We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s
One of the subjects of NBA TV spots for the playoffs this year was “the fear.” That’s what players feel as they advance in the playoffs because they know “they’re close” to a championship. Kevin Garnett was in one of those spots and professed to liking “the fear,” but I felt “the fear” all week and I can’t say we got along. Truth told I was a little afraid of our Championship Final opponent, the We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s.
After WAO5s dropped their season opening match to your ¡FUTURISMOS! they went on a tear living up to the adjective in their name. Here are their results following that loss: 4-2, 4-0, 6-0, 7-3, 8-4, 1-6 (a hiccup game), 8-3, and then 4-2 in the semifinals. That’s 7 wins with 1 loss and four or five of those wins were straight up beat downs. I asked their captain, Herb, about it last week and he brushed it off saying “we got lucky this season.” When I told Elliot about it he replied, “No one gets that lucky.”
Indeed not.
Despite “the fear” I was looking forward to playing WAO5s for one key reason: we already know each other. It’s just more enjoyable to play teams you know because you can talk, rib, joke, and generally have more fun. That doesn’t mean you aren’t playing hard, it means you’re doing that and having fun at the same time (think Magic vs. Isiah or Jordan vs. Barkley in the NBA Finals). As a matter of fact in a way you can play harder against people you’re comfortable with because you don’t have to worry about them thinking you’re an ass. You can go full speed for a ball, run someone over by accident, and know there aren’t going to be hard feelings.
Before the match I walked over to Herb to talk to him about celebrating all goals World Cup style. His response was weird. He got all cool about it and said something like “Look, you do what you have to do and we’ll do what we have to do.” I explained that I meant for this to be fun but he remained all Implacable Game Face about it. This was a stark change from our first match where Herb and I were joking around and ribbing each other’s teams. Back then he even cooked up the sweet quip, “I’ve seen the future and it isn’t as bright as it used to be.”
There was to be no ribbing this time around. For whatever reason there was very little levity and much to my dismay it carried over to the match. WAO5s were largely a humorless lot for the match. I remember one WAO5 guy smiling when I made a joke about how I felt like a Portuguese being marked by a German on a corner kick because he was so much taller than I was but that was it for light heartedness. It also meant a higher degree of chippy play than is customary in our matches. More arm fighting action and borderline throwing weight around. For the first time in my futboling career I even involuntarily bellowed at the ref for a foul that wasn’t called.
The signature sequence that sums up the WOA5s attitude and the ¡FUTURISMOS! response occurred early in the second half. Diosa had the ball on the left flank and was working against Herb. Twice she dribbled around him forcing him to scramble to recover, the second time he kicked her hard while lunging for the ball and Diosa crumbled to the ground clutching her leg in pain. She lay there with her face in the ground holding her leg for roughly a minute before limping to the sideline. She was fine; it was a hard knock that just missed her shin guard. The futboling equivalent of having the wind knocked out of you.
I met Diosa at the sideline and asked her if she was okay. She looked up at me, wincing in pain, and said, “Yeah, I totally f*#%ing burned that guy twice before he kicked me.” That’s the spirit.
Then not even a minute later Herb was subbing out and crossed paths with his replacement right in front of Diosa on the sideline. As they high-fived each other Herb said, “Get tough out there.” A grim exhortation, completely lacking in exuberance.
As all blog readers know if there’s one thing I love most about Diosa--and how dare anyone attempt to make me pick one--it’s the mouth on her. Diosa’s mocking of this exchange was instantaneous.
With a level of sarcasm previously only found in Jr. High Schoolers Diosa rained down a torrent of basic taunting, “Yeah, Dude. ¡GET TOUGH! Man. Yeah, don’t forget to be ¡TOUGH! out there, dude. Uhhh, yeah, ¡GET TOOOOOOUUUUUUGH!” All of it while icing an injury that she would shake off a minute later to jump back in the match.
Now that’s really the spirit. That’s Kevin Garnett style. That’s standing shoulder to should with “the fear” and tugging on its shorts to let it know it’s the one that’s got something to worry about. And on this day that was your ¡FUTURISMOS!
Roll Call
Ladies: Li’l Pete, Messi, Diosa, & Belle
Gentlemen: Elliot, Big Pete, King Vidor, TB, Heartbreaker, Big Duke, Plato, & Me
Yes, it was only 4 ladies, but it was four beautiful ladies. [Beautiful here meaning “of a very high standard; excellent.” Yes, they’re the other kind of beautiful too but that’s not germane here.] I didn’t have a shred of concern about that side of the gender equation.
