protested. Arguing that Elliot deserved one for injuring the lady earlier. The ref heard nothing of it and simply said, “get off the pitch, Alfredo.” Snowball’s Chance would play the last couple of minutes without their best player.
FOOTNOTE: Whereas most people were stunned or confused about what was happening as the ref was sending Alfredo off, Bobby didn’t care a lick.
“¿Whose ball, ref?” he kept asking as the ref was still dealing with a recalcitrant Alfredo.
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
“¿Whose ball, ref?”
When she motioned it was our ball, while steal dealing with Alfredo, Bobby then changed his tune.
“¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! ¡Let’s go! Come on ref, let’s go, time is short.”
Indeed time was short.
Too short.
The Last Couple of Minutes
We had two more stellar chances in the last couple of minutes. Each was thwarted by an excellent diving save from the Snowball keeper. Alas, the Snowball keeper saved the game for them and they—the #1 team in the league—left the pitch clinging for dear life to a win they didn’t even come close to deserving.
Or so it seemed at the time. Little did we know at that point that we had at some point scored the leveling goal. Truth be told, a tie is the correct outcome. How that tie came about is the domain of the Eternal Blue Sky. If you want to know more head outside, look up, and ask.
Who Scored
Elliot scored twice. Bobby and TB each scored one. And Belle (aka Shawna Lavelle) scored her first of the season. ¡HUZZAH!
There is a lost sixth goal in the mix as well. The likely candidates for ownership are Elliot, TB, Hassle, Bobby, Sohei, and Belle. Take your pick and congratulate her or him... then go outside and give the Eternal Blue Sky a nod as well.
LI’L PETE AWARD: I'm Not Sure, Several People
I feel like several people are deserving this week. Hermione selflessly threw herself before a charging Snowball guy just feet away from the goal earning herself a nice bruise in exchange for thwarting a likely goal. The Mayor held down her side of the defensive backfield. Li’l Pete was her usual self. I played the entire game at left back because the other four guys on hand were all forwards by nature (and we’d need them there to increase our odds of scoring) and didn’t fall on my face, didn’t get burnt, and even almost scored… an own goal. This is why my recollections are fragmented because I literally had no time to encode anything.
So the Li’l Pete Award winners are those who put in the bulk of their time in the backfield: Li’l Pete, Mayor, Hermione, and me.
Faustian Moment: Pretty, shiny, ball… ¡Weeeeeeee!
The Faustian Moment this week was also my one serious lapse, which unfortunately led directly to a Snowball goal.
I was marking Alfredo. Snowball’s Chance had the ball in the corner and Alfredo and I were standing in front of our goal. A ¡FUTURISMO! stole the ball and cleared it. Everyone started trotting up field to follow the ball except Alfredo who stood still in front of our goal. That meant I stood still in front of our goal with him.
Near midfield a Snowballer stole the ball back and immediately kicked it high into the air toward Alfredo and me.
What I should have done was stand there with Alfredo to at least make him jostle with me to get at the ball. Here’s what I did do.
As I mentioned earlier the Eternal Blue Sky was particularly gorgeous that night. The flood lights were on too so there two different hues of light playing off each other. As the ball sailed into the air I became transfixed by its shinny hallo of bright white light (thanks to the floodlights accenting it) set against the brilliant blue sky and the golden white clouds. As all children do when under the spell of a bubble gently wafting through the air, I tottered toward it.
I wish I could at least say I had left the man I was marking undefended because I thought I had a better bead on the flight of the ball and intended to make a play on it. Alas, I cannot. I was simply enthralled (which now means “capture the fascinated attention of with magic” but in Middle English meant “enslaved,” both definitions fit here).
There is a point at which the force behind an object sent into the air is at equilibrium with the force of gravity. In that instant the object hangs exactly perfectly in the vertical plane—moving neither up nor down. In that moment it is at rest in regard to gravity. They are at peace with one another.
To call that point a “moment” is too long. To say it “pauses” is an exaggeration. This is what the phrase “a twinkling of an eye” was invented for.
