The Captain is Dead, Long Live the Captain

Professor Paul Davies is a physicist cosmologist. One of his books is about ways the universe might end called The Last Three Minutes. In it there’s a chapter dealing with human beings adapting to a universe very different from the one we currently inhabit. Humans of the distant future (like billions or even trillions of years hence) won’t be anything like what we currently consider human. In essence they could be living thoughts free of any form, or at least anything we’d currently consider “form.”

Professor Davies believes most current people would consider these future humans to be something other than human and addresses the issue thusly, “… we have to ask precisely what it is about human beings that we would wish to preserve.” He then dismisses form as a key element of humanity and continues. “When pressed, I suspect most of us would set more store by what might be called the human spirit—our culture, set of values, our distinctive mental makeup, as exemplified in our artistic, scientific, and intellectual achievements.”

When I read that passage it sent my mind spinning. Note how limited his set encapsulating the Human Spirit is: Arts, Sciences and Intellectual Achievements.

I won’t get into my detailed personal Human Spirit accounting, but let it suffice to say that I’m sitting on a big fat null. That’s a cold realization: I’m currently contributing exactly nothing to the future Human Spirit.

Yikes.

This realization came to me around 1:30 in the morning. ¿And what was my response? ¿Make good on my threat to go to graduate school? ¿Dive back into the kid’s story I’ve been working on since shortly after I decided to change my name? ¿Finish the white paper I started on the ramifications of applying quantum entanglement to human actions and how that effects Hegel’s dialectical progression of history?

Oh, no. Of course not. I immediately got to work on a ¡FUTURISMOS! blog entry.

Alas, try as I might I can’t fit futbol (or worse, writing about futbol, or worse still writing about futbol when none has been played) into one of the Human Spirit categories. This stands to reason because in the distant future we won’t be playing futbol because we won’t have bodies anymore. Be it Professor Davies’ disembodied intellect or simple extinction there’s no way around that. In this way futbol is much like everything else in our world (and ultimately, our universe): doomed.

Mercifully, therein lies the rub.

Everything is doomed in the sense that it will end. If there were someway for something to exist in perpetuity then there would be path of sorts that everything either is or is not on. We can extend our duration to the end of the Universe and no further. And one way or another the Universe it going to end. So there are no winners, so to speak.

That means there is no ULTIMATE criteria by which everything will be judged. The non-corporeal preservation of the Human Spirit in the distant future will be just another phase in the existence of the human race. No “better” or “worse” than at any other point.

Taking that into account contemplating Professor Davies’ question—¿what is it that we want to preserve about the human existence?—I found my mind in the same state I had in the first place: spinning.

Of course, ¡SPINNING!

¿Why does a child spin until she can’t stand anymore and then collapse a giddy mess? To answer because it’s “fun” doesn’t capture the totality of the truth. She doesn’t spin because at some point she thinks, “spinning is fun, I’ll do that.” She just starts spinning.

Kids spin. Dolphins frolic. Gorillas roughhouse. Whales sing. Dogs chase. What I’ll mourn when human beings become one with the Human Spirit is loosing our connection to the parts that aren’t strictly “human.”

So while futbolers futboling may not be included when we eventually become the Final Human Spirit it still counts. ¿So what if it counts like Dinosaurs count? We wouldn’t be here without them and the Final Human Spirit wouldn’t be quite the same without futbol. If you know but one Einstein quip (shame on you) make it this one:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

I wasn’t a Captain captaining like a kid spinning in my ¡FUTURISMOS! tenure under that moniker. I was more like a Manger managing off the pitch and then a Roll Player roll playing on it. I have the proper attitude to captain but am deficient when it comes to my skills and grasp of the game. But there has been a ¡FUTURISMO! all along who did meet all criteria.

One ¡FUTURISMO! who from our inaugural game distinguished herself through superlative (Dynamo worthy) play, clear and steady direction for teammates, and magnanimity of spirit. I’ve said it before and I say it again: I was the captain in title, she was the captain in deed.

Now she’s both.

The ¡FUTURISMOS! will soar into Season 4 riding the brisk wind of 4-1-1 Season 3 finish and under the wing of a new and most deserving Captain.