It was the gentlemen who had me a little concerned. With Elliot keeping that left 7 guys for the pitch. That’s one too many. There’s a fine line with reserves: 0 is too few; 2 is ideal; but 4 is actually too many. Don’t get me wrong, this is what is commonly referred to as a “good problem.” As captain emeritus I did what had to done and relegated myself to spot duty rather than part of the regular rotation. Problem solved.
Fan Roll Call
Check this out:
Alin (my mom), Paul (her husband), Rachel (my sister), Rachel’s Friend (whose name eludes me but I think it was Katie), Suzie (my Aunt), Adeline (my grandma), Sara (my cousin), Spectra (everyone knows Spectra), Jed (Li’l Pete’s boyfriend), Rebecca (Heartbreaker’s girlfriend), Godley (everyone knows Godley), Godley Jr. (Ditto), Maria Doering, Maria’s husband, Colleen Sabers, Vance (Colleen’s Surfer baby), Collette (Elliot’s wife), Lelu (a dog everyone in the C+M office has at least heard), TB’s parents (plus two others, I thought, maybe his wife, just guessing, she’s been before). The Velvet Curtain was there supporting us and considering she works with most of WAO5s and none of us that means she counts double (and to risk her life like that so shortly after getting married… so brave). Run MC, who couldn’t play but was on hand, counts too.
¿How many fans were there? I might even be forgetting some and I’m already at 20+ people. Mom made a ¡FUTURISMOS! flag that people ran back and forth with in the stands whenever we scored. They also made a whole bunch of small ¡FUTURISMOS! flags they used to festoon the chain linked fence in front of them with.
One whole section of the bleachers was half full with our fans. They cheered. They oooed and awed. They got eerily silent when thrice a ¡FUTURISMO! went down with an injury and then clapped when that person was able to walk off the pitch. You may think all that 12th Player stuff is a bunch of hokum sports leagues spin to get people to buy tickets but I can tell you from first hand experience it isn’t. It makes a difference.
By the way, Ladies and Gentlemen of Colle+McVoy who’ve never attended a match (and that’s nearly all of you, by the way): Colleen Sabers has shamed you. She’s been at C+M for about a month and she made it to the championship match with her pre-toddler aged son Vance--who was born to either surf or skateboard--in tow. Shame on the rest of you without ironclad excuses, which I just know is all of you. {That last bit is to be read with Diosa level sarcasm.}
Weather
Low 70’s, breezy, partly cloudy. It was unreal ideal.
Ref
Pong was slated to be the chief constable for the match but apparently participated in a touch too much Voodoo this weekend. In his place was another ¡FUTURISMOS! favorite, Britney. We hadn’t seen Britney this season so it was nice surprise.
As Li’l Pete pointed out after the game, “Especially for the guys because Britney is just…” and then in unscripted perfect unison Belle chimed in with Li’l Pete to complete the thought “… gorgeous.”
Hey, I don’t make the news. I just report the facts. And you know what they say; if you hear something twice it must be true.
KICK OFF
In perfect weather, with the stands (partially) full, facing our bitter (and confoundingly testy) rivals, your ¡FUTURISMOS! embarked on their first ever championship match.
¡GOAL! WAO5s (2nd min): ¡F! 0 -- WAO5s 1
I’d hadn’t even settled into standing on the sideline when WAO5s scored their first goal. I didn’t get a clear look at what happened but I think we turned the ball over deep in our own corner, there was a scuffle for the ball and a WAO5 guy broke out of it with the ball and a pointblank shot on the goal. Elliot made a play on the ball and had a chance but the shot was taken too close to the goal so he couldn’t get down fast enough and the ball sneaked beneath him.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This appeared to be my worst fear writ large. The only thing I didn’t want to happen was to get steamrolled. With Elliot keeping that meant the only way it could happen was if our defense played like garbage and we carelessly turned the ball over on our side of the pitch. This seemed to be both of those things and I was concerned.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR (3rd min): ¡F! 1 -- WAO5s 1
I had under a minute to fret about my worst fear. A ¡FUTURISMO! fired the ball at the WAO5s goal and it ended up spilling out of the box to King Vidor. He settled the ball 15-yards from goal, took a step forward to get moving in the right direction, and fired the ball into the lower right corner of the goal.