I toddled out toward the pretty bauble floating on the upside-down ocean at sunset. I watched it rise. In a twinkle of my eye I saw the ball/bauble become one with gravity. When the ball was directly over my head—well over my head, I couldn’t have jumped and hit with my hand—gravity won and it started its downward fall. I turned around to watch it continue its path toward the pitch.
Down it went.
Down.
Until something got in its way.
The head of Alfredo, the guy I was supposed to be defending. And with his head he redirected the ball into the far corner of the net for a goal.
Beyond a doubt I yielded that goal but I take back what I said a bit ago. I don’t wish I could say I left my mark undefended because I had a better track on the ball. I’m glad I became enthralled by the simple majesty of the moment. I only hope that next time I’m able to both appreciate the beauty of the moment AND keep the person I’m defending within arm’s length. These things should not be mutually exclusive.
Alas, they might be. That’s why had Dr. Faust been on hand to witness my bewitching I have little doubt he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
Fan update: An entire family plus Spectra
I don’t really expect people to come to games anymore so I had dropped this section, but this was a special occasion. Erica (¿sp?), TB’s wife, was on hand with her parents and dog. In addition Spectra was an honorary member of their family for the evening.
Thank you, TB’s in-laws.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Game 4: ¡FUTURISMOS! 10 — p450’s 3
THAT’S ALL I KNOW BECAUSE I WASN’T THERE
I missed my first ever ¡FUTURISMOS! game and it was a doozy.
¿A 10-to-3 win?
¡Yikes!
When I asked the ¡FUTURISMOS! on hand for this game to write a recap each humbly suggested that surely someone other than her/himself is a more gifted writer better able to convey the spirit of this momentous victory.
Ah, such gracious humility.
So the final score will have to be sufficient for you this week, ¡FUTURISMOS! Fan. 10 to 3. ¿What more could there be to know?
I missed my first ever ¡FUTURISMOS! game and it was a doozy.
¿A 10-to-3 win?
¡Yikes!
When I asked the ¡FUTURISMOS! on hand for this game to write a recap each humbly suggested that surely someone other than her/himself is a more gifted writer better able to convey the spirit of this momentous victory.
Ah, such gracious humility.
So the final score will have to be sufficient for you this week, ¡FUTURISMOS! Fan. 10 to 3. ¿What more could there be to know?
Monday, July 2, 2007
Game 3: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — We’re Really Big in Europe 5
A FRACTURED OVERALL RECOLLECTION
I don’t have a clear overarching recollection from this game for a couple of reasons.
First, I hadn’t expected to play. I had slated myself as the 7th man for the game and we only need 6. In effect I had relegated myself to the bench both because I thought I deserved it for abysmal play the first two games and because I wanted a chance to really encode a whole game again for a proper write-up. Alas, due to a shortage of players (more on this in a second) I was pressed into service and played only a little less than normal thereby ensuring I wouldn’t have a clear recollection of the game.
Second, in a stunning turn around from the last game in which ALL 13 (or 9 or however many there are) of our ladies showed up, we started this game with 2: Messi and Hassle. As Captain, the person ultimately responsible for making sure we show up to games with a proper side, this threw me into a nervous fit. We scrounged up a few ladies from another team and I coerced a bed ridden Li’l Pete to rise from illness and race to the game.
To a make things worse one of the ladies who wasn’t there was Kahn. That meant Elliot had to keep. That meant we had only 6 guys for the field and that meant I was one of them. In the sole moment of pre-game levity I told Elliot I would keep. He looked at me. Turned pale(r) and said, “¿You? ¿Keep? No.”
[In the second half Elliot to agree to turn keeping duties over to Ferris (aka Davis Jones) a person he had never met prior to that evening nor ever seen play futbol. Either Elliot really doesn’t trust me or has impeccable instincts because it turned out to be a good choice even though WRBE scored twice in the second half, Ferris held his own and displayed true keeper instincts. Instincts I most certainly do not have.]
The flow of the game held the form of the last couple. We were ragged in the first half and greatly improved in the second. WRBE scored in the first couple of minutes. We equalized less than a minute later. They took a lead they would not relinquish a minute after that.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had a bushel of platinum plated, point blank chances to score in the first half that the WRBE keeper snuffed out with saves that alternated between spectacular and life threatening.
