Pre-Game
The Paradoxical Nature of Heaven
Once upon a time my father, brother and I were eating at an Applebee’s. I would have been about 13-years-old and the topic of conversation was “heaven.” Of the three of us I was the only one who held that heaven could exist. My brother and father ridiculed me. I’m pretty sure Siddhartha and Jesus went through similar trials.
The only exchange I remember of that life-changing Applebee’s lunch was father asking me what one does in heaven. I said whatever brought the most joy. He asked what that would be for me.
“Playing futbol,” I said.
My father replied, “¿Who would you play against?”
“Other people,” I said.
“¿I presume you win?”
Not seeing where this was going I walked right into his Heffalump trap (deftly dug, as Piglet instructed Pooh, where I was going to be walking “only about a foot further on”) “Of course, it isn’t fun to lose,” I said.
“Well,” father said, basking in his rhetorical checkmate, “¿how does the other team feel about loosing?”
My belief in heaven died that day in Applebee’s.
Little did I know that some 20 years later father’s Sophistry would take the corporeal form of Crush. It wasn’t that we utterly annihilated them. We didn’t. We just soundly beat them and controlled the game from wire to wire even though we started the game short a lady.
¿Was the game fun? Absolutely. I’d go so far as to call it “a blast.” I think Crush had fun for the most part too. I’m sure they had a stretch, probably the first 12-minutes of the second half, that wasn’t fun but in the end I saw many of them smiling and laughing.
Even with all that I must confess I don’t have much to say about Game 6. It feels like both poor form to go on for 3,000+ words (I limited myself to just over half that) on a game like this and (¿worse?) boring too. In the end it would still read Goal 1; Goal 2; Goal 3; Goal 4, Goal 5; They score; Full time.
Perhaps this is what father was getting at in that Applebee’s all those years ago. That the nature of joy isn’t so straightforward. That for heaven to be Heaven you still have to lose now and then. And that if that’s the case there’s no reason we can’t make heaven on Earth because while perfection is in short supply down here we’ve got plenty of pain to sweeten the our occasional pleasures.
Roll Call
Ladies: Messi, Yoda, Marta (on loan from Double Ataris), Blue (on loan from Double Ataris). Attendance problems persist for the ladies and thank ¡SOLUSTRON! that King Vidor is the captain of another club we can pilfer from on a regular basis.
Gentlemen: Elliot, King Vidor, Socrates, Plato, Big Duke, and me.
KICK OFF
¡Goal! Big Duke (5th minute): ¡F! 1 -- Crush 0
Big Duke brought the ball in from the left wing and passed it to me in the middle. I immediately tapped the ball forward into the space in front of Big Duke about 10 yards from the goal for him to run to (a “give and go,” it’s the same concept as in basketball or hockey). He got to the ball an instant before the Crush keeper and fired right into the guy. The ball bounced off the Crush keeper back into Big Duke and he essentially bodied the ball into the goal.
¡Goal! Blue (15th minute): ¡F! 2 -- Crush 0
I can’t remember if Blue ended up with the ball because of deft ¡FUTURISMO! passing or if she stole the keeper’s inbound pass. I think it was the later. Either way she kicked a thigh-high a bouncing ball from 15 yards out and scored.
Halftime
We were up 2 but it could have been 4 or 5. We had a couple of chances where the Crush keeper saved the ball but couldn’t control it and a mad scramble by Crush to clear it ensued averting sure ¡FUTURISMO! goals.
On the other end Elliot was rarely tested. They had one guy who got a couple of good chances but always at tough angles because he was well defended. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were a relaxed lot at the half.
¡Goal! Me (27th minute): ¡F! 3 -- Crush 0
I was playing right forward. Big Duke got the ball at midfield. I looked up and saw not a single defender between me and the goal. I was off, sprinting up pitch. Big Duke saw me and made a perfect pass. The ball and I met at the edge of box. At full sprint I really just redirected the ball rather than kicking it and it ended up going by a diving keeper just inside the right post.
[In case you’re wondering, yes, all your ¡FUTURISMOS! went semi-nuts. A wave of elation washed over everyone. Elliot bellowed “¡Now that’s a real goal! ¡Now that’s a real goal!” It’s a clear sign that someone doesn’t often score if people get excited about a routine goal. That’s the upside of never scoring: When you do it’s an event.]
¡Goal! TB (30th minute): ¡F! 4 -- Crush 0
A classic TB goal. He received the ball in the middle of the pitch at the edge of box. Made move to his left to get space from his defender then fired back across the goal high into the net over the keeper.
¡Goal! TB (35th minute): ¡F! 5 -- Crush 0
A kind of backwards replay of TB's previous goal but this time he received the ball to the left of the goal at the edge of the box, made his move to the right and fired the ball in over the keeper from the middle of the pitch.
12-Minutes to Play and the Game Was Over
Elliot made me keeper shortly after TB’s second goal. That is the universally recognized sign for “we are so in control of this game that we are no longer worried about allowing goals so Sawyer will keep.” There were stretches were it felt like the ball didn’t even reach our side of the pitch. Our passing was the best I’ve ever seen. The ball popped around so quickly and smoothly it felt like a drill at times.
