Season 7, Playoff Game 1: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 — Nuts & Gum 1

¿Did Buddha Ever Call Someone An Asshole?
This is a serious question and I encourage anyone who’d like to discuss it to let me know and we can go out for an appropriate beverage.

Beyond a doubt there are people who are assholes in this world. Proper Aristotelian Theory of Forms Assholes, as opposed to Relativistic Assholes. In the later case people are assholes due to perceptual differences. For example Democrats can think Republicans are assholes based on nothing more than their political affiliation—and vice-verse, or course—but aside from that get along perfectly fine (see: James Carville and Mary Matalin). I’m not talking about Relativistic Assholes here. There’s no way Buddha call a Relativistic Asshole an asshole. That would clearly be falling for one of Lord Mara’s perceptual pratfalls.

For instance, I endlessly talk and sing while I’m playing or standing on the sidelines. [¿Who’s surprised?] It’s all completely random and very little has anything to do with the match. I keep it clean and save all my derision for Messi. So it’s innocuous but some people don’t see it that way. They perceive it as taunting and, as such, me as an asshole. Fair enough, I say, because even though I know they’re bothered I’m not going to stop because I know it’s harmless frivolity. I’m not responsible for everyone getting my sense of humor. So I’m a kind of asshole. Fine, but I doubt Buddha would call me out on it.

I’m talking about Aristotelian Theory of Forms Assholes. The kind of asshole who has it built into her or his DNA/soul. It’s part of their being in the same immutable way eye color is. It doesn’t matter how a neutral observer looks at it or feel about it, the person is an asshole.

¿So would Buddha have called an Aristotelian Theory of Forms Asshole an asshole? Not out of anger. Not out of spite. Just to call something by its proper name. No different than Buddha saying, “The first Noble Truth is all of life is suffering. The Earth goes around the Sun. And, by the way, Dick Cheney is an asshole.”

I don’t have an answer. That’s what we could discuss over a beverage. I suspect Buddha would not, though. So, Buddha, please forgive me my karmic trespass because this is an essential part of understanding how fulfilling this win was.

A certain member of Nuts & Gum as an outright, proper Aristotelian Theory of Forms Asshole. His Christian name shall not be spoken here but he does have a Nom de Futbol: Gollem. My first ever bad spirited Nom de Futbol. Painful, but true.

I identified Gollem’s potential Asshole-ness in our first game against Nuts & Gum this season. At the time I didn’t think it was Asshole-ness though, I thought he was just really un-fun. Perhaps one of those people who hates his life and futbol is his outlet for that frustration. Then we played him again when he subbed for another club we played and his nature as an Asshole was confirmed.

Here’s the only detailed account I’ll give you about his Assholiness so I can move on from this unpleasant businees.

We played Nuts & Gum back in game 2 of this season. They were going to be short a lady and we had a surplus so we loaned them Run MC for the match. We lost 2-3 in a good game and Run MC scored one of their goals. So not only did we loan them a player she scored in a game decided by a goal. Very sporting of us, I’d say.

This will sound mundane but it’s important. N&G wore white jerseys and we wore our customary Argentine Blue and White jerseys. [Check out the picture of Your ¡FUTURISMOS! in the upper right to see the jerseys in question.]

Our playoff match started with Gollem and me meeting at the center of the pitch with ref to do the pre-game “I want a good, clean, fun, match” thing. N&G’s regular season record was 5-1-1, ours was 2-3-2, so they were the home team and got to decide whether they wanted to start with the ball. Gollem let us start with the ball and then said, “there’s too much white in your shirt.” The ref said, “they’re the home team, so, ¿do you have other shirts you can wear?”

First of all, bullshit. I’ve NEVER heard this complaint before and we’ve played teams wearing white literally dozens of times. Second, ¡¡¡ASSHOLE!!! Last time we played we ¡¡LOANED THEM A PLAYER WHO SCORED THE WINNING GOAL AGAINST HER OWN TEAM!!! Seriously, ¡¿¡¿WTF?!?!