[That keeper was our own personal albatross, the Mercenary Super Keeper Extraordinaire that we’ve faced in 3 consecutive games. He must have a hatred for someone on our team stemming from a grade school incident that the object of his ire doesn’t remember because s/he doesn’t recognize him because it’s been so long. My Hera… ¿what if it’s me? I’ll ask him next week when we surely face him again.]
We switched things up in the second half and moved Elliot out of the goal. The results were encouraging as we dominated play in the opening minutes of the second half. The ball rarely crossed midfield into our territory. But as for the outcome it was all too little too late.
A NOTE ABOUT THE LEVEL OF PLAY IN THE SUMMER LEAGUE
I don’t know why, but the average skill level in the summer league has increased many fold from our previous two seasons. Whereas in season’s past there were only a handful of teams I definitely didn’t want to play now there’s no end to them. WRBE was really good. Not NÜRD good, but really good. By my reckoning they only had one lesser skilled player and I wanted to recruit her to our side because she was a patently fun loving person.
The plethora is partially explained but the number of teams competing. Last season there were 10. This season there are 20. ¿Where did they come from? So far none of them have looked like university students home for the summer. Perhaps other leagues shut down in the summer and get funneled into ours. I don’t know.
The Summer Season has thus far been a nice little relativistic slap in the face. We have improved. Yes. We are holding our own against superior teams. So while it feels like we’re working twice as hard to keep our heads above water… wait, we are working twice as hard to keep our heads above water because the waters are more treacherous than ever. The important thing is your ¡FUTURISMOS! have not drowned.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: MESSI
Messi (aka Lia Middlebrook) had a bona fide breakout performance. Messi joined the ¡FUTURISMOS! riding a tidal wave of high expectations. We were told many things about her futbol skills by her department comrades.
“She led her high school team to consecutive state titles,” we were told.
“She was the Captain, all-time leading scorer, and spiritual guru of her college team,” they continued.
“Mia Hamm is her aunt and futbol tutor,” they poured it on.
“It was her idea for Brandi Chastain to tear off her jersey in celebration of the goal that won the 1999 Women’s World Cup,” they went over the top.
After your ¡FUTURISMOS! were overwhelmed by NÜRD—the second best team we’d ever faced—in the season opener, Messi added to her own promising mystique by declaring, “if that’s the best this league has to offer we’re in good shape. They weren’t that good.”
Alas the conditions surrounding the first two games were a mess (the NÜRD thwacking followed by the burdensome surplus of ladies in the second game) and Messi’s promise remained that and nothing more.
Then her jersey arrived.
The jersey that graces your ¡FUTURISMOS! is essentially the Argentine national team’s minus a couple of minor details. [When I wore mine in Argentina no one noticed.] But Messi knows where the devil resides and declared nothing but the real deal would do for someone of her skill level and bravado. So she chose to wear the jersey of the 20-year-old heir apparent to the greatest attacking futboler in the history of the game: Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. Luckily for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Messi just so happens to be an Argentine (as was the greatest attacking futboler in history—Maradona) so his national team jersey matches our own.
Clad in her Messi jersey I called our aspirant star out, “Messi, I expect either a goal or a direct assist tonight… or else.”
True to her spiritual futbol roots Messi replied with Argentina’s national exclamation for everything ranging from potholes in city sidewalks to police corruption to disastrous federal fiscal policies sure to doom their economy to a crippling near future bust. Messi shrugged her shoulders and said, “eh.”
Much like Mr. Messi answered his critics by not only recreating Maradona’s Goal of the Century but ALSO scoring an infamous goal with his hand (thereby repeating the totality of Maradona’s ’86 World Cup feat), Ms. Messi not only scored a goal AND assisted on the second in our game BUT she played in a game after ours and scored again (in what proved the winner in a 1-0 game).
This is young Messi’s standing ovation. “Bravo, young lady... Now do it again next week.”