Sarah Pollpeter

If Professor Davies happens to make his way to Minneapolis at some point in the not distant future I’ll send him an invitation to a ¡FUTURISMOS! game. I’d like him to consider the inclusion of another Human Spirit category. I’ll leave it up to the good Professor to come up with his own title for it but I will have a suggestion:

Cap’n Pete

Season Finale (Game 9): ¡FUTURISMOS! 8 — Team Ecto-Cooler 2

There are essentially no details in this write up because I couldn’t see anything. I played keeper the entire game and probably 75% of the action took place on the TE-C side of the pitch. I wasn’t wearing my glasses so everything was fuzzy and distant. Sorry. This would have been a good game for detail too. Alas…

Season Dagobah
We, your ¡FUTURISMOS!, entered our third season with something new: expectations. [I’m not referring to the 3-win MDC quota either.] Our first season was our first season and it’s only reason for being was being. The second season was more like Season 1.5 than Season 2 because our roster changed significantly and we missed a season in-between.

Season 3 arrived with no excuses. The team was essentially unchanged, we were sufficiently talented, and we were ready because there was no break between seasons. Our goal for the season probably won’t sound that daunting. We weren’t setting out to topple Dynamo or even make a run at the playoffs. Our goal was to transmogrify from a bunch of people who kick the ball around to a little futbol club.

That probably doesn’t sound that difficult. In a nutshell all we had to do was transcend the sum of our parts. Simply absorb our individual strengths and weaknesses into a collective whole that maximizes the former and obscures the latter.

¿What was in our way?

I don’t know.

I reckon the same thing that’s in everybody’s way.

¿How many transcendent human beings have you met? ¿People that are more than the sum of their strengths AND foibles? I’ve met zero and am aware of only two candidates. Neither is alive so I can’t be sure.

Okay, I lied.

I did know what was in our way. I reckon I knew (and lied) in the same way everybody does.

The only thing retarding our becoming a little futbol club was us. ¿Would we make the necessary collective turn? That’s why I chose the name “Season Dagobah.”

For those unfamiliar with the reference: 1) shame on you; 2) Dagobah is where Luke Skywalker went to find Yoda to train to become a Jedi. One of critical challenges on Dagobah was cave in which one faced one’s greatest fear. In the words of Yoda, in the cave you face “only what you take with you.”

We ventured into the cave of Season Dagobah unprepared for what awaited us in our first game: NÜRD.

The first half of that game nearly scuttled your ¡FUTURISMOS! NÜRD played futbol in a way we’d never seen. Their pace was unrelenting. They seemed to attack and defend with all six field players all the time. They were everywhere. Yes, they had some really good futbolers, but what set them apart was that pace and relentless.

In the cave of Season Dagobah we saw the team we hoped to become. We don’t have as many skilled futbolers as they did but we have a large team of people comfortable playing with each other. There was no reason we couldn’t play at NÜRD’s pace and with their relentlessness. But we didn’t. In that game we also how far we had to go.

Our second and third games of the season were rough: A dreary 0-1 loss followed by a 2-5 drubbing. Heading into the forth game of the season things looked bleak.

Then everything changed.

In game 4 we destroyed the p450’s 10–3. From that point on our record was 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. The loss was courtesy a dubious goal and the draw was in the face of a semi-professional striker. Just like that we went from a team toiling at the bottom to one that finished just shy of making the playoffs.

¿What happened?

I don’t know.

Time passed. We continued accumulating experiences. We had little triumphs (like a stellar 2nd half against NÜRD) and failures (that listless 0–1 loss). We remained open to the possibility that the reality we were collectively experiencing wasn’t the only one available to us. All of this compressed, Spacetime distorted, and we made the quantum leap from people kicking a ball to a little futbol club.

If you want a cleaner explanation buy some Tony Robbins or read The Secret. But good luck. If there were a better explanation you’d already know it. The more time you spend studying someone else’s map the more lost you’ll become on your own journey.

Sometimes the only way is to walk into a cave, cut a guy’s head off, see that it’s your own, and then come to learn that it was your dad’s. That’s as good an answer as anyone has ever produced.


The Play of the Game and the Defining Moment of our Season
Team Ecto-Cooler is the team we lost 0-1 to in that dreary game after NÜRD. On this night we destroyed them 8-2 and we did so NÜRD fashion. It wasn’t just one person. It was Total Futbol. 6 people forward. 6 people back. Our 8 goals were scored by 5 different people (more below). Mercifully (because I was keeping) TE-C really only had about 6 shots on goal and only four of them were good attempts, such was the swarming nature of our defense.

