Game 7 (the “Regular Season” Finale): ¡FUTURISMOS! 6 — Team Ramrod 3

3-Win Commitment… ¡Fulfilled!
The ¡FUTURISMOS! team sponsor, the good people of Colle+McVoy, attached a stipulation to our third season funding: win 3 games. They weren’t joking. They even included it in forecasting to their parent company. So we entered this season on a 3-win hook held by Colle+McVoy and backed by their parent company. That’s like owing your best friend money and then having his dad stand behind you saying “that means you owe me 3 bucks” when his dad is the head of the CIA (the current secret-prisons-in-countries-that-allow-torture CIA).

Even though 3 wins was well within reason this season and a natural progression from our first two in which we won 1 and then 2 games respectively, it was a little nerve wracking at times. No longer.

This was our third win of the season. Our albatross has been revived and flew away. Now we can treat our final 2 games of the season the way they ought to. They will be an extended futboling celebration complete with dancing, singing, chanting, laughing, piggy-back rides, and—¿dare we hope?—a dash of Elliot showboating.

Perhaps we ought not get ahead of ourselves.


That Old Saw About The Japanese Character For “Adversity” Also Meaning “Opportunity”
[NOTE: I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’ve heard it in movies plenty and it jives with other tidbits I know about Japanese culture. I’ll ask Sosuke and add a note in the future.]

Nothing about game 7 appeared to bode well for your ¡FUTURISMOS! Our roster was gutted by a Colle+McVoy blowout shindig that claimed the Thursday night lives of all but four of your ¡FUTURISMOS! Adding an inadvertent foot to the groin after a crippling shot to the shin Big Pete was out of town on vacation. With Bobby on board that meant I had a grand total of 5 available futbolers.

Even had I been entertaining the idea of playing a game with 5 players (and rest assured I was if it came to that) the Eternal Blue Sky was having nothing of it. The weather forecast for game time was 90-degree heat with suffocating humidity. 5 wasn’t going to cut it.

The number or cultural/literary/religious sources for something along the lines of “at your darkest hour you will find the light” are endless. It’s Buddhist. It’s Taoist. It’s the sword in the stone and the Lady in the Lake. It’s the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat. It’s Luke realizing the only way to defeat the Emperor is to throw down his sword. It’s probably Judeo-Christian-Islamic (although I can’t say for sure but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt assuming they had the sense to crib from the older, eastern influenced beliefs). It’s the backbone of Genghis Kahn’s military genius. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you if this is a foreign concept because it isn’t particularly United States-ian. In fact it’s the antithesis of United States-ian rugged individualism/defy all laws of physics and reason to pull yourself up by your own boot straps.

Anyway, in our hour of your ¡FUTURISMOS! greatest need forces both supernatural and mundane swept in to save the day.

The Mayor came through with two additional guys: Spencer and Paul, henceforth known as Laddie and Doc. Don’t forget that the Mayor is also responsible for Bobby too.

Meagan Kato came through by having the foresight to have married a totally cool guy who was looking for an opportunity to kick the ball around: Matthew, henceforth known as Kato-san (wait, he speaks some Japanese, I should ask him about the opportunity/adversity thing).

Last but so far from least that I’d say most critically, an erstwhile ¡FUTURISMO! reappeared to literally save the day: Velvet Curtain (aka Heather Prenevost) arrived and brought a comrade, Shannon, henceforth known as Graal (more on her later). This boosted our number of available ladies from a daunting 2 to an acceptable 4.

Overseeing this hodgepodge of newly knighted ¡FUTURISMOS! was the Eternal Blue Sky. Rather than sun blasted heat and crippling humidity the Eternal Blue Sky delivered pre-game storms that knocked the heat down a little and followed up with a light drizzle under one dense, expansive cloudbank. It was still hot and humid, but the drizzle was cool and persistent and without the Sun beating us down the conditions were something just this side of perfect.


Game Time
At game time that Japanese character still looked a lot like adversity though. In my rush to make sure I had enough matching shirts just incase our newly minted ¡FUTURISMOS! showed up way off color palette I managed to forget my boots. To make matters worse I wore flip-flops to the game so I couldn’t play in sneakers Yes, this was humiliating. [Spectra, Eternal Blue Sky bless her, was in attendance and raced off to get them for me.]