PLAY OF THE GAME: SOHEI TO MESSI TO TB—GOAL
The play of the game is the play of the game whether I clearly remember it or not. This one I only remember in the sense that I know it happened because I watched it. But I don’t remember it in the sense that I can’t really describe it.
What I do know is Sohei brought the ball up the right side, laser guided a pass to Messi in the middle who was flanked by two defenders. Messi cleanly handled the pass and in one motion took a step to clear a defender and laid the ball off to a streaking TB on the weak side. TB one touched an all-out unleashed boot that the Mercenary Super Keeper Extraordinaire had no chance to save.
Sohei, Messi and TB we’re all working under duress in spaces pressed by WRBE players and each handled the ball cleanly, made precise moves, and left the hesitation of thought far behind as all proper futbolers do.
It was graceful, precise, and effective. It was futbol Kaká would approved.
LI’L PETE AWARD: LI’L PETE (HONORARY MENTION: HASSLE)
Hassle nearly stole the Li’l Pete Award from its namesake this week with a single play in which she saved a sure WRBE goal by, essentially, throwing herself into the fully swinging leg of a WRBE guy who ended up sort of both kicking Hassle and the ball into her right in front of our goal.
Hassle crumbled to the ground and needed a moment to recover. It was Li’l Pete through and through.
But to wrestle Li’l Pete’s own award from her on a day when she arose from an illness induced bout of bed rest, effectively rolling out of bed and on to the pitch, seems wrong. The coup de grâce in Li’l Pete winning her own award occurred after the game.
As we all sat around taking off our boots and shin guards to leave. Li’l Pete looked down at her leg and screamed “¡I’VE GOT A BALL MARK!” [Meaning the ball hit her so hard she has a bruise in the shape of futbol.] Then she looked at her other leg and screamed “¡I’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE! ¡I’VE GOT TWO BALL MARKS!” The joy on her face. Eyes and mouth wide open. You would have thought she had just won the lottery (of course not the Minnesota state lottery).
FUASTIAN MOMENT: BOBBY’S TORNADO HUMMINGBIRD FEET SHIELD
For the second straight game we played with a special guest futboler: Bobby (a perfect sporting nickname that requires no embellishment). Bobby is a Swedish friend of the Mayor’s in town for the summer filling in for your ¡FUTURISMOS! when we’re short a guy. While Robert doesn’t look a thing like our dearly departed Little Johnny England they are twins when it comes to their footwork. That is to say both have the ability to dance with the ball. And that dancing tends to be more aesthetically pleasing than effective.
Before you scoff, I will remind you this is an important element of futbol. Relative to the number minutes in a game, goals are few and far between. So the game’s beauty is more often than not found in nooks and crannies much smaller than goals.
A perfect step over (which White Shorts from WRBE executed time and again, once to split defenders and score even). A clean tackle (which here means dispossessing a person of the ball, not necessarily taking them to the ground, someing I.Madnle is close to making his patented move). Foot faking to get a defender to lean one way only to flick the ball back the other way leaving the defender hopelessly off balance and unable to follow the ball handler (Hassle’s specialty).
So purely aesthetic moments are a critical element of the game and are not to be overlooked or derided just because they don’t produce an elusive goal.
Back to Bobby’s Faustian Moment.
He had the ball on the right side of the pitch with two WRBE defenders in front of him. He literally twirled between them to get through and by them.
To get a sense of what that’s like head over to Contactinople and try walking with the ball and then pirouetting controlling the ball all the while. Once you’re comfortable with that—give yourself a few months—try it between two people standing still. Once you’re comfortable with that—give yourself a few more months—try it between two people trying to take the ball away from you. Give yourself the rest of your life.
With his defenders behind him, Bobby streaked toward the goal where a third defender was waiting for him. This person slowed Bobby down just a few feet from the goal allowing his beaten defenders to catch up to him. Bobby was then surrounded by three defenders just feet from the goal. Obeying some aesthetical law of futboling physics known only to Bobby at that moment he did the only thing he could.
Spin.
Surrounded by three WRBE defenders desperately trying to poke the ball away, Bobby spun with the ball magically dancing in unison with his feet and somehow away from those of the frantic feet of the WRBE defenders.
Viewers of martial arts films will have a sense of what this looked like. Someone, usually the hero, is surrounded by enemy combatants. He (or she, but we’re talking about Bobby at the moment) picks them off one by one until the circle of enemies has constricted to the point where he can no longer fight them one at a time. At that point the hero unleashes some ridiculous whirling dervish attack in which he simply spins and in so doing the enemies go flying.
I always hate that moment in martial arts movie fights because I know it’s coming and strikes me as a fake cop out. I will now view it differently.
Surrounded by enemy warriors with nowhere to go Bobby did what Jet Li, Stephen Chow, and Chow Yun-Fat have done countless times on film. He unleashed a move honed in some secret futboling Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Sweden:
Tornado Hummingbird Feet Shield.
¿What happened after those seconds in which Bobby danced betwixt half the WRBE team? I don’t know. He lost the ball or took a feeble shot because there was too much traffic. I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter because the important part was had Dr. Faust seen Bobby spin between those two WRBE guys and then fend off a small army of them with Tornado Hummingbird Feet Shield (and heard the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline hooting and laughing at the sight) he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
I don’t have a clear overarching recollection from this game for a couple of reasons.
First, I hadn’t expected to play. I had slated myself as the 7th man for the game and we only need 6. In effect I had relegated myself to the bench both because I thought I deserved it for abysmal play the first two games and because I wanted a chance to really encode a whole game again for a proper write-up. Alas, due to a shortage of players (more on this in a second) I was pressed into service and played only a little less than normal thereby ensuring I wouldn’t have a clear recollection of the game.
Second, in a stunning turn around from the last game in which ALL 13 (or 9 or however many there are) of our ladies showed up, we started this game with 2: Messi and Hassle. As Captain, the person ultimately responsible for making sure we show up to games with a proper side, this threw me into a nervous fit. We scrounged up a few ladies from another team and I coerced a bed ridden Li’l Pete to rise from illness and race to the game.
To a make things worse one of the ladies who wasn’t there was Kahn. That meant Elliot had to keep. That meant we had only 6 guys for the field and that meant I was one of them. In the sole moment of pre-game levity I told Elliot I would keep. He looked at me. Turned pale(r) and said, “¿You? ¿Keep? No.”
[In the second half Elliot to agree to turn keeping duties over to Ferris (aka Davis Jones) a person he had never met prior to that evening nor ever seen play futbol. Either Elliot really doesn’t trust me or has impeccable instincts because it turned out to be a good choice even though WRBE scored twice in the second half, Ferris held his own and displayed true keeper instincts. Instincts I most certainly do not have.]
The flow of the game held the form of the last couple. We were ragged in the first half and greatly improved in the second. WRBE scored in the first couple of minutes. We equalized less than a minute later. They took a lead they would not relinquish a minute after that.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had a bushel of platinum plated, point blank chances to score in the first half that the WRBE keeper snuffed out with saves that alternated between spectacular and life threatening.
[That keeper was our own personal albatross, the Mercenary Super Keeper Extraordinaire that we’ve faced in 3 consecutive games. He must have a hatred for someone on our team stemming from a grade school incident that the object of his ire doesn’t remember because s/he doesn’t recognize him because it’s been so long. My Hera… ¿what if it’s me? I’ll ask him next week when we surely face him again.]
We switched things up in the second half and moved Elliot out of the goal. The results were encouraging as we dominated play in the opening minutes of the second half. The ball rarely crossed midfield into our territory. But as for the outcome it was all too little too late.
A NOTE ABOUT THE LEVEL OF PLAY IN THE SUMMER LEAGUE
I don’t know why, but the average skill level in the summer league has increased many fold from our previous two seasons. Whereas in season’s past there were only a handful of teams I definitely didn’t want to play now there’s no end to them. WRBE was really good. Not NÜRD good, but really good. By my reckoning they only had one lesser skilled player and I wanted to recruit her to our side because she was a patently fun loving person.