TE-C weren’t bad either. They clearly knew what they were doing. Nor were they shorthanded. We simply outplayed them and the breaks went our way.

Toward the end of the game we had a corner kick. Sohei rose up to head the ball but a TE-C lady got under him and when he came down his chin landed on the top of her head. The ref called a foul and play stopped. Sohei apologized and then turned up field.

The lady called out to him, “you know, you could slow down now.”

What she meant was, “you know, you’re killing us and this game is out of reach. So please stop playing hard because it isn’t fun for us anymore.”

We, your ¡FUTURISMOS! were playing so hard and so well that we so completely overwhelmed an opponent that they weren’t having fun anymore.

My heart burst with pride at that moment for my club.

Obviously not because we were winning or winning big. That’s not what this is about. It was because we had arrived and we did so without really noticing. [Had I noticed I would have made some sort of effort to slow us down.] Now futbol comes naturally to your ¡FUTURISMOS! We’re not about to topple Dynamo. That’s not the point anyway. We entered Season Dagobah with the potential to be a little futbol club.

And now we are a little futbol club.


Scoring Recap
Bobby–3
TB–2
Sohei–1
Li’l Pete–1
Julia–1 [I loved this goal. She essentially bellied the ball into the goal from point blank range. Big Pete was out and we needed a ridiculous goal. Julia provided. Thank you, Julia.]

Both TE-C goals were scored in the exact same fashion. One in each half. I, the keeper, passed the ball directly to a TE-C person standing roughly 15-feet in front of me right in front of the goal. In both instances the TE-C guy got the ball, took a step or two and ripped the ball past me.

¿Was it embarrassing?

Yes. Yes, it was.


Li’l Pete Award: Sohei
Sohei usually plays forward. As a matter of fact, prior to this game he may have only played forward. Thanks to an odd assortment of gentlemen on hand Sohei ended up playing back a great deal and I, as keeper, was grateful for it.

Time and again just when my level of keeping fear was about to reach the Vomit Point as a TE-C person barreled toward me Sohei swept in to either poke the ball away or simply redirect the play. Often times I didn’t even see him coming. He’d just appear and then everything would be okay.

There was no defining moment where Sohei absorbed some terrible blast. He just seemed to always be there.


Faustian Moment: Crossing the River Styx
Andrew Charon was the only person from work to show up for the game. I think he’s the only person from work to attend a game at all this season and he’d been at C+M less than a week. You may form your own snide comment and place it here.

I’d met Andrew for the first time ever only a couple of days before. Of course no one should judge anyone based on his or her appearance, but I will confess to everyone that when I saw Andrew my first thought was, “I hope that guy plays futbol because I want someone who looks like that on the team.” He looks like he played for Brazil in the ‘70’s: big curly hair and creative facial hair.

As it turned out Andrew does play futbol for Atari Attack and in the CSC no less on Sundays. So I had hopes of adding him to the ¡FUTURISMOS! before I’d even seen him play.

Andrew showed up at the game when I was in the midst of a crisis. For the second straight week a ¡FUTURISMO! betrayed her club by not showing up after she personally swore to me she would after I explained how important she is. I won’t name her but I will say we didn’t have a keeper. Then Elliot didn’t show up but I wasn’t sure whether he was going to. So we really didn’t have a keeper.

This is a crisis. I won’t belabor it but playing keeper is nothing like playing any of the other positions. If you aren’t a keeper, you aren’t a keeper and you don’t want to play keeper. So I sucked it up and volunteered myself.

That meant I was down a guy… ¿or was I?

I asked Andrew if he had is gear with him.

“Yeah, it’s in the car.”

I asked him if he wanted to play.

“¡YEAH!”

He ran to his car and back. As he was slipping on his shin guards I approached him with my jersey. The keeper has to wear a shirt different than the rest of the team so Andrew could wear my jersey. But when I got to him I looked down and I saw the most peculiar thing in his bag.

A bolt of Argentine blue.

I kind of stammered some broken Spanish but Andrew picked up what I wanted to convey.

“Yeah,” he said, “my jersey is the same color as yours.”

If ever the Eternal Blue Sky has personally (that’s not the right word ¿deifically?) intervened in the affairs of mortals it was here.