So even though I like N&G as a team—two of my favorite people play for them, Diosa and Photonicorn, and their keeper played with us once and is literally one of the nicest people I’ve played with (in my own defense I dedicated a short section to how much I liked them in the blog entry for game 2)—but I can’t get over the Gollem thing. I’m suspicious this is why Buddha wouldn’t call anyone an asshole, because he wouldn’t have cared enough to do so. Well, LO AND BEHOLD… turns out I’m not the reincarnation of the Buddha. Zagnut, I guess I can cross that career off the list.

So anyone who’s interested, let me know if you’d like to discuss this burning question of Buddhism.

And to the CSC officials who read the blog (that’s right, at least a couple do) feel free to punish me if this is considered an infraction of some CSC policy. Give me a blue card to start a game. Suspend me for the championship. Banish me from the league. I’m ready for my punishment… in addition to another round of life on Earth. Ugh.

¿Greatest Win In ¡FUTURISMOS! History?
How your ¡FUTURISMOS! made the playoffs this season is a mystery. With a 2-3-2 record we were either at the bottom of the middle or the top of the bottom of the league, depending on your perspective. There were 34 teams with a better record, 21 teams with worse records, and 1 with the same record. ¿Perhaps CSC had subscribed to their own version of grade inflation and let everyone into the “playoffs”? Nope. I checked.

The Fates are meticulous record keepers and no lucky break goes unbalanced. For our fortune they gave us a match against Nuts & Gum. They tied for the 3rd best record in the league and finished the regular season by shellacking the, at that point, undefeated We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s to the pasting of 6-2. It also meant we’d be without Diosa as a rule because N&G don’t have an army of ladies at their disposal. Of course, it can’t be overlooked, it also meant we’d be playing against Gollem.

I’m not generally inclined to walk around thinking, “I want to win our upcoming match.” I walk around thinking, “I hope our next match is fun. Like, really fun. Like when it’s over ¡SOLUSTRON! comes down to tell me, ‘That’s it. That’s the pinnacle of fun on Earth. ¿Do you want to come back with me now or play out the string on your life?’ I should peruse The White Stripes library to find a new song to sing and chant…”

For nearly two weeks (we had a week off because of Labor Day) I’ve been walking around saying, “Oh, Great Blue Sky, please grant us victory against N&G this week. Please. Seriously, pretty please. I’m not kidding. I’ll even forget the whole You Not Giving Me The Millennium Falcon thing from waaaaay back.” This line of thought got to a fever pitch where I disturbed myself with it and ultimately sat down and wrote my feelings on the subject longhand so as to track them back to their source and understand this desire in a new, less destructive, light. [It worked, by the way. Usually does.]

We played well against N&G back in game 2, it was arguably our best game of the season, and they still beat us without a lady sub when we had 2. I fully expected to loose this match. Oh, man, did I NOT want to, but ultimately some clubs are just better than others. It’s the law of the land. C’est la vie. They were 5-1-1 and scored a total of 31 goals. We were 2-3-2 and scored a total of 13. It doesn’t take a genius, you do the math.

¿So what outcome did you come up with, genius? Probably the same one I did.

After the match the first thing TB said to me, “Greatest win in ¡FUTURISMOS! history.”

Not our best match, ¿but our best win? I can’t argue with that.

And so beyond any logic known beyond the mind collective of The Fates, ¡SOLUSTRON!, and The Great Blue Sky, your ¡FUTURISMOS! have advanced in the playoffs.

[FOOTNOTE: I’m not sure whether it’s the semi-finals or finals next week. This was supposed to be a 10 game season and we’ve played 8. So there should be 2 games left, but you can’t have a 3-week playoff race without an odd number of teams. All of the top teams played playoff games so they didn’t get byes against non-playoff clubs. ¡DON’T PANIC! I’ll inquire with the CSC and invite everyone to the Finals if that’s next week or, if we advance, the week after.]

Roll Call
Ladies: die Kaiserin (Li’l Pete’s brand spankin’ new Nom de Futbol… more on this later), Zarate, Messi, and Run MC. Diosa was there but playing for Nuts & Gum. The Photonicorn, who’s played with us a couple times, was there but also playing for Nuts & Gum
Gentlemen: Elliot, TB, Heartbreaker, King Vidor, Touro, Big Pete, El Duque and Me.

Weather
The Great Blue Sky givith and then stuck around to take in her/his/its own glory. It was literally perfect. The sun was setting. It was 65-degrees with a light breeze. Cool enough to be cool but not cold. The air was dry. There were a smattering of clouds, like the cheongsams Maggie Cheung wore in Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” a divine accoutrement for the innately resplendent.

That is to say the weather was very nice.

KICK OFF
The game started awkwardly because we had to deal with this last second jersey change. ¡FUTURISMOS! were shuffling on and off as the ref was trying to get things started. We looked ragtag with shirt colors ranging from black to brown to orange to green to blue to our actual jerseys. But after a few awkward seconds both teams settled in and the level play was high for both clubs.

From the get go there were close chances for both clubs and the ball pinged around the pitch from end to end. It was fun stuff.

¡N&G GOAL! A Tall Guy, I think (5th min): ¡F! 0 — N&G 1
N&G scored first and it was early. I can’t remember if a corner kick started this but the ball ended up bouncing around in front our goal and up being sent out, perhaps a ¡FUTURISMO! was clearing it and it was blocked, but the ball ended up finding its way to a N&G guy 20 yards out and he riffled a shot that ended up beating a diving Elliot inside the right post.

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I didn’t see it. At the moment the ball was kicked I’d looked away to say something to King Vidor. I’m told it was a great shot. I won’t dispute it.]

HALF TIME
That was the first half. Both teams played well. Like I said, the ball flew around and there were several near chances for both clubs. The mood was upbeat. Hey, we were huge underdogs and only down a goal at the half. Good deal.

¡F GOAL! TB (26th min): ¡F! 1 — N&G 1
TB is a steady goal scorer for us but he hadn’t scored all season. An accurate reflection of the team as a whole. To say TB picked a fine time to bag his first onion of the session is an understatement. To say he redefined the “nutmeg” is also an understatement.

In lingua futbol a “nutmeg” is when you kick the ball through someone’s legs. It’s one of the basic ways to get burned/burn someone. If you get nutmegged invariably someone will tease you about it. I guess it’s roughly the equivalent of shooting a free-throw air ball. Before I explain TB’s redefining the nutmeg I have to introduce you to another character.

There was a guy playing for N&G that wasn’t one of their regulars. He’s literally ALWAYS there though. I think he shows up when the first games of the day start and stays all day to sub for people or critique games. He’s a good natured guy and he sure pays attention because in the past he’s accurately called out some of the idiosyncrasies of our players to me while I was standing on the sideline and he’d never played against. He also thinks he’s AWESOME. He’s good—waaaaaaay better than I am—but not noticeably better than (or perhaps as good as) Elliot or Kaiserin.

The only thing that’s annoying is he’s the Hermione of the CSC. [That would make Diosa and me the Weasley Twins of the CSC and thus annoying in a different way.] He’s a know-it-all who’s always telling you what you should be doing differently and offering “helpful” criticisms. And he’ll freely critique you to someone else while you’re standing right next to him.

Don’t get me wrong, Dumbledore bless this man, because he’s jovial and highly interested. So I appreciate him and can overlook just about anything irritating about him (sort of like Diosa’s streaks where she won’t pass) but his Hermione-ness made TB’s Ultimate Nutmeg worthy of this lengthy description.

On to the play.

The ball was rolling toward the N&G keeper. Hermione was (legally) shielding it from TB, who was right on his back. The N&G keeper came up to kick the ball away but for some reason Hermione decided to carry it even though TB was behind him. It appeared Hermione was going to carry the ball all the way across the face of his own goal. You have to appreciate this: that’s not a violation of Futbol 101—it’s a violation of Futbol 1. It would be like shooting at your own goal/basket or returning a punt/kick the wrong way. I won’t even guess at what he was thinking.

So there was this frozen moment where the N&G keeper thought he was going to kick the ball and Hermione kept the ball and went past him and it seemed like he paused for an instant, ¿perhaps to set up a move?, but TB was right behind him. TB then poked his leg BETWEEN HERMIONE’S LEGS and kicked the ball into the N&G net from behind while the keeper was stuck where he thought he’d be kicking the ball away.

¡TB’S FIRST GOAL OF THE SEASON!

This has redefined the nutmegging. TB didn’t just kick the ball between a guy’s legs. From behind he kicked between a guy's legs to the ball that was in front of that guy and in so doing scored a goal to tie a playoff match. And that guy was a know-it-all who’s always lurking about to tell you what you’re doing wrong and criticize your own teammates to you.

That’s not a nutmeg, that a full on Eggnog.

Thank you, TB.

¡F GOAL! Kaiserin (40th min): ¡F! 2 — N&G 1
In the 30th minute die Kasierin called over the sideline to ask Run MC, “¿do you want to come in?” Run MC and I yelled back in unison, “¡NO!” Run MC then turned to me and said, “She should never come out. She’s the bedrock of our defense. We just aren’t the same without her.”

¡AMEN!

A minute later we’d earned a corner. TB launched a good ball into the N&G box, too far from the keeper to corral, and a N&G defender headed the ball away. As The Fates would have it not away enough. Die Kasierin, our central defender, was pushing up for the corner. The ball came bouncing toward her and she laid into it from 20-yards out.

The ball was upper-shin high when she hit it—an easy one to send to the moon—and between her and the goal was a mess of humanity. It was out of corner so there were at least 8 people in the box plus the keeper. How that ball found its way through that labyrinth of arms, legs, heads, torsos, and the left post only ¡SOLUSTRON! and The Great Blue Sky laugh about.

But just like Paris’ arrow found it’s way to Achilles heel with the help of Apollo’s guidance, die Kaiserin’s shot wended a path through a forest dancing in a tornado and safely home into the net.

¿Goal?

Nay.

¡GOAL!

I might be most closely associated with the ¡FUTURISMOS! but our most beloved player is Sarah Pollpeter. She is indisputably the heart of the team. I believe this was her third career goal. I remember the fist one vividly because I was standing 20 feet behind her when she scored it. It was similar to this one where she’d pressed up, found herself with the ball, and let fly from distance.

After that first goal she turned around, ran at me and literally leapt into my arms at centerfield. This time she kept running forward into a throng of ¡FUTURISMOS! and they were all yelping and bouncing up and down like a pack of elementary schoolers thrilled at the prospect of watching a movie in clas.

I’m telling ya’ll, The Great Blue Sky really was on hand for this match. Pollpeter has long been overdue for a better Nom de Futbol. I didn’t really give her Li’l Pete. She took it herself to distinguish herself from Big Pete.

So in recognition of Pollpeter’s stellar, bedrock defense and her timely critical goal scoring she’s being named after the greatest defender/goal scorer of them all: Franz “der Kaiser” Beckenbauer.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present, die Kaiserin (the Empress).

The Final 5 Minutes
¿What would a closely played critical game be without Elliot? A loss, of course, and this was no different.

The last 5 minutes were nuts-o. We almost scored a couple times on close calls (twice King Vidor found the wrong side of the post). But the last couple of minutes were a crucible. N&G pressed hard and had a handful of great chances to level.

The two highlights were a Gollem blast (the defender had correctly played him forcing him to the outside thereby decreasing the angle he had for the shot) headed for the upper right corner that a diving Elliot not only saved but held on to. The other was a full on melee where the ball was bouncing around in front of our goal and Elliot somehow managed to kick save a pointblank shot. That one elicited a relived sigh of “best keeper in the league” from TB who was standing next to me. No doubt about it.

FULL TIME

¿Championship Final Preview?
As I mentioned earlier I’m confused about whether next week really is the final, but I think it is. ¿And guess who I think we’re playing? We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s. That’s right, Carmichael’s de facto club and the one we beat last season for the championship. I’m not making this up. I couldn’t if I tried (that’s a lie).

Last season’s championship match was an acrimonious affaire. So awkward and bitter it was that I broke off friendly relations with them. All I’m saying is if your ¡FUTURISMOS! are playing the WAAO-5000s for the championship I want a minimum turnout of 20 fans. It’ll be crazy. ¿They’re actually our rival and we’d be facing them for the championship two seasons in row?

If The Great Blue Sky deigned to put this performance on for you the least you can do is show up. I won’t be taking attendance (that’s another lie) but you better believe ¡SOLUSTRON! will be.

Stay tuned.