This goal was scored on the side of the pitch with the fans behind it. They burst into cheers. My mom ran back and forth in the stands with a sky blue and white flag she made for the game. My fear never returned.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR (7th min): ¡F! 2 -- WAO5s 1
Leave it to My Liege to rise to the imperial heights required of a championship match.
Again there was a ¡FUTURISMO! shot the WAO5s keeper couldn’t corral. The ball was free at the goal line with a mad scramble of ¡FUTURISMOS! desperately trying to knock it in combated by a mad scramble of WAO5s trying to knock it away. In this decidedly undignified mess the ball gravitated toward the most regal thing it could find. Of course that was King Vidor, who dutifully repaid the ball for its loyalty by knocking it home with his knee.
Our substantial fan base burst into cheers. This time my sister ran back and forth in the stands with the team flag.
“They’re passing like it’s rec-league.”
On Friday at the end of the day I found Socrates in the lobby waiting for the elevator looking up at the TV watching the end of the Croatia vs. Turkey UEFA Euro match. I stopped to ask Socrates what was going on.
He said, “Ugh, it’s ugly. Both teams are passing like it’s a rec-league. It’s just unsightly.”
That’s a fair assessment of ball movement in most rec-league matches. Rec-leaguers want to run with the ball and few people will make the extra pass to a teammate who’d have a better shot (especially if the person with the ball is a guy and the open person is a lady… hey, gentlemen, the truth hurts sometimes, deal with it). As a result there tends to be a great deal of ugly exchanges where two people are standing in nearly the same place kicking at the ball and passes are made out of desperation rather than forethought.
But for the first half of this game had Socrates been there to comment he would have said, “You're passing the ball around like the German national team.”
I have never seen us consistently move the ball and ourselves like I did in the first half of the game. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were making precision passes and then cutting off those passes to get the ball back and then actually getting the ball back and making the extra pass to a teammate with a better look (regardless of gender). It was--and this is not an exaggeration--a thing of honest-to-¡SOLUSTRON! beauty.
¡GOAL! BIG DUKE (21st min): ¡F! 3 -- WAO5s 1
Elliot dribbled the ball to the left side of midfield and lofted a perfect ball to the right side of the WAO5’s box. Big Duke’s defender was goal-side of him and couldn’t work his way around to defend the pass. Big Duke went up and headed the ball toward the WAO5 goal. It wasn’t a rocket header, it was more like a bloop, but it was where it needed to be. The WAO5 keeper made a play on it but to no avail. The ball fell beyond his outstretched hand into the net.
Yet again our substantial fan base burst into cheers. Again mom ran back and forth in the stands with the team flag.
Final Play of the First Half
The half ended on a free kick from midfield. It was an indirect kick (meaning the person kicking the ball couldn’t score) so Li’l Pete technically took the kick but all she did was tap the ball to Elliot who was standing a foot away so he could launch the ball toward the goal.
Elliot is our long kick specialist and the ball was lofted toward the upper right corner of the WAO5’s goal. Heartbreaker drifted back with it. Elliot’s shot was dropping right in front the goal and Heartbreaker went up to head it as the WAO5 keeper came out to punch it away. They leapt together and crashed into each other sending both of them tumbling into the goal. The ball ended up out of bounds, Heartbreaker ended up with a bloodied nose, and the WAO5 keeper end the half continuing his match-long lobbying Britney for a call (a deserved one in this instance because I don’t see how Heartbreaker didn’t foul him).
One of the subjects of NBA TV spots for the playoffs this year was “the fear.” That’s what players feel as they advance in the playoffs because they know “they’re close” to a championship. Kevin Garnett was in one of those spots and professed to liking “the fear,” but I felt “the fear” all week and I can’t say we got along. Truth told I was a little afraid of our Championship Final opponent, the We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s.
After WAO5s dropped their season opening match to your ¡FUTURISMOS! they went on a tear living up to the adjective in their name. Here are their results following that loss: 4-2, 4-0, 6-0, 7-3, 8-4, 1-6 (a hiccup game), 8-3, and then 4-2 in the semifinals. That’s 7 wins with 1 loss and four or five of those wins were straight up beat downs. I asked their captain, Herb, about it last week and he brushed it off saying “we got lucky this season.” When I told Elliot about it he replied, “No one gets that lucky.”