So Andrew played with us and it was clear he plays futbol. I don’t remember a specific play or anything, but he was out there. Big curly hair, creative facial hair, and Argentine blue jersey all on proud display.

True to his surname, a threshold was crossed that night which Andrew can never return from. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a ¡FUTURISMO! now.

I’m not sure this is technically a Faustian Moment, per se. It’s more like something that was just really fun. I don’t know that this game had clear Faustian Moment and even if it did it probably took place too far away from me to see it so this will suffice.

¿Would Dr. Faust have yelled “¡STOP!” to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for any of this? Probably not. But that didn’t make it any less joyous.


Honorable Mentions: Kato-San and Julia
Once again Kato-san saved the day. I invited him last minute because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to play much and he filled in without missing a beat.

Li’l Pete brought a friend of hers, Julia, to bolster the lady side of the ball. I think the best thing I can say is I didn’t notice her. She was instantly a part of the team. And scoring not only a goal but a ridiculous goal in her first ever appearance is nothing to sneeze at.


Fan Roll Call
The people of Sawyer turned it out for the last game. Klair (my dear friend), Dani (her sister and a friend of mine although I don’t know her as well), Nicky (their friend whom I like very much but would be presumptious to label her a “friend”), Spectra (co-person), Alin (my mom), Rachel (my sister), and Matthew (my brother) were all there.

There was a mob on our sideline which makes the other team’s sideline look sad. I know it’s stupid and it’s just a rec league but it means a lot that people show up every now an then. Thank you and to mom especially for bringing orange slices, water, and trail mix.

Game 8: ¡FUTURISMOS! 5 — (Dorsey & Whitney 2 + Pong 3) 5

The Nature of Our “Post-Season” Games
Our “regular season” technically ended last week with our 7th game. Every team in the league gets 2 “post-season” games. Four teams vie for the “championship” everyone else plays a couple more games. We’re among the “everyone else.”

As such I entered the “post-season” with two wishes:
1) Win one game and draw the other to finish with an exactly .500 record of 4 wins, 4 losses, and a 1 tie.
2) Play in two weird, fun, entertaining games.


Game 8: Preamble
In Game 8/Post-Season Game 1 we played Dorsey & Whitney. D&W are tied for dead last in the league. They had scored a grand total of 7 goals during the season and never more than 2 in a game. [For the purposes of perspective we’ve averaged 6.5 goals per game over the last four games.]

Setting aside the “you just never know” factor, we should have romped through a game against D&W. I don’t mean that in a jeering, condescending sense. I mean a glance at the facts lead to one conclusion: a relatively easy win. For the first time ever I milled around before a game without even a touch of nerves and it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything to fret about.

I knew in advance neither Li’l Pete nor Hassle were going to play. That’s the bedrock of our defense and one of our gifted forwards.

Then there was a surprise announcement that another lady, another forward, would miss the game. This after she repeatedly swore up and down that she’d be there after I’d stressed all week that she would play a critical role with Hassle out. This person, who shall remain nameless, is the first ¡FUTURISMO! in team history to have so failed her club that punishment was in order. She has been stripped of her nickname and will so remain until she has earned a new one. It would be cruel to call her out but if you were to figure it out on your own—say, by paying attention to who isn’t mentioned in this game and then is referred to by her non-nickname in future write-ups—well, c’est la vie.

Bobby and Laddie were out of sorts because they live right next door to The Bridge and were home at The Time. Both were a little traumatized. Laddie was down but Bobby was a shell of himself. He’d been up all night talking to Swedish reporters about the collapse and he could only play in the first half because he had to bail for an interview with CNN international.

Even in the face of reflected tragedy, missing critical players, and betrayed by a loved one, my mood was untouched. This was in no small part the work of the Eternal Blue Sky who bestowed upon us ridiculous weather. Upper 70’s. No humidity to speak of (by Minnesota standards). Capped off with the ideal start time: 8:45pm. So we’d start at twilight and play into the night.

I was the portrait of calm. I reckoned the odds of something going wrong were as close to nil as we were ever going to get.

I kicked the ball around with a 3-year-old. I chatted European futbol with a guy from Africa. Then I saw the super-ref Pong headed my way. [Pong pronunciation is “pawn” followed by the opening sound of the word “jet.”]

