Game 3: ¡FUTURISMOS! 0 -- Chino FC 0

A SCORELESS DRAW ISN’T ALWAYS THE PROVERBIAL “SCORELESS DRAW”… BUT THIS TIME IT MORE OR LESS WAS
Sunday--the day itself--set the tone for Game 3. It was cold, lightly raining, and threatening snow. A miserable winter-esque slap in the face of spring and a knee to the gut of your ¡FUTURISMOS! because this was supposed to be our first outdoor game of the year. On top of that the game was slated for 9:30pm--our latest of the season.

The collective hope was the game would be canceled but they moved it indoors so it wasn’t. That is to say it wasn’t canceled in the sense that both clubs showed up and we ran around for an hour. It was in the sense that running around and kicking a ball does not necessarily a game make.

I’m being unduly harsh on Game 3. It’s a sign of our considerable progress that I’m so down on a draw. In futbol terms a draw is the equivalent of a third of a win, which in every season prior to this one I would relish and frolic through the fields of C+M singing its praises to anyone who would listen and quite a few who’d rather not.

Such are the burdens of expectations. Hang ‘em.

THE GAME
Chino played the first few minutes short a player and we generated a bevy of scoring chances. Their goal was under siege but we just couldn’t get anything through. By the second half it was a pitched battle.

Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had 4 or maybe even 5 good chances for every one of Chino’s but that’s like Al Gore bragging about the popular vote in 2000. In the final reckoning what counts is goals (or the Electoral College, that remnant of the good ol’ days when our government distrusted its citizens enough to implement a bulwark against them in case they had the collective temerity to elect the wrong person President… thank our divine overlords those days are gone) and despite our heavy advantage in opportunity it was all for not. To think, all we needed was one Senator to say the pledge of allegiance in pig Latin--or whatever it was--and we would have won. Oh, well.

In the final minute we poured forward and generated two golden chances. TB hit the post on one shot and then Socrates delivered a stellar cross in the dying moments that elicited an all-out scrum just feet from the Chino goal. Alas, TB and Hermione couldn’t get out of each other’s way enough for either of them to get a shot off and the chance went by a very painful wayside.

The game was over.

“A KEEPER, A KEEPER, MY KINGDOM FOR A KEEPER”
A good keeper is the equivalent of a good starting pitcher in baseball. If you have one then it almost doesn’t matter whom else you have on your squad; you’ve got a chance. [In Elliot we have one of the best keepers in the league.] Both times we played Chino in the past they didn’t have a keeper. They had a guy playing keeper, like I have on several occasions for your ¡FUTURISMOS! No, it is not a coincidence that my only goal was against that guy. [No offense to that guy and I can empathize. The keeper position bares zero similarity to any other. It’s brutal.]

Chino had a proper keeper this time and it showed. He stopped three stone-cold goals by recklessly throwing himself in harm’s way (just like Elliot does). That guy was the player of the game for either club. Huzzah to him.

THE OTHER AWARDS AND HONORABLE MENTIONS
I don’t have anything week. I don’t remember anyone playing particularly well on defense or absorbing a brutal shot. The closest thing I recall was Run MC deploying the Rumpshaker Defense.

She was marking a Chino lady in the box. The ball was sent high and Run MC had the Chino lady pinned on her back. They both drifted backward to track the ball but Run MC drifted faster than the Chino lady. As a result she just flat out ran over her backwards. The ball dropped harmlessly beyond them and rolled out of bounds.

I loved that moment but I don’t know what to label it. I just liked it. Aside from an instance where I very slowly fell down trying to poke away a gently rolling ball without anyone within arm's length I can’t remember much of anything.

Perhaps that’s a blessing for us all.