¡Goal! The Really Good Crush Guy: ¡F! 5 -- Crush 1
The Crush guy who had the terrific shots in the first half was due and I was in the goal so he was going to get paid. He ended up with the ball and a clear shot from about 10 yards out, which was straight at me on the ground. I tried to get down on it but the ball ended up going through my knees as I fell to the ground.
Full time
Post Game
My Weekly Special Thanks to PEOPLE Who Aren’t ¡FUTURISMOS! But Without Whom We Couldn’t Play
Both of the Double Atari ladies who stepped in for us were excellent. Blue scored and played well all around. Everyone tells me the other lady’s name was Jo but I don’t believe it for a second. I’m stone cold certain her name is Marta, as in Brazil’s Marta, the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year. At one point she was directing the offense from midfield by just shouting out where the person with the ball should pass. She was phenomenal both in her ball skills and her command of the game.
Plato, Socrates’ brother, was also on hand and excellent, but as Captain Emeritus I’ve conferred honorary club status upon him because I reckon (hope) we’ll be seeing more of him.
It’s Official: Unitarians Are Right (or the tragic injury of Messi’s knees followed by a recovery that can only be explained as a miracle)
Believe me, all of my non-Unitarian brothers and sisters, this is as bitter a pill for me to swallow as it is for the rest of you. If I hadn’t been 4-feet from this event and witnessed it with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe it either. So, non-Unitarians, please take a seat because this is going to turn your conception of the heavens inside out.
A Crush lady, let’s call her Reckoning, was bringing the ball up along the sideline right in front of the ¡FUTURISMOS! bench and Messi was the nearest ¡FUTURISMO! Under normal circumstance Messi would rather play barefoot than defend someone but she must have been confounded with an ethereal disorientation because she actually stepped up and got in the way. Reckoning attempted to pass the ball toward the middle but banged it into Messi’s knee. The ball dropped to the ground at Messi’s feet less than a yard from the sideline.
At this point both Messi and Reckoning froze for an instant. All Messi had to do was gently tap the ball and send it out of bounds to end the Crush attack. But the great god of Unitarianism--¡SOLUSTRON!--made it not so. Messi stood frozen and Reckoning simply stepped by her, tiptoeing with the ball along the sideline, and proceeded with the Crush attack.
I called out to Messi, “By the will of ¡SOLUSTRON!, dear Messi, ¿why hath thee declined to simply raise thy foot to extirpate the Crush onslaught?”
Messi, snorting in pain, responded, “Heathen, ¿do not thine eyes convey the truth like the eternal flame of Unitarianism guides our path to peace, justice and equality? The Reckoning did send the ball into my knee and as a result I stand before you broken. Alas, I am so young but this will be my last day on Earth. I am finished. Tell my parents they sat at the head of the table of my heart and auction off my worldly goods to raise money for comprehensive sex education programs.”
I took a deep breath to commence singing my keen for a mortally wounded teammate when a ¡FUTURISMO! stole the ball to snuff out the Crush attack. Messi looked up and saw nothing but open pitch between herself and the Crush goal--not a defender in sight. And here, dear ¡FUTURISMO! fans, was when the miracle took place.
Messi, an instant before so seriously injured she couldn’t nudge a ball out of bounds or move a foot to stop Reckoning, was miraculously healed and took off sprinting toward the Crush goal bellowing at the top of her lungs for the ball. I sincerely doubt I need to tell you what changed in that moment but, of course, I will.
¡SOLUSTRON! reached out from behind The Great Rainbow of Non-Denominational Enlightenment and healed Messi with her/his/its own hand/paw/hoof/fin/extremity/tubular ending.
I know, my fellow non-Unitarians. I wouldn't believe it either had I not witnessed the miracle with my own eyes. But I did. ¡SOLUSTRON! is real and Unitarians are right but that doesn’t make them any less weird.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Game 5: ¡FUTURISMOS! 4 -- Mad Dogs 3
¿IS THAT YOU GOD? IT’S ME, SAWYER
Perhaps you’re familiar with the story that illustrates a common conception about how Gods work on Earth. It goes something like there’s a flood and a dude is stuck on his roof. All these people try to help him off but he keeps shooing them away saying, “Don’t worry, God will save me.” After finally waving off a helicopter the water overtakes him and he drowns.
When the dude gets to heaven and meets God he says, “God, ¿What’s your deal? You totally let me drown.”
God replies, “¿What’s my deal? ¿What’s YOUR deal? I sent you a canoe, then a rowboat… then finally a helicopter and you just wouldn’t take the hint.”
If Game 5 proves anything it’s that I’m that dude.
As detailed in last week’s recap the fate of our season hung in the balance in game 5. For the vast majority of the game’s 48 minutes your ¡FUTURISMOS! were outplayed by Mad Dogs. [They really should have run away with the match and would have were it not for yet another stellar performance from Elliot betwixt the timbers.] We were just plain ugly for long stretches setting the stage for another common religious parable.
Humans are only truly ready to see the light when things are darkest. The first few minutes of the second half are among the darkest your ¡FUTURISMOS! have stumbled through: down 3-1 and feeling lucky about the margin. Little could we have known the Gods had us right where they wanted us.