Indeed not.
Despite “the fear” I was looking forward to playing WAO5s for one key reason: we already know each other. It’s just more enjoyable to play teams you know because you can talk, rib, joke, and generally have more fun. That doesn’t mean you aren’t playing hard, it means you’re doing that and having fun at the same time (think Magic vs. Isiah or Jordan vs. Barkley in the NBA Finals). As a matter of fact in a way you can play harder against people you’re comfortable with because you don’t have to worry about them thinking you’re an ass. You can go full speed for a ball, run someone over by accident, and know there aren’t going to be hard feelings.
Before the match I walked over to Herb to talk to him about celebrating all goals World Cup style. His response was weird. He got all cool about it and said something like “Look, you do what you have to do and we’ll do what we have to do.” I explained that I meant for this to be fun but he remained all Implacable Game Face about it. This was a stark change from our first match where Herb and I were joking around and ribbing each other’s teams. Back then he even cooked up the sweet quip, “I’ve seen the future and it isn’t as bright as it used to be.”
There was to be no ribbing this time around. For whatever reason there was very little levity and much to my dismay it carried over to the match. WAO5s were largely a humorless lot for the match. I remember one WAO5 guy smiling when I made a joke about how I felt like a Portuguese being marked by a German on a corner kick because he was so much taller than I was but that was it for light heartedness. It also meant a higher degree of chippy play than is customary in our matches. More arm fighting action and borderline throwing weight around. For the first time in my futboling career I even involuntarily bellowed at the ref for a foul that wasn’t called.
The signature sequence that sums up the WOA5s attitude and the ¡FUTURISMOS! response occurred early in the second half. Diosa had the ball on the left flank and was working against Herb. Twice she dribbled around him forcing him to scramble to recover, the second time he kicked her hard while lunging for the ball and Diosa crumbled to the ground clutching her leg in pain. She lay there with her face in the ground holding her leg for roughly a minute before limping to the sideline. She was fine; it was a hard knock that just missed her shin guard. The futboling equivalent of having the wind knocked out of you.
I met Diosa at the sideline and asked her if she was okay. She looked up at me, wincing in pain, and said, “Yeah, I totally f*#%ing burned that guy twice before he kicked me.” That’s the spirit.
Then not even a minute later Herb was subbing out and crossed paths with his replacement right in front of Diosa on the sideline. As they high-fived each other Herb said, “Get tough out there.” A grim exhortation, completely lacking in exuberance.
As all blog readers know if there’s one thing I love most about Diosa--and how dare anyone attempt to make me pick one--it’s the mouth on her. Diosa’s mocking of this exchange was instantaneous.
With a level of sarcasm previously only found in Jr. High Schoolers Diosa rained down a torrent of basic taunting, “Yeah, Dude. ¡GET TOUGH! Man. Yeah, don’t forget to be ¡TOUGH! out there, dude. Uhhh, yeah, ¡GET TOOOOOOUUUUUUGH!” All of it while icing an injury that she would shake off a minute later to jump back in the match.
Now that’s really the spirit. That’s Kevin Garnett style. That’s standing shoulder to should with “the fear” and tugging on its shorts to let it know it’s the one that’s got something to worry about. And on this day that was your ¡FUTURISMOS!
Roll Call
Ladies: Li’l Pete, Messi, Diosa, & Belle
Gentlemen: Elliot, Big Pete, King Vidor, TB, Heartbreaker, Big Duke, Plato, & Me
Yes, it was only 4 ladies, but it was four beautiful ladies. [Beautiful here meaning “of a very high standard; excellent.” Yes, they’re the other kind of beautiful too but that’s not germane here.] I didn’t have a shred of concern about that side of the gender equation.
It was the gentlemen who had me a little concerned. With Elliot keeping that left 7 guys for the pitch. That’s one too many. There’s a fine line with reserves: 0 is too few; 2 is ideal; but 4 is actually too many. Don’t get me wrong, this is what is commonly referred to as a “good problem.” As captain emeritus I did what had to done and relegated myself to spot duty rather than part of the regular rotation. Problem solved.