Pong is one of my favorite people who inhabit the world I frequent. He is just a great guy. Always smiling. Always laughing. ¿Had I previously mentioned Pong is in the Twin Cities to play for the Minnesota Thunder? This was to be his first season with them but he tore something in his knee so he’s been rehabbing to get ready for next season. In the meantime he refs for CSC and then sticks around to see if any teams want/need him to play so he can kick the ball around in a low/no-impact environment (for him—Li’l Pete and my right big toe would beg to differ).

Here’s the exchange that changed this game:

Pong, seeing me: “Hey, man, ¿what’s the name of your team again?”

Me, bursting with pride that he wants to know the name of my team: “The ¡FUTURISMOS!”

Pong, with a Torii Hunter sized smile: “Oh, MAN, I’m playing against you tonight.”

Me. Silence.


First Half: Bobby Answers Many Calls
D&W scored the first goal roughly 30-seconds into the game. It was 100% because Li’l Pete wasn’t playing. This is not a denouncement of the ¡FUTURISMOS! playing at the time. It is a testament to Li’l Pete. She orchestrates our defense.

A D&W guy got the ball at midfield and, basically, ran straight up the middle with it. The center back and right back each got caught in a moment of indecision about who should step to the guy. As a result he went right between them and had a wide-open shot. Much to the credit of your ¡FUTURISMOS! that was only one of two noteworthy defensive breakdowns.

As I alluded to, Bobby wasn’t himself. He looked forlorn. I didn’t see him smile once. He was distracted. When I talked to him he didn’t appear to notice. I don’t even remember him talking on the pitch (although he must have). Bobby was understandably not himself except in one regard: He remained a striker.

The next 3 goals were all ¡FUTURISMOS! and all Bobby. Spinning, waltzing, gliding, with and between D&W defenders Bobby scored all at close range. At a point midway through the first half Bobby had already scored twice and was resting. A forward wanted to come off and was headed toward the sideline. Bobby turned and looked at me. He was despondent and exhausted. I had no idea what, if anything, he was trying to convey to me.

“¿Do you want play again?” I asked.

Bobby heaved a large sigh and stuck his hands into his pockets. For an instant I thought he was telling me he was done. Then he pulled his hands out of his pockets and gave me two cell phones. He said nothing and ran out onto the pitch. Moments later he scored his third goal.

That was a night for him. He disappeared at halftime for an interview with CNN International and didn’t return. After the game I got a text message from him apologizing for being in a bad mood.

There are no “heroes” in sports because there’s nothing on the line. There can be “Herculean efforts” (LeBron James leading the Cavs to the NBA Finals) or “Odyssean journeys” (AC Milan’s 06-07 campaign that started with the threat of relegation and ended with the UEFA Cup and the coronation of Kaká as the Player of the Moment) but not heroes.

I don’t know what to call Bobby’s efforts in this game because I’m still a novice in Greek mythology. I’m trying to think of a crestfallen warrior who has every reason not to leap into the fray but does and triumphs. There has to be one, ¿doesn’t there?

Perhaps the highest praise I have is admitting I’m stumped.

He stumped me.

Thank you, Bobby.


Half Time: ¡F! 3 — D&W 1
You might be inclined to think we were feeling good at halftime with a 2-goal lead. We did, but we didn’t feel great. For purposes of composition I have refrained from telling you about Pong. That shoe now drops.


Second Half: “Ladies and Gentlemen… ¡Pong!”
We have faced many excellent futbolers in our 3 seasons in the league. I’ve seen a bicycle kick. I’ve seen a guy kick so hard I feared for Elliot’s wellbeing. We’ve had guys wreck us and make our defenders look silly. And then there was Pong.

The word “fancy” applies to every really good person we’ve thus far faced. Not that they showboated, it’s more like they’d take one step back to take two steps forward. In any event they had to do stuff, something, to get around our defenders. Hence they used “moves.” Everyone we’d previously faced we could deal with through multiple defenders. Then they’d have to stop or pass or attempt a more circuitous route to the goal.

Not Pong.

For Pong it was more like we were all standing still and he was practicing simply running by us. The economy of his motion was breathtaking. His ball skills were like magic. I don’t mean because he did a bunch of fancy stuff. I mean he ran with the ball as though he didn’t have it, like the ball was stitched to his foot.