PREGAME STATUS
Game 5 took place on Mother’s Day, which guaranteed an odd assortment of ¡FUTURISMOS! [Apparently not everyone can plan his or her Mother’s Day events around the match… like I did.] We were in reasonable shape for Gentlemen: Elliot, Socrates, TB, King Vidor, and I were on hand.
Things get unusual for the ladies. Belle was there but her running mates were a pair of rookies. Lisa Lucas (nickname TBD) had played for us once during our inaugural season and hadn’t played in any way shape or form since. Rachel Dunagan (also nickname TBD) had never played for us and not at all in 10 years. In addition we picked up one of the Double Atari (King Vidor’s original and primary club) ladies to bolster our ranks. I think her name was Mindy but I’m not sure.
Conversely Mad Dogs had a ravenous pack. They had at least 3 gentlemen and 3 lady subs. Either they don’t have moms or --like I-- scheduled those festivities around the match. [Missing ¡FUTURISMOS!, I’m just saying, look into your hearts.]
THE WEATHER
The weather warrants a note because it was ridiculous. The air temperature was just shy of 60-degrees. Warm in the sun with a breeze bordering on cold. Nary a cloud in the sky.
A NOTE ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE GOALS
One last thing before we get underway. For the first time in club history we played with full-sized futbol goals. Compared to what we’re used to they are obscene. The UofM goals are probably 8’x8’. The Holy Angles are a more appropriate 8’x12’-ish. But these suckers are positively cavernous at 8-feet tall and 24-feet wide. Keep in mind we play on the equivalent of half a proper pitch so the goals look crazy big because they are.
AND WE’RE OFF
Right from the start Mad Dogs’ pace and a never ending supply of fresh people felt like they were playing with an extra player (wait a minute, ¿what if they were?). I quickly lost count of the number of times they intercepted the ball at midfield because two Mad Dogs would jump our inbound passes. Then on the attack it seemed like they were playing with 4 forwards to our 3 defenders.
Despite that your ¡FUTURISMOS! were the first to put the ball in the net. TB had a shot their keeper couldn’t control. There was a melee involving TB, their keeper and an MD defender. When it was over the ball ended up the Mad Dog net.
¡GOAL!
But no. It was waved off because the ref felt TB had slid to kick the ball. A no-no in the CSC. The goal was disallowed.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 0
King Vidor opened the scoring. From the left-side of the goal and roughly 10-yards out he took a shot at the right corner of the goal. The Mad Dog keeper got to it but couldn’t control it. The ball had some serious spin on it as King Vidor had attempted to curl it. As a result when the ball hit the ground after the Mad Dog keeper bobbled it instead of rolling away it bounced backwards into the goal.
From a distance it looked like the ball had a will of its own and decided it wanted to be in the net so it jumped in there of its own volition. Of course it was the Gods pushing it in. This would not be the weirdest goal of the game.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 1
The first Mad Dog goal was a direct result of their midfield dominance and their mystery fourth forward. An MD guy stole the ball at midfield and took off toward our goal with another MD guy running with him. I was our middle defender and shaded the ball carrier so he’d have to make a pass which he did. But it was a good pass and the other MD guy quickly controlled the ball. I sprinted to catch up with him -- because, again, it seemed like they always had one more person attacking than we had defending so there wasn’t a ¡FUTURISMO! to help.
I caught up with him 20-yards from the goal in line with the left post. At 15-yards we were shoulder to shoulder and I hoped with a couple more steps I could overtake him to cut him off but that’s when he shot with his left foot (I was on his right shoulder) and put the ball on the ground just inside the right post, the only place beyond Elliot’s reach. The shot was well taken and the goal most certainly deserved.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 2
This one was 100-percent, no-two-ways-about-it, stone-cold, my fault. I was still middle defender. A Mad Dog sent a ball long up the middle. I raced after it as it rolled toward our goal with a Mad Dog guy chasing me down from behind. I got to the ball around the same time it reached the ¡FUTURISMOS! box but I didn’t want to touch it both out of fear that I’d fumble it thereby leaving it for the Mad Dog trailing me and I thought Elliot would charge forward to pick it up. As a result I did nothing at exactly the wrong moment. The Mad Dog guy blew past me and had a wide-open shot as Elliot was caught wondering what the hell I was doing.
It was essentially an own goal (i.e. scoring on your own team)... which I literally did last season.
HALF TIME
We were exhausted and dejected. We’d just played our worst half in recent memory and felt lucky to be down a mere goal because the Mad Dogs dominated play and seemed to be everywhere. We had chances but it felt like they had twice as many. Our defense, under my watch, was largely a mess and on offence they always seemed to get a foot in our passing lanes.
Things looked grim.
THE OPENING MINUTES OF THE SECOND HALF
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “siege” as: a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.
The opening minutes of the second-half the Mad Dogs literally laid siege to our goal. They used the ball as a battering ram and their aim was to compel us to surrender to save Elliot’s life. I won’t even hazard a guess about how many shots they had on goal. They would steal the ball at midfield and a swarm of Mad Dogs would descend on the goal for shot after shot. It was brutal.
I’ve belabored this before and I will again. Elliot is a top-notch keeper and the only reason we didn’t get run off the pitch during this stretch was because of him. He turned away shot after shot. It was a dazzling display of keeping.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 3
A Mad Dog guy stole the ball at midfield (no, I’m not exaggerating on this point, they overran the midfield) near the right sideline. He streaked up field with the ball, his defender in his wake, and shot from just to the right of the goal. The ball found its way into the left corner. It took a perfectly placed shot to beat Elliot and that’s what it was.
MIDPOINT SECOND HALF
Things look bleak. We played worse to open the second half than we had in the first half and trailed 3-1. There was absolutely positively no sign things were going to turn around. This was night 14,599 in the desert and not one of us believed Moses had a clue anymore.
¡GOAL! King Vidor: ¡F! 2 -- Mad Dogs 3
From the get-go I encouraged everyone to take shots from what would normally be crazy distances because the nets were so big and the wind was blowing. Put those together and you just never know. As we passed into the final 12-minutes King Vidor finally took my advice.
From 20-yards out King Vidor lofted a shot toward the Mad Dog goal. Their keeper was playing too far off the line and backpedaled with the diving ball, leaping as it passed over his head but to no avail. The ball fell behind him into the net. A beautiful effort from the King.
MOMENTUM
The thing that’s weird about momentum in sports is its real. How it can be so is an honest-to-Gods mystery. Mad Dogs should have continued to run us over at this point. Nay, especially at this point. They had a legion of fresh players shuffling in and out. We had one gentleman sub and had lost our only lady reserve (Mindy had to go home). Your ¡FUTURISMOS! should have been running out of gas as Mad Dogs gleefully stepped on the accelerator.
Not only didn’t that happen it was nearly the opposite. From that point forward it was a pitched battle. Apparently the Gods were taking a more than passing interest in the affaire.
¡GOAL Socrates: ¡F! 3 -- Mad Dogs 3
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were awarded a free kick from just outside the Mad Dogs box a shade to the left of their goal. I can’t remember what happened to warrant the free kick. Socrates took the free kick and curled his shot to the right of the Mad Dog wall into the upper right of the goal.
TB screamed.
Mad Dogs walked around in a daze, stunned at what was happening. ¿Remember what Tom Brady looked liked during much of the Super Bowl? It wasn’t a begrudging sort of “man, huh, that’s the way it goes sometimes…” it was “___________.” They were astonished in the literal sense of being temporarily unable to respond.
6-minutes remained.
PLAY OF THE GAME ¡GOAL! Elliot: ¡F! 4 -- Mad Dogs 3
The six minutes between Socrates’ goal and the end of the game were crazy. We had another free kick just outside their box that narrowly missed. TB and the Mad Dog keeper got into it leading to the keeper throwing an elbow at TB. On the other end Elliot had to make a diving save but couldn’t control the ball so it was free in front of our goal but the Mad Dog shooter couldn’t control it well enough to take shot on an empty net and Socrates managed to get in the way and then clear the ball. I mean those 6-minutes were crazy like bellowing in pain and then relief ever 30-seconds.
Before I describe what happens next I have to point something out about futbol. When the clock hits zero the game is over no matter what’s going on.
In basketball you can score after the clock runs out just so long as the shooter got the ball off before the clock hit zero. In American-rules football a play can start with 1-second on the clock and then take as long as it takes for the player with the ball to get tackled, run out of bounds, or score. Plus in both of those sports the players can see how much time is left because there are clocks for them to look at. So scores “at the buzzer” are relatively common. We’ve all seen it happen.
Goals “at the buzzer” in futbol are exceedingly rare both because when the clock hits zero that’s it and because players can’t see how much time is left. Only the ref can see the time. Players have a sense of how much time is left because you ask the ref and he says “under a minute.” But the ref doesn’t run around counting down the seconds so you can’t think, “oh, man, there’s 2-second, I better shoot no matter where I am.”
With that in mind…
A miniscule but unknown amount of time was left in the game when the ball found its way to Elliot on the ¡FUTURISMOS! side of the pitch. Of course that’s where it would find him because he was the keeper. From roughly 35-yards out--again, on the wrong side of midfield--Elliot launched a shot. It was a high arcing ball and--again--the Mad Dog keeper was out of position.
At this point accounts differ about what happened. Some of us think the ball dropped over the keeper. Others thought the ball landed in front of the net and bounced past the keeper. A third opinion holds the ball bounced in front the keeper and then over him into the goal. It only stands to reason that everyone saw something different because the goal was miraculous.
Proof extinguishes faith. Once something has been proven it just is. It requires no special concentration or energy to believe. The miracle of a piece of metal moving other pieces of metal around without touching became magnetism once we saw the mechanism clearly. If a being fueled by faith to reveals itself too clearly it commits suicide. Hence everyone who saw the goal saw it differently because to have seen it directly would have killed the God who stole the ball into the goal.
However the ball got into the net at nearly the same instant the ref blew the whistle three times indicating full-time. The game was over and we had a not-to-be-believed victory. Everyone on our bench screamed and stormed the pitch to congratulate Elliot. [That is to say I screamed and ran out to congratulate him.]
Elliot, our keeper, scored the game-winning goal literally as time expired on a shot from beyond midfield. I’ve never seen a literal “buzzer beating” goal in futbol. I’ve seen goals scored seconds before the game ended but never as the game ended. Nor have I ever seen a goal scored from beyond midfield. I’ve seen one scored from exactly midfield but never beyond.
Astonishing. The only reasonable explanation is assistance from beings beyond reason.
LI’L PETE AWARD: ELLIOT
I know I’ve gone on about this before but it can’t be stressed enough. There’s a world of difference between a proper keeper and someone who happens to be playing the position of keeper. This game was a perfect illustration of the difference between the two. We scored 4 goals. Against a proper keeper we would have scored 1. Mad Dogs scored 3 goals but had they been shooting at their own keeper they would have scored 8 or more.
To wit…
The day belonged to Elliot. As I’ve already made clear he turned in a stunning performance minding a gargantuan goal. The barrage of shots he turned away in the first 12-minutes of the second half alone would have netted him the Li’l Pete Award.
It was thanks to Elliot’s fortitude that we stayed in the game. It was by the grace of his foot that we won.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: LISA LUCAS & RACHEL DUNAGAN
Lisa Lucas and Rachel Dunagan couldn’t have picked a better/worse day to make to make their season debuts. I know Ms. Dunagan thought she’d be spelling people for a few minutes at a time rather than being thrown to the dogs from minute one with only the occasional brief respite.
I know because she told me so on Friday. Even though I knew she’d likely be playing considerably more than that if not the whole game I didn’t warn her for fear she wouldn’t show up. Although Ms. Lucas and I didn’t talk about it I’m guessing she was thinking the same thing.
It’s no stretch of the truth to say we wouldn’t have won this game without them. In fact we probably wouldn’t have played at all without them. So huzzah to Ms. Lucas and Ms. Dunagan. Thanks to them we played one of our more miserable games and were rewarded with our most glorious victory.
¿GOD?... WHATEVER
Once upon a time in high school Dave, a friend of mine, and I walked to Super America in the middle of a moonless, black night to get dill pickle potato chips and sodas. Dave asked what it would take for me to believe in a religion. I told him it would take nothing short of Jesus--or Buddha or Zarathustra or whoever--literally appearing before me and saying, “Hi there. My name is Christ… Jesus Christ. It’s nice to meet you.” And then delivering a lecture before flying away to the Moon or wherever those types live.
At the time I didn’t appreciate how that sort of introduction would undermine the institution of faith. I appreciate it now and still maintain the same basic religion joining threshold (something that drives Unitarians crazy because they don’t have a divine ruler to visit me and therefore feel I’ve unfairly excluded their beliefs) but there are times I wonder if I’m not stuck on a roof turning away the Gods’ attempts to reach out to me.
As silly and small as it seems Game 5 was one of those times. If the Gods work in mysterious ways then they’re as likely to get in touch with you through funny looking potato chips as they are with divine bolts of clarity in times of dire emotional need.
Dr. Faust saw what the Gods’ were getting at in children playing in a field and traded his soul on the spot. As Elliot’s shot settled in the net under a celestial veil and the ref’s whistle sounded I was looking to make a deal.
Perhaps you’re familiar with the story that illustrates a common conception about how Gods work on Earth. It goes something like there’s a flood and a dude is stuck on his roof. All these people try to help him off but he keeps shooing them away saying, “Don’t worry, God will save me.” After finally waving off a helicopter the water overtakes him and he drowns.
When the dude gets to heaven and meets God he says, “God, ¿What’s your deal? You totally let me drown.”
God replies, “¿What’s my deal? ¿What’s YOUR deal? I sent you a canoe, then a rowboat… then finally a helicopter and you just wouldn’t take the hint.”
If Game 5 proves anything it’s that I’m that dude.
As detailed in last week’s recap the fate of our season hung in the balance in game 5. For the vast majority of the game’s 48 minutes your ¡FUTURISMOS! were outplayed by Mad Dogs. [They really should have run away with the match and would have were it not for yet another stellar performance from Elliot betwixt the timbers.] We were just plain ugly for long stretches setting the stage for another common religious parable.
Humans are only truly ready to see the light when things are darkest. The first few minutes of the second half are among the darkest your ¡FUTURISMOS! have stumbled through: down 3-1 and feeling lucky about the margin. Little could we have known the Gods had us right where they wanted us.
PREGAME STATUS
Game 5 took place on Mother’s Day, which guaranteed an odd assortment of ¡FUTURISMOS! [Apparently not everyone can plan his or her Mother’s Day events around the match… like I did.] We were in reasonable shape for Gentlemen: Elliot, Socrates, TB, King Vidor, and I were on hand.
Things get unusual for the ladies. Belle was there but her running mates were a pair of rookies. Lisa Lucas (nickname TBD) had played for us once during our inaugural season and hadn’t played in any way shape or form since. Rachel Dunagan (also nickname TBD) had never played for us and not at all in 10 years. In addition we picked up one of the Double Atari (King Vidor’s original and primary club) ladies to bolster our ranks. I think her name was Mindy but I’m not sure.
Conversely Mad Dogs had a ravenous pack. They had at least 3 gentlemen and 3 lady subs. Either they don’t have moms or --like I-- scheduled those festivities around the match. [Missing ¡FUTURISMOS!, I’m just saying, look into your hearts.]
THE WEATHER
The weather warrants a note because it was ridiculous. The air temperature was just shy of 60-degrees. Warm in the sun with a breeze bordering on cold. Nary a cloud in the sky.
A NOTE ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE GOALS
One last thing before we get underway. For the first time in club history we played with full-sized futbol goals. Compared to what we’re used to they are obscene. The UofM goals are probably 8’x8’. The Holy Angles are a more appropriate 8’x12’-ish. But these suckers are positively cavernous at 8-feet tall and 24-feet wide. Keep in mind we play on the equivalent of half a proper pitch so the goals look crazy big because they are.
AND WE’RE OFF
Right from the start Mad Dogs’ pace and a never ending supply of fresh people felt like they were playing with an extra player (wait a minute, ¿what if they were?). I quickly lost count of the number of times they intercepted the ball at midfield because two Mad Dogs would jump our inbound passes. Then on the attack it seemed like they were playing with 4 forwards to our 3 defenders.
Despite that your ¡FUTURISMOS! were the first to put the ball in the net. TB had a shot their keeper couldn’t control. There was a melee involving TB, their keeper and an MD defender. When it was over the ball ended up the Mad Dog net.
¡GOAL!
But no. It was waved off because the ref felt TB had slid to kick the ball. A no-no in the CSC. The goal was disallowed.
¡GOAL! KING VIDOR: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 0
King Vidor opened the scoring. From the left-side of the goal and roughly 10-yards out he took a shot at the right corner of the goal. The Mad Dog keeper got to it but couldn’t control it. The ball had some serious spin on it as King Vidor had attempted to curl it. As a result when the ball hit the ground after the Mad Dog keeper bobbled it instead of rolling away it bounced backwards into the goal.
From a distance it looked like the ball had a will of its own and decided it wanted to be in the net so it jumped in there of its own volition. Of course it was the Gods pushing it in. This would not be the weirdest goal of the game.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 1
The first Mad Dog goal was a direct result of their midfield dominance and their mystery fourth forward. An MD guy stole the ball at midfield and took off toward our goal with another MD guy running with him. I was our middle defender and shaded the ball carrier so he’d have to make a pass which he did. But it was a good pass and the other MD guy quickly controlled the ball. I sprinted to catch up with him -- because, again, it seemed like they always had one more person attacking than we had defending so there wasn’t a ¡FUTURISMO! to help.
I caught up with him 20-yards from the goal in line with the left post. At 15-yards we were shoulder to shoulder and I hoped with a couple more steps I could overtake him to cut him off but that’s when he shot with his left foot (I was on his right shoulder) and put the ball on the ground just inside the right post, the only place beyond Elliot’s reach. The shot was well taken and the goal most certainly deserved.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 2
This one was 100-percent, no-two-ways-about-it, stone-cold, my fault. I was still middle defender. A Mad Dog sent a ball long up the middle. I raced after it as it rolled toward our goal with a Mad Dog guy chasing me down from behind. I got to the ball around the same time it reached the ¡FUTURISMOS! box but I didn’t want to touch it both out of fear that I’d fumble it thereby leaving it for the Mad Dog trailing me and I thought Elliot would charge forward to pick it up. As a result I did nothing at exactly the wrong moment. The Mad Dog guy blew past me and had a wide-open shot as Elliot was caught wondering what the hell I was doing.
It was essentially an own goal (i.e. scoring on your own team)... which I literally did last season.
HALF TIME
We were exhausted and dejected. We’d just played our worst half in recent memory and felt lucky to be down a mere goal because the Mad Dogs dominated play and seemed to be everywhere. We had chances but it felt like they had twice as many. Our defense, under my watch, was largely a mess and on offence they always seemed to get a foot in our passing lanes.
Things looked grim.
THE OPENING MINUTES OF THE SECOND HALF
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “siege” as: a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.
The opening minutes of the second-half the Mad Dogs literally laid siege to our goal. They used the ball as a battering ram and their aim was to compel us to surrender to save Elliot’s life. I won’t even hazard a guess about how many shots they had on goal. They would steal the ball at midfield and a swarm of Mad Dogs would descend on the goal for shot after shot. It was brutal.
I’ve belabored this before and I will again. Elliot is a top-notch keeper and the only reason we didn’t get run off the pitch during this stretch was because of him. He turned away shot after shot. It was a dazzling display of keeping.
¡GOAL! Mad Dog Guy: ¡F! 1 -- Mad Dogs 3
A Mad Dog guy stole the ball at midfield (no, I’m not exaggerating on this point, they overran the midfield) near the right sideline. He streaked up field with the ball, his defender in his wake, and shot from just to the right of the goal. The ball found its way into the left corner. It took a perfectly placed shot to beat Elliot and that’s what it was.
MIDPOINT SECOND HALF
Things look bleak. We played worse to open the second half than we had in the first half and trailed 3-1. There was absolutely positively no sign things were going to turn around. This was night 14,599 in the desert and not one of us believed Moses had a clue anymore.
¡GOAL! King Vidor: ¡F! 2 -- Mad Dogs 3
From the get-go I encouraged everyone to take shots from what would normally be crazy distances because the nets were so big and the wind was blowing. Put those together and you just never know. As we passed into the final 12-minutes King Vidor finally took my advice.
From 20-yards out King Vidor lofted a shot toward the Mad Dog goal. Their keeper was playing too far off the line and backpedaled with the diving ball, leaping as it passed over his head but to no avail. The ball fell behind him into the net. A beautiful effort from the King.
MOMENTUM
The thing that’s weird about momentum in sports is its real. How it can be so is an honest-to-Gods mystery. Mad Dogs should have continued to run us over at this point. Nay, especially at this point. They had a legion of fresh players shuffling in and out. We had one gentleman sub and had lost our only lady reserve (Mindy had to go home). Your ¡FUTURISMOS! should have been running out of gas as Mad Dogs gleefully stepped on the accelerator.
Not only didn’t that happen it was nearly the opposite. From that point forward it was a pitched battle. Apparently the Gods were taking a more than passing interest in the affaire.
¡GOAL Socrates: ¡F! 3 -- Mad Dogs 3
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! were awarded a free kick from just outside the Mad Dogs box a shade to the left of their goal. I can’t remember what happened to warrant the free kick. Socrates took the free kick and curled his shot to the right of the Mad Dog wall into the upper right of the goal.
TB screamed.
Mad Dogs walked around in a daze, stunned at what was happening. ¿Remember what Tom Brady looked liked during much of the Super Bowl? It wasn’t a begrudging sort of “man, huh, that’s the way it goes sometimes…” it was “___________.” They were astonished in the literal sense of being temporarily unable to respond.
6-minutes remained.
PLAY OF THE GAME ¡GOAL! Elliot: ¡F! 4 -- Mad Dogs 3
The six minutes between Socrates’ goal and the end of the game were crazy. We had another free kick just outside their box that narrowly missed. TB and the Mad Dog keeper got into it leading to the keeper throwing an elbow at TB. On the other end Elliot had to make a diving save but couldn’t control the ball so it was free in front of our goal but the Mad Dog shooter couldn’t control it well enough to take shot on an empty net and Socrates managed to get in the way and then clear the ball. I mean those 6-minutes were crazy like bellowing in pain and then relief ever 30-seconds.
Before I describe what happens next I have to point something out about futbol. When the clock hits zero the game is over no matter what’s going on.
In basketball you can score after the clock runs out just so long as the shooter got the ball off before the clock hit zero. In American-rules football a play can start with 1-second on the clock and then take as long as it takes for the player with the ball to get tackled, run out of bounds, or score. Plus in both of those sports the players can see how much time is left because there are clocks for them to look at. So scores “at the buzzer” are relatively common. We’ve all seen it happen.
Goals “at the buzzer” in futbol are exceedingly rare both because when the clock hits zero that’s it and because players can’t see how much time is left. Only the ref can see the time. Players have a sense of how much time is left because you ask the ref and he says “under a minute.” But the ref doesn’t run around counting down the seconds so you can’t think, “oh, man, there’s 2-second, I better shoot no matter where I am.”
With that in mind…
A miniscule but unknown amount of time was left in the game when the ball found its way to Elliot on the ¡FUTURISMOS! side of the pitch. Of course that’s where it would find him because he was the keeper. From roughly 35-yards out--again, on the wrong side of midfield--Elliot launched a shot. It was a high arcing ball and--again--the Mad Dog keeper was out of position.
At this point accounts differ about what happened. Some of us think the ball dropped over the keeper. Others thought the ball landed in front of the net and bounced past the keeper. A third opinion holds the ball bounced in front the keeper and then over him into the goal. It only stands to reason that everyone saw something different because the goal was miraculous.
Proof extinguishes faith. Once something has been proven it just is. It requires no special concentration or energy to believe. The miracle of a piece of metal moving other pieces of metal around without touching became magnetism once we saw the mechanism clearly. If a being fueled by faith to reveals itself too clearly it commits suicide. Hence everyone who saw the goal saw it differently because to have seen it directly would have killed the God who stole the ball into the goal.
However the ball got into the net at nearly the same instant the ref blew the whistle three times indicating full-time. The game was over and we had a not-to-be-believed victory. Everyone on our bench screamed and stormed the pitch to congratulate Elliot. [That is to say I screamed and ran out to congratulate him.]
Elliot, our keeper, scored the game-winning goal literally as time expired on a shot from beyond midfield. I’ve never seen a literal “buzzer beating” goal in futbol. I’ve seen goals scored seconds before the game ended but never as the game ended. Nor have I ever seen a goal scored from beyond midfield. I’ve seen one scored from exactly midfield but never beyond.
Astonishing. The only reasonable explanation is assistance from beings beyond reason.
LI’L PETE AWARD: ELLIOT
I know I’ve gone on about this before but it can’t be stressed enough. There’s a world of difference between a proper keeper and someone who happens to be playing the position of keeper. This game was a perfect illustration of the difference between the two. We scored 4 goals. Against a proper keeper we would have scored 1. Mad Dogs scored 3 goals but had they been shooting at their own keeper they would have scored 8 or more.
To wit…
The day belonged to Elliot. As I’ve already made clear he turned in a stunning performance minding a gargantuan goal. The barrage of shots he turned away in the first 12-minutes of the second half alone would have netted him the Li’l Pete Award.
It was thanks to Elliot’s fortitude that we stayed in the game. It was by the grace of his foot that we won.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: LISA LUCAS & RACHEL DUNAGAN
Lisa Lucas and Rachel Dunagan couldn’t have picked a better/worse day to make to make their season debuts. I know Ms. Dunagan thought she’d be spelling people for a few minutes at a time rather than being thrown to the dogs from minute one with only the occasional brief respite.
I know because she told me so on Friday. Even though I knew she’d likely be playing considerably more than that if not the whole game I didn’t warn her for fear she wouldn’t show up. Although Ms. Lucas and I didn’t talk about it I’m guessing she was thinking the same thing.
It’s no stretch of the truth to say we wouldn’t have won this game without them. In fact we probably wouldn’t have played at all without them. So huzzah to Ms. Lucas and Ms. Dunagan. Thanks to them we played one of our more miserable games and were rewarded with our most glorious victory.
¿GOD?... WHATEVER
Once upon a time in high school Dave, a friend of mine, and I walked to Super America in the middle of a moonless, black night to get dill pickle potato chips and sodas. Dave asked what it would take for me to believe in a religion. I told him it would take nothing short of Jesus--or Buddha or Zarathustra or whoever--literally appearing before me and saying, “Hi there. My name is Christ… Jesus Christ. It’s nice to meet you.” And then delivering a lecture before flying away to the Moon or wherever those types live.
At the time I didn’t appreciate how that sort of introduction would undermine the institution of faith. I appreciate it now and still maintain the same basic religion joining threshold (something that drives Unitarians crazy because they don’t have a divine ruler to visit me and therefore feel I’ve unfairly excluded their beliefs) but there are times I wonder if I’m not stuck on a roof turning away the Gods’ attempts to reach out to me.
As silly and small as it seems Game 5 was one of those times. If the Gods work in mysterious ways then they’re as likely to get in touch with you through funny looking potato chips as they are with divine bolts of clarity in times of dire emotional need.
Dr. Faust saw what the Gods’ were getting at in children playing in a field and traded his soul on the spot. As Elliot’s shot settled in the net under a celestial veil and the ref’s whistle sounded I was looking to make a deal.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Game 4: ¡FUTURISMOS! 2 – Chickenmoose FC 2
THE GAME
I missed the game due to circumstance beyond my control (namely the distance between San Francisco and Minneapolis) so I know precious little beyond the outcome. I’m told there was a hodgepodge of ¡FUTURISMOS! on hand including Socrates’ brother—Plato, I presume—and Stacy Janicki who was by all reports a class goal keeper. Big Duke (aka “John Wayne” aka “John Warne”) and Plato each scored and your ¡FUTURISMOS! held a 1-goal lead down the stretch. Alas, a defensive lapse in the waning moments led to a Chickenmoose counter attack goal to level. Time.
SEASON 6 THUS FAR: ¿RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT?
The captain of CL’s We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s quipped before our season opening game “I’ve seen the future… and it doesn’t look bright.” We responded by throttling them 5-0 but through 4 games the luminosity factor of your ¡FUTURISMOS! is very much in doubt.
After blasting out of the gate with 2 resounding victories we suffered a scoreless draw against a team we’d thrice defeated followed by this last second collapse. This is surely a divine quip from the Gods regarding your ¡FUTURISMOS! relative shine.
¿Is this plateau of draws to be a launching pad from which we take flight to regain our place burning brightly in the league’s stratosphere? ¿Or is it a precipice from which we drop marking the end of a glorious beginning, consigned -- like all other shooting stars -- to the status of dust?
The answer to those questions lies beyond even the reach of the Gods. Only Time (or the notoriously tightlipped Fates) will tell. But I do know this: Worry not, dear ¡FUTURISMOS! fan, because while I can not guarantee the outcome of future matches I can promise effort and enthusiasm worthy as a gift to the Great Blue Sky that oversees us all.
I missed the game due to circumstance beyond my control (namely the distance between San Francisco and Minneapolis) so I know precious little beyond the outcome. I’m told there was a hodgepodge of ¡FUTURISMOS! on hand including Socrates’ brother—Plato, I presume—and Stacy Janicki who was by all reports a class goal keeper. Big Duke (aka “John Wayne” aka “John Warne”) and Plato each scored and your ¡FUTURISMOS! held a 1-goal lead down the stretch. Alas, a defensive lapse in the waning moments led to a Chickenmoose counter attack goal to level. Time.
SEASON 6 THUS FAR: ¿RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT?
The captain of CL’s We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s quipped before our season opening game “I’ve seen the future… and it doesn’t look bright.” We responded by throttling them 5-0 but through 4 games the luminosity factor of your ¡FUTURISMOS! is very much in doubt.
After blasting out of the gate with 2 resounding victories we suffered a scoreless draw against a team we’d thrice defeated followed by this last second collapse. This is surely a divine quip from the Gods regarding your ¡FUTURISMOS! relative shine.
¿Is this plateau of draws to be a launching pad from which we take flight to regain our place burning brightly in the league’s stratosphere? ¿Or is it a precipice from which we drop marking the end of a glorious beginning, consigned -- like all other shooting stars -- to the status of dust?
The answer to those questions lies beyond even the reach of the Gods. Only Time (or the notoriously tightlipped Fates) will tell. But I do know this: Worry not, dear ¡FUTURISMOS! fan, because while I can not guarantee the outcome of future matches I can promise effort and enthusiasm worthy as a gift to the Great Blue Sky that oversees us all.
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