Fan Roll Call
Check this out:
Alin (my mom), Paul (her husband), Rachel (my sister), Rachel’s Friend (whose name eludes me but I think it was Katie), Suzie (my Aunt), Adeline (my grandma), Sara (my cousin), Spectra (everyone knows Spectra), Jed (Li’l Pete’s boyfriend), Rebecca (Heartbreaker’s girlfriend), Godley (everyone knows Godley), Godley Jr. (Ditto), Maria Doering, Maria’s husband, Colleen Sabers, Vance (Colleen’s Surfer baby), Collette (Elliot’s wife), Lelu (a dog everyone in the C+M office has at least heard), TB’s parents (plus two others, I thought, maybe his wife, just guessing, she’s been before). The Velvet Curtain was there supporting us and considering she works with most of WAO5s and none of us that means she counts double (and to risk her life like that so shortly after getting married… so brave). Run MC, who couldn’t play but was on hand, counts too.
¿How many fans were there? I might even be forgetting some and I’m already at 20+ people. Mom made a ¡FUTURISMOS! flag that people ran back and forth with in the stands whenever we scored. They also made a whole bunch of small ¡FUTURISMOS! flags they used to festoon the chain linked fence in front of them with.
One whole section of the bleachers was half full with our fans. They cheered. They oooed and awed. They got eerily silent when thrice a ¡FUTURISMO! went down with an injury and then clapped when that person was able to walk off the pitch. You may think all that 12th Player stuff is a bunch of hokum sports leagues spin to get people to buy tickets but I can tell you from first hand experience it isn’t. It makes a difference.
By the way, Ladies and Gentlemen of Colle+McVoy who’ve never attended a match (and that’s nearly all of you, by the way): Colleen Sabers has shamed you. She’s been at C+M for about a month and she made it to the championship match with her pre-toddler aged son Vance--who was born to either surf or skateboard--in tow. Shame on the rest of you without ironclad excuses, which I just know is all of you. {That last bit is to be read with Diosa level sarcasm.}
Weather
Low 70’s, breezy, partly cloudy. It was unreal ideal.
Ref
Pong was slated to be the chief constable for the match but apparently participated in a touch too much Voodoo this weekend. In his place was another ¡FUTURISMOS! favorite, Britney. We hadn’t seen Britney this season so it was nice surprise.
As Li’l Pete pointed out after the game, “Especially for the guys because Britney is just…” and then in unscripted perfect unison Belle chimed in with Li’l Pete to complete the thought “… gorgeous.”
Hey, I don’t make the news. I just report the facts. And you know what they say; if you hear something twice it must be true.
KICK OFF
In perfect weather, with the stands (partially) full, facing our bitter (and confoundingly testy) rivals, your ¡FUTURISMOS! embarked on their first ever championship match.
¡GOAL! WAO5s (2nd min): ¡F! 0 -- WAO5s 1
I’d hadn’t even settled into standing on the sideline when WAO5s scored their first goal. I didn’t get a clear look at what happened but I think we turned the ball over deep in our own corner, there was a scuffle for the ball and a WAO5 guy broke out of it with the ball and a pointblank shot on the goal. Elliot made a play on the ball and had a chance but the shot was taken too close to the goal so he couldn’t get down fast enough and the ball sneaked beneath him.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This appeared to be my worst fear writ large. The only thing I didn’t want to happen was to get steamrolled. With Elliot keeping that meant the only way it could happen was if our defense played like garbage and we carelessly turned the ball over on our side of the pitch. This seemed to be both of those things and I was concerned.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR (3rd min): ¡F! 1 -- WAO5s 1
I had under a minute to fret about my worst fear. A ¡FUTURISMO! fired the ball at the WAO5s goal and it ended up spilling out of the box to King Vidor. He settled the ball 15-yards from goal, took a step forward to get moving in the right direction, and fired the ball into the lower right corner of the goal.
This goal was scored on the side of the pitch with the fans behind it. They burst into cheers. My mom ran back and forth in the stands with a sky blue and white flag she made for the game. My fear never returned.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR (7th min): ¡F! 2 -- WAO5s 1
Leave it to My Liege to rise to the imperial heights required of a championship match.
Again there was a ¡FUTURISMO! shot the WAO5s keeper couldn’t corral. The ball was free at the goal line with a mad scramble of ¡FUTURISMOS! desperately trying to knock it in combated by a mad scramble of WAO5s trying to knock it away. In this decidedly undignified mess the ball gravitated toward the most regal thing it could find. Of course that was King Vidor, who dutifully repaid the ball for its loyalty by knocking it home with his knee.