The plethora is partially explained but the number of teams competing. Last season there were 10. This season there are 20. ¿Where did they come from? So far none of them have looked like university students home for the summer. Perhaps other leagues shut down in the summer and get funneled into ours. I don’t know.
The Summer Season has thus far been a nice little relativistic slap in the face. We have improved. Yes. We are holding our own against superior teams. So while it feels like we’re working twice as hard to keep our heads above water… wait, we are working twice as hard to keep our heads above water because the waters are more treacherous than ever. The important thing is your ¡FUTURISMOS! have not drowned.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: MESSI
Messi (aka Lia Middlebrook) had a bona fide breakout performance. Messi joined the ¡FUTURISMOS! riding a tidal wave of high expectations. We were told many things about her futbol skills by her department comrades.
“She led her high school team to consecutive state titles,” we were told.
“She was the Captain, all-time leading scorer, and spiritual guru of her college team,” they continued.
“Mia Hamm is her aunt and futbol tutor,” they poured it on.
“It was her idea for Brandi Chastain to tear off her jersey in celebration of the goal that won the 1999 Women’s World Cup,” they went over the top.
After your ¡FUTURISMOS! were overwhelmed by NÜRD—the second best team we’d ever faced—in the season opener, Messi added to her own promising mystique by declaring, “if that’s the best this league has to offer we’re in good shape. They weren’t that good.”
Alas the conditions surrounding the first two games were a mess (the NÜRD thwacking followed by the burdensome surplus of ladies in the second game) and Messi’s promise remained that and nothing more.
Then her jersey arrived.
The jersey that graces your ¡FUTURISMOS! is essentially the Argentine national team’s minus a couple of minor details. [When I wore mine in Argentina no one noticed.] But Messi knows where the devil resides and declared nothing but the real deal would do for someone of her skill level and bravado. So she chose to wear the jersey of the 20-year-old heir apparent to the greatest attacking futboler in the history of the game: Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. Luckily for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Messi just so happens to be an Argentine (as was the greatest attacking futboler in history—Maradona) so his national team jersey matches our own.
Clad in her Messi jersey I called our aspirant star out, “Messi, I expect either a goal or a direct assist tonight… or else.”
True to her spiritual futbol roots Messi replied with Argentina’s national exclamation for everything ranging from potholes in city sidewalks to police corruption to disastrous federal fiscal policies sure to doom their economy to a crippling near future bust. Messi shrugged her shoulders and said, “eh.”
Much like Mr. Messi answered his critics by not only recreating Maradona’s Goal of the Century but ALSO scoring an infamous goal with his hand (thereby repeating the totality of Maradona’s ’86 World Cup feat), Ms. Messi not only scored a goal AND assisted on the second in our game BUT she played in a game after ours and scored again (in what proved the winner in a 1-0 game).
This is young Messi’s standing ovation. “Bravo, young lady... Now do it again next week.”
PLAY OF THE GAME: SOHEI TO MESSI TO TB—GOAL
The play of the game is the play of the game whether I clearly remember it or not. This one I only remember in the sense that I know it happened because I watched it. But I don’t remember it in the sense that I can’t really describe it.
What I do know is Sohei brought the ball up the right side, laser guided a pass to Messi in the middle who was flanked by two defenders. Messi cleanly handled the pass and in one motion took a step to clear a defender and laid the ball off to a streaking TB on the weak side. TB one touched an all-out unleashed boot that the Mercenary Super Keeper Extraordinaire had no chance to save.
Sohei, Messi and TB we’re all working under duress in spaces pressed by WRBE players and each handled the ball cleanly, made precise moves, and left the hesitation of thought far behind as all proper futbolers do.
It was graceful, precise, and effective. It was futbol Kaká would approved.
LI’L PETE AWARD: LI’L PETE (HONORARY MENTION: HASSLE)
Hassle nearly stole the Li’l Pete Award from its namesake this week with a single play in which she saved a sure WRBE goal by, essentially, throwing herself into the fully swinging leg of a WRBE guy who ended up sort of both kicking Hassle and the ball into her right in front of our goal.
Hassle crumbled to the ground and needed a moment to recover. It was Li’l Pete through and through.