As the ref—make that the “Don’t you want to play” Uber-ref, Pong (read: “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the world “jet”)—was set to put the ball in play we had 4 players on the pitch. Elliot in goal; Kato-san, Skywalker, and Li’l Pete. Pong looked at me silently to say “¿what do you want me to do here?”

I looked back silently to say “do what you must and we’ll deal until more people arrive.”

On the other hand our opponents, Team Ramrod, had 3 reserve men and 1 woman on the sideline. I chatted with several of their players before the game and they were a good natured lot. They were also very much aware of the fact they were half a game ahead of us in the league standings. The winner would remain a middle of the pack team. The looser would be sent down to mingle with the bottom dwellers. All of that is to say they were motivated for this game. Motivated and looking to get off to a strong start with a huge numbers advantage.

Then just as Pong was about to whistle the start of the game Bobby and Laddie showed up and were ready in one clean motion from auto to pitch. Pong whistled and we started the game playing 6 against 7 with no reserves.


“Oh, God, Not Him,” thought a Team Ramrod defender as Bobby bared down upon him
Playing down a person really means you play short a forward. It should mean you still defend but can’t score. That is unless someone is capable of being an offense all by her or himself.

Appearances mean nothing in futbol. The fittest, futboling-est looking man or woman can be a worthless klutz. I’ve seen an honest to goodness fat-bordering-on-obese person move like a deer with the ball. I’ve run past people who look like track stars and been smoked by at least one grandma. So at the start of each game no one really knows whom, if anyone, to fear. It took Team Ramrod only a couple of minutes to find out which ¡FUTURISMO! was going to torture them.

As a defender you keep a healthy distance from a person you fear. Rather than try to disposes him or her of the ball you only want to limit the damage they can do (and there most certainly are ladies to fear, Hassle routinely torches defenders who get too close). Before you know who to fear you approach everyone as though they’ll cough up the ball. As the game elapses you can tell who is good by looking at how close people are to them.

When Bobby first got the ball in open space on the Team Ramrod side of the pitch they challenged him not knowing something about Bobby: he can dance with the ball. It’s really a beautiful, silly thing to see. In open space Bobby waltzes with the ball, it goes quiet at the touch of his foot and never gets away from him when he taps it forward, like spinning your partner but never loosing the softest touch of the hand. When the feet of defenders threaten to molest the ball Bobby switches his dance up to Savion Glover-style light speed tap and his partner is protected by feet moving so fast they morph into a cloud of probability shielding the ball.

Bobby tap-danced around the first defender. A second defender awaited him and wisely played him by cutting off the middle of the field and forcing Bobby to the outside where he’d have less of an angle on goal. Bobby waltzed by this defender taking the space she left him and with only oblique angles available to him he calmly slotted the ball near-post past a keeper whom, I’m guessing, had a hard time believing what he was seeing.

This guy could tap, he could waltz, and hit the angles. And after he scored he simply turned around and jogged back up field with only a Buddha sized smile to celebrate his stunning work.

Shorthanded your ¡FUTURISMOS! opened the scoring just a couple minutes into the game.

A few minutes later Team Ramrod leveled with a goal off horrendous defense. I knew we were bound to give up a couple of jailbreak stampedes because good defending is the result of cohesion between the defenders. At that point our backline was Li’l Pete flanked by Kato-san and Laddie. They were bound to get caught compromised a few times just because they didn’t know each other. To everyone’s credit this was the only truly bad defensive breakdown.

Still shorthanded, Bobby struck again.

This time he had the ball in the TR box flanked by two defenders. Bobby spun, tap dancing to protect the ball in a cloud of feet probability. He managed to slip through the two desperate defenders and scored pointblank again.

I can’t remember exactly what time exactly VC and Graal showed up, but it was past the halfway mark of the first half (by the way, that’s when Spectra returned with my shoes too). So we played the majority of the first half down a person. I know Doc showed up before VC and Graal but Bobby didn’t take his first break until after the ladies showed up.

In any event Bobby scored his third goal in the first half right around the time VC and Graal arrived. I don’t remember if either had taken the field yet so I don’t know if all three were scored when we were still short handed. But by the time he scored that third Ramrod had long since learned to maintain a healthy distance from Bobby. I have no doubt every time the he got the ball Ramrod braced themselves the same way we did when we faced Lil’ Diego in last season’s game 7. It seemed he could not be stopped. Get too close and he’ll go around you. Give him too much space and he’ll back you into the goal and walk the ball in.

When Bobby took his first breather of the half I went over to him and enthusiastically pretended to punch him the chest while quietly making that noise you make when mimicking the sound of crowd going wild.

Bobby looked at me in surprise and asked “¿why are you hitting me?”

I explained I was celebrating his stunning 3 goal achievement.

His reply. “Oh, that. I used to be much better. I used to train 4 days a week, 2 hours a day in addition to playing regularly. I used to be fit, but now I am flabby and out of shape.” [Note, Bobby looks to be in about the same shape as Elliot or maybe me.]

Simultaneously boastful and humble. A crushing display of futboling celebrated with the slightest of grins.

Thank you, Bobby.


Li’l Pete’s First Ever ¡FUTURISMOS! Goal
Late in the first half the atmosphere was simmering, stunned joy. What had transpired made almost no sense. We were up 3-1. Ramrod was actually quite good but we managed to stifle them. Their one goal was their only really good scoring opportunity. Yes, they were close on other occasions but only once where I thought we’d dodged a bullet.

The Eternal Blue Sky wanted more from us though. The Eternal Blue Sky wanted some jubilation, some joyous screeching. So it turned up the heat of happiness by illuminating the path to Li’l Pete’s first ever goal as a ¡FUTURISMO!

The play was quite simple. Textbook even. I intercepted a Team Ramrod pass at midfield and passed the ball straight ahead to Laddie who turned up field. A defender stepped to him thereby opening up the middle of pitch. Li’l Pete saw the opening, broke for it and called for the ball. Laddie led Li’l Pete perfectly. She took a touch to settle it on the run and then blasted a shot to the right past the keeper.

Li’l Pete turned up field. Her eyes wide and mouth agape. I was standing in the dead center of the pitch where I had original intercepted the pass. She jogged straight at me and said, half in disbelief, “that’s my first ever goal.”

I just vigorously nodded, no doubt with the stupidest giantest grin on my face.

Li’l Pete jogged right to me in the dead center of the pitch, leapt into my arms, and we both bellowed with the joy the Eternal Blue Sky was looking for.

It should surprise no one who reads the tales of the ¡FUTURISMOS! even intermittently to hear that Li’l Pete is my hands-down most cherished player. She has an award named after her that she repeatedly wins herself, for crying out loud. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my players. Each for different reasons based on who they are (or aren’t) and what they do (or don’t do, or can’t do). Mercifully, the ¡FUTURISMOS! are not my children. They are my players. So I can have a favorite.

Of course it is not only easy but proper to have a favorite when that person is not only eternally willing to absorb punishment doled out by Russian futbol mutants whose legs have been engineered to use small atomic bombs to propel the ball forward BUT ALSO takes herself out of games so others can play even if she doesn’t need the rest.

Had I any sway with the Eternal Blue Sky I would have respectfully submitted that the ¡FUTURISMO! most deserving a goal was Li’l Pete. Of course I have no sway with the Eternal Blue Sky so I can only assume her merit is recognizable beyond the human realm.

Thank you, Eternal Blue Sky.

Thank you, Li’l Pete.


Half Time: ¡F! 4 — TR 1
The attitude facing the second half was akin to that of the final day of the Tour de France. It would be nearly ceremonial. The idea of loosing or even drawing this game didn’t exist. I wanted Elliot to get out of the goal and play up so I offered to play keeper.

He looked at me in silence for a moment and said, “I’ll stay in goal.”

I told him I really wanted him to get out in the field so he could play with Bobby and Doc. Elliot must have envisioned me keeping for a moment, weighed a 3 goal cushion, and then declined my offer again.

Then Kato-san walked over and said “I’ll play keeper in the second half.”

Elliot immediately relinquished the gloves.

For the second time this season Elliot turned tending the timbers over to someone he met for the first time ever half an hour earlier and had seen play for a total of, maybe, 15-mintues instead of me.


The Second Half: Elliot's 2-Goal Retort
Team Ramrod actually scored first in the second half. It was several minutes in. The shot was actually a classic Elliot goal. A Ramrod guy was 35-yards out and decided to take a speculative boot. He caught Kato-san playing out a little too far and the ball dropped over his backpedaling outstretched hand and just inside the crossbar. It was good goal.

We were still weren’t flummoxed though and minutes later our cushion was restored.