Our substantial fan base burst into cheers. This time my sister ran back and forth in the stands with the team flag.
“They’re passing like it’s rec-league.”
On Friday at the end of the day I found Socrates in the lobby waiting for the elevator looking up at the TV watching the end of the Croatia vs. Turkey UEFA Euro match. I stopped to ask Socrates what was going on.
He said, “Ugh, it’s ugly. Both teams are passing like it’s a rec-league. It’s just unsightly.”
That’s a fair assessment of ball movement in most rec-league matches. Rec-leaguers want to run with the ball and few people will make the extra pass to a teammate who’d have a better shot (especially if the person with the ball is a guy and the open person is a lady… hey, gentlemen, the truth hurts sometimes, deal with it). As a result there tends to be a great deal of ugly exchanges where two people are standing in nearly the same place kicking at the ball and passes are made out of desperation rather than forethought.
But for the first half of this game had Socrates been there to comment he would have said, “You're passing the ball around like the German national team.”
I have never seen us consistently move the ball and ourselves like I did in the first half of the game. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were making precision passes and then cutting off those passes to get the ball back and then actually getting the ball back and making the extra pass to a teammate with a better look (regardless of gender). It was--and this is not an exaggeration--a thing of honest-to-¡SOLUSTRON! beauty.
¡GOAL! BIG DUKE (21st min): ¡F! 3 -- WAO5s 1
Elliot dribbled the ball to the left side of midfield and lofted a perfect ball to the right side of the WAO5’s box. Big Duke’s defender was goal-side of him and couldn’t work his way around to defend the pass. Big Duke went up and headed the ball toward the WAO5 goal. It wasn’t a rocket header, it was more like a bloop, but it was where it needed to be. The WAO5 keeper made a play on it but to no avail. The ball fell beyond his outstretched hand into the net.
Yet again our substantial fan base burst into cheers. Again mom ran back and forth in the stands with the team flag.
Final Play of the First Half
The half ended on a free kick from midfield. It was an indirect kick (meaning the person kicking the ball couldn’t score) so Li’l Pete technically took the kick but all she did was tap the ball to Elliot who was standing a foot away so he could launch the ball toward the goal.
Elliot is our long kick specialist and the ball was lofted toward the upper right corner of the WAO5’s goal. Heartbreaker drifted back with it. Elliot’s shot was dropping right in front the goal and Heartbreaker went up to head it as the WAO5 keeper came out to punch it away. They leapt together and crashed into each other sending both of them tumbling into the goal. The ball ended up out of bounds, Heartbreaker ended up with a bloodied nose, and the WAO5 keeper end the half continuing his match-long lobbying Britney for a call (a deserved one in this instance because I don’t see how Heartbreaker didn’t foul him).
Two bodies in the goal, blood on the ground, the ball out of bounds. A good ending to the half.
[SIDENOTE: In case you’re wondering if Diosa ever mocked the WAO5 keeper for his incessant lobbying for a call, yes, she did.]
HALF TIME
No half time complaints. Nothing by smiles and eating the orange slices my mom brought us. Heartbreaker nursed a bloody nose with nostrils blocked with Kleenex. A two-goal cushion is far from insurmountable but with Elliot betwixt the timbers everyone was feeling good about our chances.
SECOND HALF
Things got a little rougher and little uglier in the second half. The match stopped three times for an injured ¡FUTURISMO! First was the afore mentioned incident where Diosa went down from a shot to the leg. Then a few minutes later TB took a nasty ball blasted to the face and went down. When he got the sideline I asked him “¿where did it get you?” He replied, “The whole face.” Ouch. Then Diosa briefly went down a second time after taking another kick to her injured leg. Each time our fans got respectfully quiet while the injured player was tended to and each time broke into applause as she or he made her or his way to the sideline.
Our play wasn’t as pretty either. The beautiful passing and player movement from the first half was sporadic. There were more instances where people tried to do too much with the ball and lost it in a mess. But at least this time all’s well that ends well.