But to wrestle Li’l Pete’s own award from her on a day when she arose from an illness induced bout of bed rest, effectively rolling out of bed and on to the pitch, seems wrong. The coup de grâce in Li’l Pete winning her own award occurred after the game.
As we all sat around taking off our boots and shin guards to leave. Li’l Pete looked down at her leg and screamed “¡I’VE GOT A BALL MARK!” [Meaning the ball hit her so hard she has a bruise in the shape of futbol.] Then she looked at her other leg and screamed “¡I’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE! ¡I’VE GOT TWO BALL MARKS!” The joy on her face. Eyes and mouth wide open. You would have thought she had just won the lottery (of course not the Minnesota state lottery).
FUASTIAN MOMENT: BOBBY’S TORNADO HUMMINGBIRD FEET SHIELD
For the second straight game we played with a special guest futboler: Bobby (a perfect sporting nickname that requires no embellishment). Bobby is a Swedish friend of the Mayor’s in town for the summer filling in for your ¡FUTURISMOS! when we’re short a guy. While Robert doesn’t look a thing like our dearly departed Little Johnny England they are twins when it comes to their footwork. That is to say both have the ability to dance with the ball. And that dancing tends to be more aesthetically pleasing than effective.
Before you scoff, I will remind you this is an important element of futbol. Relative to the number minutes in a game, goals are few and far between. So the game’s beauty is more often than not found in nooks and crannies much smaller than goals.
A perfect step over (which White Shorts from WRBE executed time and again, once to split defenders and score even). A clean tackle (which here means dispossessing a person of the ball, not necessarily taking them to the ground, someing I.Madnle is close to making his patented move). Foot faking to get a defender to lean one way only to flick the ball back the other way leaving the defender hopelessly off balance and unable to follow the ball handler (Hassle’s specialty).
So purely aesthetic moments are a critical element of the game and are not to be overlooked or derided just because they don’t produce an elusive goal.
Back to Bobby’s Faustian Moment.
He had the ball on the right side of the pitch with two WRBE defenders in front of him. He literally twirled between them to get through and by them.
To get a sense of what that’s like head over to Contactinople and try walking with the ball and then pirouetting controlling the ball all the while. Once you’re comfortable with that—give yourself a few months—try it between two people standing still. Once you’re comfortable with that—give yourself a few more months—try it between two people trying to take the ball away from you. Give yourself the rest of your life.
With his defenders behind him, Bobby streaked toward the goal where a third defender was waiting for him. This person slowed Bobby down just a few feet from the goal allowing his beaten defenders to catch up to him. Bobby was then surrounded by three defenders just feet from the goal. Obeying some aesthetical law of futboling physics known only to Bobby at that moment he did the only thing he could.
Spin.
Surrounded by three WRBE defenders desperately trying to poke the ball away, Bobby spun with the ball magically dancing in unison with his feet and somehow away from those of the frantic feet of the WRBE defenders.
Viewers of martial arts films will have a sense of what this looked like. Someone, usually the hero, is surrounded by enemy combatants. He (or she, but we’re talking about Bobby at the moment) picks them off one by one until the circle of enemies has constricted to the point where he can no longer fight them one at a time. At that point the hero unleashes some ridiculous whirling dervish attack in which he simply spins and in so doing the enemies go flying.
I always hate that moment in martial arts movie fights because I know it’s coming and strikes me as a fake cop out. I will now view it differently.
Surrounded by enemy warriors with nowhere to go Bobby did what Jet Li, Stephen Chow, and Chow Yun-Fat have done countless times on film. He unleashed a move honed in some secret futboling Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Sweden:
Tornado Hummingbird Feet Shield.
¿What happened after those seconds in which Bobby danced betwixt half the WRBE team? I don’t know. He lost the ball or took a feeble shot because there was too much traffic. I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter because the important part was had Dr. Faust seen Bobby spin between those two WRBE guys and then fend off a small army of them with Tornado Hummingbird Feet Shield (and heard the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline hooting and laughing at the sight) he would have yelled ¡STOP! to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul right then and there.
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