We earned a corner. The ball was kicked in low. Someone deflected it on the near-post side of the goal. I don’t recall whether it was ¡FUTURISMO! or a Ramrod. The ball ricocheted upward and was moving at a healthy clip. Elliot was standing right in front of the Ramrod keeper and he reacted to that ball with shocking quickness. He headed it right over the Ramrod keeper’s head. I can’t emphasize this point emphatically enough: Elliot did this very deliberately but at lightening speed. He even flicked his head to redirect the ball’s path rather than just letting the ball bounce off his head.

Our 3-goal lead was restored.

A while latter Elliot scored again by popping the ball underneath a stooping Ramrod keeper at close range. I missed the event itself but Laddie said with the result of an incredible sequence of close quarters passing between Bobby, Doc and Elliot.

Elliot’s second goal closed out the ¡FUTURISMOS! scoring. Ramrod scored once more but there were only about 4 minutes to play and that span passed without any noteworthy attempts that I recall.

The ease of this game is inexplicable. Team Ramrod was all around good. They didn’t have a single person on the team as bad as even I am. I don’t know. The more I play the less I understand. The Eternal Blue Sky alternately taketh away and givith. We were recipients of the later this night.


Li’l Pete Award: Li’l Pete
So not only did Li’l Pete score her first goal but she was in tiptop, old-school form. As I mentioned, our defense was ragged thanks to odd assortments of people who’d largely never played together before.

Time and again, there was Li’l Pete poking the ball away; backing someone up; getting run over by Ramrods (and on one occasion, me). She didn’t issue her patented screech, but there were grunts galore and endless orders to the backs flanking her to mold our ragtag defense by nothing more than the force of her will.

It was classic Li’l Pete from wire to wire in a way I haven’t see since I don’t know when.

Thank you, Li’l Pete.

By the way, the strong runner-up is Velvet Curtain. Her knee was banged up something fierce and she gutted it out the whole way through. Every time I saw her on the sideline I thought “there’s no way she’ll get back in there” and a few minutes later when someone needed a breather back she’d go. A brave and needed effort.

Thank you, VC.


Play of the Game: Several
Any of Bobby’s goals would do it. Li’l Pete’s first ever was a beauty. Elliot headed goal was amazing. Too many to pick one.


Faustian Moment: “I seek… The Graal”
There wasn’t a Faustian Moment in this game so much as there was a Faustian player.

Graal is an old French word. It was adopted by the English language and became “Grail.” As in “Holy Grail.” As in I so enjoyed playing with Shannon and having her on the team so much that I want to kick half the current ladies off to make room for her.

The first thing Graal said to me when she arrived was, “This is my second game… ever.” The blinding twinkle in her eye that accompanied that proclamation assured me this was both true and good. Before I continue I have to say it was hard to believe it was only her second game.

Here are the three moments that exemplified the spirit of Graal.

The Throw In
In the second half the ball went out of bounds and we had a throw in. The person nearest the ball was Graal so she naturally went out of bounds and picked it up to throw it back in. One problem—She had never before in her life executed a futbol throw in. It’s not complicated and there are really only three basic rules governing the procedure (although I have managed to break one of those rules on nearly half of all my throw ins), but it’s certainly something you’d rather practice once before doing it in a game. Not Graal.

She simply asked for the rules as she was throwing it in. Then she threw it in.

The Near Goal
In the final minute of the game I had the ball on the sideline just over mid-pitch in Ramrod territory. There was plenty of space in front of the goal and I booted the ball about chest high into the box hoping a ¡FUTURISMO! would make a run and get a chance to do something with it. And a ¡FUTURISMO! did.

I was expecting it to be Elliot or Bobby or Doc, but no. It was Graal. She burst through a pack of defenders and had a clear chance on the ball. The only thing impeding her was she didn’t know what to do with a chest high ball so instead of heading or chesting it the ball just sailed by her. But she was right there. She saw the play the whole way and put herself in position to make it.

The Laughing
Of course the attribute I prize above all others is the ability to clearly have fun while playing. Graal was an expert at this. The best moment came late in the game. She was chasing down a ball that was rolling toward the keeper. There was no way she was going to get to the ball before either the keeper got it or it ran out of bounds but this did not impede her pace. I yelled from the sideline at her as she was running “if you run so hard you throw up…” and then I waited a moment for the ball to get to the keeper, “…you still won’t get there in time.”