Messi’s Magic Save (28th min)
Considering the margin of victory ended up being a single goal this was the Hindsight Play of the Game. Elliot made one of many diving saves (don’t worry, there will be a whole section dedicated to Elliot’s keeping at the end) but couldn’t corral the ball, which rolled right to the foot of WAO5 with a wide open net into which to drill it. From the sideline I held my breath. With Elliot on the ground this was a sure goal.
But then from out of nowhere came flying the oft-maligned Messi. No doubt ¡SOLUSTRON! had put Messi on the Rainbow Slide of Truth, Justice, Equality, and Comprehensive Sex Education to deliver her to the one place on the face of the Earth she needed to be at that moment. I still don’t know how she did it, but Messi not only blocked the WAO5 shot but controlled the ball and delivered a booming clearance to put the ball a mile away from danger.
Never has Messi been closer to the will of ¡SOLUSTRON! or the heart of Sawyer. Brilliant, Messi, brilliant.
¡GOAL! Plato (30th min): ¡F! 4 -- WAO5s 1
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were awarded a free kick roughly 20-yards straight away from the WAO5’s goal. It was an indirect kick again and again Li’l Pete was the taker. 20-yards is close enough to tee up a shot so again she tapped the ball a couple feet to a ¡FUTURISMO! ready to blast the ball. This time it was Plato but he had other intentions and tapped it right back to Li’l Pete for her to take the shot.
Li’l Pete was thrown for a loop and instead of shooting she started walking forward with ball toward the WAO5 goal. She took a couple steps and then tapped the ball a couple of feet back over to Plato who tapped it right back. Li’l Pete took another couple of steps forward and then tapped it back to Plato. At that point they’d covered nearly half the distance to the goal from the spot of the original free kick.
For some reason the WAO5 defenders marking each of them had dutifully backpedaled away from Li’l Pete and Plato maintaining a healthy distance. They finally decided to step to these people walking the ball toward their goal and Plato was left with no choice but to shoot, which he finally did, and scored.
I declared it The Longest, Slowest Goal in the History of the World on the spot and I stand by that.
I forgot to ask Li’l Pete and Plato about this after the match but I imagine the conversation they had during the play went something like this.
Li’l Pete: “Have a shot.”
Plato: “Oh, no, you have a shot.”
Li’l Pete: “That’s terribly nice of you, but I think you should take the shot.”
Plato: “I appreciate that but, really, I insist, you should have a go.”
Li’l Pete: “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, but really from this distance you’ve got a better shot than I do.”
Plato: “That was true 10-yards ago, but we’re halfway to the goal now so why don’t you take the shot.” {A WAO5 defender approaches.} “Oh, drat, one second, Li’l Pete.”
Li’l Pete: “No worries, take your time.”
Plato shoots and scores.
Plato: “Sorry about that.”
One last time our substantial fan base burst into cheers. This time my sister’s friend (¿Katie?... sorry, Katie) ran back and forth in the stands with the team flag.
¡GOAL! WAO5 (34th min): ¡F! 4 -- WAO5s 2
Big Duke was called for a handball. Not a bad one or something his fault. A WAO5 kicked the ball at him and it happened to hit his arm. The spot of the kick was roughly 20-yards out and to the left of the goal.
For some reason our marking up was awkward and we generally seemed a little out of sorts in defending the kick. It didn’t really matter because the WAO5 guy blasted a picture perfect shot into the upper right corner of the goal. Nothing Elliot could have done about it.
¡GOAL! WAO5s (45th min): ¡F! 4 -- WAO5s 3
This was the result of dubious decision making by your ¡FUTURISMOS! I can’t remember who it was but a defender had the ball on our side of the pitch and a WAO5 guy attacked her/him. Rather than finding someone to pass the ball to s/he decided to try and dribble the ball by the attacking WAO5 who ended up stealing the ball, controlling it, and had a clear path to the goal. He blasted the ball into the upper left corner. Again, a perfect shot. Nothing Elliot could have done about it.
That meant with 3-minutes to play the WAO5s were only down 1.
The Final 3 Minutes
To be honest both teams looked tired in the last few minutes. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! basically played 5 defenders with 1 forward lingering at midfield. But WAO5s were gassed. In particular their star player, whom I don’t think took a break the whole match, was a shadow of his former self.
It was still intense though. I think Elliot had to make a couple of saves. We narrowly missed a game-icing goal (the person who missed the opportunity will remain unnamed based on her earlier Hindsight Game Saving play). The clock ticked safely away. The fan rejoiced. Britney blew the whistle thrice signaling full time and your ¡FUTURISMOS! were champions.