There’s a difference between feeling like someone is going to burn you and feeling like you don’t exist. Pong made you feel like you didn’t exist. Like playing a chess master—you know she isn’t playing you, she’s playing herself and you just happen to be sitting opposite her.

Stilts laughed out loud whenever he approached her because she knew he was going to go by her as though she wasn’t there. Not that he would make her look silly. He would make her look nonexistent.

I had always wondered what it would like to play against Ronaldinho. I envisioned him performing all kinds of amazing acrobatics and feats of ball artistry. I now realize how wrong I’d been. He wouldn’t have to do anything fancy because he could just run by us. To Ronaldinho we wouldn’t exist. To Pong we nearly didn’t.

Here’s the most amazing thing about him—He is the best natured person we’ve ever played against. There wasn’t a single arrogant or jerk moment with him.

Whenever I was marking him (that’s defending him when he didn’t have the ball) he’d smile and say, “Oh, man, come on, man. You’re shutting me down, man. I just want to run around and work out my knee. Come on, man, give me some space.”

He complimented ¡FUTURISMOS! on good plays big a small. “Nice pass, man. That was the right ball.”

This game was an experience unlike any other because of Pong. It was worth the draw. I’d have happily lost to experience it.

Having said that, I don’t want to face him next week.

Second Half: Goal by Goal
Pong scored first a couple minutes into the second half. He got the ball at midfield, ran by me, ran by his own teammate, then weaved between two ¡FUTURISMOS! and blasted a goal. Score 3–2.

D&W leveled with a goal that Pong didn’t score by was responsible for. A D&W guy approached with the ball and Pong running by his side. Pong peeled away. Two defenders (including me) followed Pong. Nobody followed with the guy with the ball so he had a clear path to the goal and scored. Literally two people defended a guy without the ball leaving the guy with the ball alone running toward the goal. The game was tied 3–3.

At this point I feared the game had slipped away from us. We had squandered our lead, lost Bobby, and faced an unrelenting one-man onslaught. Then TB struck.

TB beat a defender on the wing and found himself in open space 15-yards out to the left of the goal. There were a couple of D&W defenders in the box so TB sniped. His shot was aimed directly at the upper right corner of the goal. It hit the crossbar and TB in disgust turned back up field. So he missed the ball ricocheting down and to the left just inside the goal.

We had a lead again: 4–3.

Every team should have a ridiculous goal specialist. Ours is Big Pete. ¿You know what Dudley Do-Right from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show looks like? He’s the Canadian Mountie character with incredibly broad shoulders whose body tapers down so his feet are tiny. That’s what Big Pete looks like when he’s running with the ball. He has this massive upper body but when he runs with the ball he takes these tiny stutter steps. So Big Pete Do-Righted the ball to within feet of the goal and as the keeper reached out for the ball Big Pete sort of just poked it over him.

A D&W defender was somehow behind the keeper and ball popped up toward him about belly high. His first instinct was to hit it with his hand but he checked it in time but the moment was lost. He awkwardly attempted to knee the ball and it ended up fumbling over his leg and into the goal.

We had a regained our 2 goal cushion at 5–3.

Somewhere around here is when Stilts nearly scored her first goal. It was the same set up as the two she’d previously declined to score. She swooped in backside, the ball was passed to her and she had an empty net in front her. The first two times this happened she simply declined to stick her foot out and redirect the ball into the net. Now we know why.

This time she did stick her foot out and sent the ball over the net. Stilts was only about 5 feet away from the net so that’s not easy to do. She had to send the ball basically straight up.

Oh, Stilts. Always doing things her way whether they make any sense or not. You’ve really got to commend her for that.

Then Pong scored again. I don’t even remember how it worked but rest assured he did it alone and at tremendous pace.

With 5 minutes to play we were up 5–4 and we did the only thing we could to slow Pong down: Elliot marked him.

Elliot was the only ¡FUTURISMO! who could actually defend Pong. At one point Pong was running with the ball across the field and Elliot ran with him step-for-step. Pong tried to stop quickly and cut back but Elliot stopped too and Pong lost the ball out of bounds. Katie, the CSC official was standing next to me and said, “Wow, that guy is really fast.” She was referring to Elliot.

For a couple of minutes it appeared we had a solution for Pong that just might preserve our lead. Then came the play of the game.