Graal’s response was amazing. She laughed AND kept chasing the ball down even though it was safely in the keeper’s possession. To Graal’s credit her hustle flummoxed the keeper and he made a terrible pass that was intercepted and nearly led to another goal.

I have no doubt had Dr. Faust been on hand to watch Graal play—and in particular seen her chase that ball down laughing all the way—the good Doctor would have turned to the nearby Lucifer, yelled “¡STOP!” and traded his soul right then and there.


Honorable Mentions For Our Savior ¡FUTURISMOS!

Laddie
The most important thing about Laddie was his style. His boots were so white I wondered if he had purchased them for that game. His shorts were big and appeared to be of the basketball variety. Most importantly, there was his hair. He has that bowl cut grown out shaggy style hair. So Laddie had a personal game within the game of dealing with his hair.

Laddie was clearly determined to make a difference and he did so primarily through running, which he did well. He also assisted Li’l Pete’s on her goal, let us not forget.

Kato-san
He played in the field in the first half. The highlight being a header on a corner kick that, while not exactly being “close” to scoring, was in the neighborhood and elicited an “ooooo” from the ¡FUTURISMOS! on the sideline.

Kato-san switched to keeper in the second half. While he held his own—I was only feet away from one save where I thought “I’m glad that wasn’t me standing in front of that”— but you could tell he was uncomfortable. I mean this in the most charming way possible.

The keeper is exposed in a way no one else is on the pitch. The slightest hesitation or the smallest miscue is blazingly apparent. If someone burns a defender they still have to travel some distance and shoot to score. If someone burns the keeper, that’s it. That’s a goal. So the keeper is on display in a way none of the other players are.

Like Graal he had a moment of learning on the fly. I don’t know what he did but his first goal kick was improper somehow so Pong went over and explained where he had to place the ball and where to kick it so he could do it over again. But my favorite Kato-san keeping moment was this.

He was in the upper right corner of the box and the ball had somehow popped straight up in the air in front of him. A Ramrod lady got under the ball and Kato-san froze like an Apple II computing pie. ¿Should he knock this lady down to get the ball? ¿Whould he back up? And there was a moment where he sort of stuttered forward not knowing how to simultaneously deal with both this woman and the ball (for reference, Elliot would have barreled through that lady to get the ball and we would have been right to do so).

In the end Kato-san choose a novel solution between his apparent options—He essentially stood face to face with the lady and stuck his arms out around her to get the ball so that he would have caught it behind her back. I don’t remember what happened after that, I think the ball bounced off both of them and got away.

Doc
Doc is so nicknamed because he was calm and clinical at all times. Whenever the ball got to his feet I immediately relaxed because I knew he wasn’t going to do something crazy and whatever he did it was going to be correct. He had these same properties off the ball as well. Such as this incident:

I was left back. I intercepted a ball and moved forward and then stopped when a Ramrod person stepped toward me. So I had a defender in front of me and defender to the right of me. Doc was beyond the defender to my right and Skywalker was behind me. I looked up and didn’t know where to go with the ball.

Doc very calmly but firmly said, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…” over and over (much to my chagrin not everyone uses the nicknames).

I knew exactly what he meant—“pass the ball to Skywalker because she’ll have better angles to make another pass than you do”—but for some reason I didn’t heed his advice. I passed the ball toward Doc instead.

This was stupid because there was a Ramrod right there. The pass forced Doc to hustle to the Ramrod guy to break up his attempted steal. In the scramble the ball came back to me and we were back where we started.

Rather than get flummoxed Doc calmly and firmly tried again, “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie…”

This time I took the advice I knew I should have in the first place and passed the ball back to Skywalker. The defenders moved, as Doc knew they would, and Skywalker passed the ball to Doc who then took off up field with it.

Anyone who’s spent much time working with children knows how unique and difficult that level of patience and commitment is.

Spectra
Without whom I would have stood on the sideline in my socks the whole game being ribbed by Pong and Katie.

Thank you, Spectra.


Sadly, I Must Stop Writing
Sorry, I have to quit writing now because I’ve run out of time. I wanted to write about Meagan telling me about Kato-san’s breathless retelling of the game when he got home. I also wanted to write about the magically rolling ball that traveled darn near the length of the field slowly along the sideline when everyone assumed it would roll out and it just… kept… going.

But I can’t.

C’est la vie.