FULL TIME
I hugged more people in a shorter period of time than I ever have before. And I love hugging so that’s saying something.
Player of the Match: Elliot
I promise this will be the last time this season I go on and on about Elliot’s keeping.
Run MC was at the match but couldn’t play so she took notes to help me with the blog. I swear every other note is about Elliot making a diving save. After the match a few of us went out for beverages and food. I asked everyone what she or he thought the play of the game was. The first person said “Elliot made this amazing diving save” and it ended the conversation because all everyone talked about after that was Elliot’s keeping. I’m telling you, it’s a sight to behold.
But you may be thinking, “I don’t know anything about futbol so I won’t be able to appreciate it.” I guarantee you will.
My Grandma attended the match. She’s 89 (I think) and this was her first ever futbol match of any sort. Here’s verbatim the first thing she said to me after the match.
“I’ve never watched a soccer game before but by the end I was starting to understand. I think the reason you won was your goalie was better than theirs.”
Keeping so good you don’t have to be able to appreciate it to appreciate it.
Thank you, Elliot. Without you the ¡FUTURISMOS! are in a pitched battle for the top of the bottom rather than the championship.
Never Underestimate the Definition of a Champion
"Champion" is a funny word because its two meanings are diametrically opposed in a critical way. The primary definition is “a person who has defeated or surpassed all rivals in a competition, esp. in sports.” The secondary is “a person who fights or argues for a cause or on behalf of someone else.”
The difference between the two boils down to ¿who benefits from the Champion’s efforts? In the first instance it’s the Champion (i.e. selfish). In the second it’s the cause or people the Champion is fighting for (i.e. selfless). That’s a stark difference and it calls into question one of the basic divisions in life:
¿What is the elemental unit of human life: the individual or the group?
Part of what people love so much about team sports is it forces that question into the glaring, ugly light of day on a regular basis. Kobe Bryant is largely hated because he ostentatiously puts himself ahead of his team. Kevin Garnett is largely loved because he exuberantly puts his team ahead of himself.
You might be thinking “¿can an athlete really meet the second criteria outside of some extraordinary circumstances, like Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics?” I think so.
For example, Kevin Garnett played 12 seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves and then was traded to the Boston Celtics. His departure from Minnesota was mildly acrimonious because KG didn’t really want to leave but the T-Wolves felt compelled to trade him because they knew they couldn’t build a contender around him and needed to start rebuilding for the future. In his first season with the Celtics KG won an NBA Championship.
He was interviewed on the court just moments after winning the championship and did one of the most unexpected things I’ve ever seen an athlete do. After breaking down crying a couple of times, bellowing, and struggling to find some sense of composure he went into a string of shout outs.
“¡This is for everybody back in ‘Sota!”
‘Sota is how KG refers to Minnesota. Surely this is the first time in the history of professional sports that someone has won a championship and immediately called out the state she or he used to play in. I, being one of the people who make up ‘Sota, got teary eyed. In a tiny, ephemeral way, I was part of what KG was thinking about in the glow of the culmination of his life’s dream.
No, it isn’t one man showing up a burgeoning racist, anti-Semitic (and short-lived) empire but it is something--the revelation that KG recognizes that without people watching the games the NBA is nothing more than an expensive rec-league.
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! are no different.
¿I wonder how long any of us would keep playing if our friends, family, and significant others didn’t at least feign interested in our playing? ¿How long would the ¡FUTURISMOS! last as club without the explicit support of Colle+McVoy? ¿How long would the ¡FUTURISMOS! last without the occasional C+Mite showing up to a match? ¿How long without the small but dedicated C+Mite blog readers (Ray Klempka, Lisa Miller, Greg Wetzel, Cynthia Clanton, Dominic Simonetti, Rebecca Gutierrez, Ann Strong… that I know of)? And on a personal note, ¿how long without my friends and family occasionally commenting on the blog?
So this is the ¡FUTURISMOS! version of, “¡This is for everyone back in ‘SOTA!” Without all of you at least pretending to care we don’t mean much.
I leave it up to you to determine what kind of Champion that makes us.
Until next season…
… which starts Sunday, July 13th.
1 comment:
The Eternal Blue Sky was certainly watching over the club, sending me into fits of sunscreen application.
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