Play of the Game: Pong’s Equalizer
D&W played Chelsea style futbol. That means they kept extra defenders back and their offense amounted to kicking the ball downfield and hoping their superstar striker would get it and do something amazing. Usually it meant the ball went flying somewhere a ¡FUTURISMO! could get to it first. Sometimes it didn’t.

We had a free kick from just outside the penalty box to the right side of the D&W field. Elliot ran up from the backfield where he had been marking Pong to take the kick. That still left two defenders to deal with Pong.

Elliot kicked the ball into the D&W box. A D&W person got it and simply booted the ball down the middle of the field hoping Pong would get to it. He did. Pong turned with the ball and raced up field. He had a ¡FUTURISMO! on his right and one in front of him.

When Pong reached our box both defenders were within arms reach. He didn’t stop. He didn’t do anything “fancy.” He effortlessly weaved between them and blasted a goal into the upper right hand corner.

That may not sound like a big deal. You have to try it.

Get a ball and two people. Run with the ball and a defender running next to you. Position the other defender directly in front you. Now, run full speed with the ball and try to run BETWEEN the two defenders when they’re within arm’s reach of each other.

The first thing you’ll notice is you have to measure your stride to plant your foot to make the cut. The next thing you’ll notice is measuring your steps and the ball at the same time so that not only is your plant foot in the correct place but so is the ball.

Once you’ve got that down make both defenders move to screw up your best laid plans. Now do it one fluid, unbroken motion at full speed with both defenders attempting to poke the ball away.

I don’t care who’s reading this: you can’t do it.

He did all that in something just longer than the blink of an eye. It was amazing, it tied the game and concluded the scoring for the match.


Epilogue
We had planned to go out for a drink after the game. We couldn’t because we were exhausted. By “we” I do mean every single one of us. Gasping, dripping, exhausted. Elliot had Collette drive because he couldn’t. Stilt’s was dry heaving during the game and at one point she was so pale I thought we were going to loose her.

There was one reason and one reason only we were wrecked as team: Pong. He all by himself wore us out because every time he had the ball you had to sprint because our only chance was to surround him with every available person.

Again, it was totally worth it. We can always go for a drink next week or the week after. We may never face Pong again (oh, please, Eternal Blue Sky, I’ve learned my lesson and don’t need to face him again).


Li’l Pete Award: I Guess Everyone
I think everyone had his or her moment in this game.

The Serbian somehow managed to fully flip a guy over like NFL films style. I don’t what she did but it was cool.

Hermione stoically filled Li’l Pete’s shoes as the center back defender. A thankless task she gamely endured.

Laddie basically saved our butts by showing up ready to play. Once he even dispossessed Pong of the ball after he’d woven his way past a couple of defenders thereby saving a certain goal.

Skywalker was her typical self mixing it up with any man, woman, or child who veered her way.

Stilts had the afore mentioned dry heaving.

Everyone had a moment where I thought “that’s the Li’l Pete spirit.” Even Li’l Pete herself who, although she couldn’t play, was on hand.

At one point late in the game I was running full speed after the ball deep in D&W territory near the sideline where the ¡FUTURISMOS! were standing. A D&W lady got the ball first and stuck her foot out to stop it. She also stopped both of my feet and I went flying, falling flat on my face. Even before my brain had recovered its sense of self I heard Li’l Pete yelling at me “¡GET UP! ¡GET UP!” I scrambled to my feet and the ball was already headed back down toward our end and I heard her yelling “¡GET BACK! ¡GET BACK!” and then in a quieter more sympathetic voice, “If you can.”

The Li’l Pete spirit abounded that night.


Faustian Moment: Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr.
One of the Chinese Ninja women of Dynamo brought her 3-year-old daughter to the game. She is now known as Pink Unicorn Ninja Jr. She had a little pink futbol. I was standing about 20-feet from her on the sideline before our game and she kicked her ball to me and then said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”

I kicked it back.

She kicked it back and said “I’m open, I’m open, I’m open.”

I kicked it back.

She then instructed me to set my feet shoulder length apart so she could shoot under my legs. Whenever she a had a near miss she would gallop around on her hands and feet like a enthusiastic monkey. When she “scored” we would both throw ourselves on the ground and scream.

This is literally a Faustian Moment. Dr. Faust traded for what he saw in children at play. Here it is: