CSC Championship Final: ¡FUTURISMOS! 4 -- We-Are-Awesome-O-5000s 3

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).

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.

Semifinals Regular Time: ¡FUTUSISMOS! 3 -- Chickenmoose FC 3. Semifinals Penalty Shootout: ¡FUTURISMOS! 3 -- Chickenmoose FC 2

In case that’s confusing I don’t want to bury the lead: Your ¡FUTURISMOS! won their first ever playoff match on a penalty shootout and have advanced to the finals.

“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.”
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! first ever playoff match started at 9am--an hour prior to its scheduled 10am start--and featured Double Ataris vs. Green Mambas. [Nope not the Black Mambas, so Kobe Bryant wasn’t there and I couldn’t use my heavily scripted burn, “Hey, Kobe, ¿you know what we have in common? Neither one of us is Michael Jordan.” Oh, well.] King Vidor was, as always, playing with the Double Ataris but they were going to be short a guy and needed either a reputed defensive stopper or a noted loquacious gadfly with dubious futboling skills. So I played with them as well.

{On a personal note King Vidor asking me to play for the Double Ataris is no joke one of my proudest human moments. This was a playoff game for the Double Ataris and although I’m sure Elliot, Heartbreaker, Big Duke, Socrates, Big Pete, TB, Sohei, i.Madnle, and that skinny cowboy interactive intern turned him down first, he eventually asked me because I’m better than nothing. That wasn’t always the case. Take note parents/loved ones: I want “Better Than Nothing” on my tombstone.}

At the end of regular time the match stood at 2-2 but since this was the playoffs it was on to the dreaded, maligned, but inarguably thrilling penalty shootout to settle the outcome.

In a Penalty Shootout the ball is placed 12-yards away from the middle of the goal. From that spot the shooter takes a shot. The goal is 24-feet wide and 8-feet tall and with only the keeper betwixt the ball and the net the odds are heavily in favor scoring.

The first round of the penalty shootout consists of five players from each team taking turns shooting. If at the end of those 10 shots the game is still tied then it keeps going until one team scores and the other doesn’t.

It’s important to note the famous/infamous Pong was the referee. Pong is from Senegal; Senegal is in West Africa; West Africa is the birthplace of Voodoo; therefore Pong knows Voodoo (just like I know how to make Lefsa, dramatically avenge fratricide, cultivate Champaign, and build a hell of an automobile thanks to my Norwegian-Danish-French-German heritage*). Before the first penalty kick Pong put the ball down and then used a majick marking branch to draw a circle on the ground around the ball. Clearly voodoo and I called him out on it.

Pong protested saying the so-called majick marking branch was a Black Sharpie and he was just noting where the ball should be placed for future kicks so he didn’t have measure after every kick. Fortunately his voodoo mind tricks were powerless against me thanks to repeated viewings of the Star Wars oeuvre. ¿If it wasn’t Voodoo then how does Pong explain this?

The Double Ataris shot first and missed, hitting the post. Then Doppelganger, a Green Mamba, shot and missed, hitting the post. The Double Ataris shot and missed, hitting the post. The Green Mambas shot and missed, you guessed it, hitting the post. 4 consecutive shots, all misses, everyone hit the post. We couldn’t recreate that if we tried. Obviously Voodoo.

I don’t have a clear recollection of the sequence after that (no doubt because my mind was fatigued by fending off Voodoo). I’m pretty sure the Double Ataris made their next three shots and the Green Mambas missed one. But in any event the Double Ataris ended up winning the penalty shootout and advancing in the playoffs.

Because of the penalty shootout the Double Ataris game went long so by the time King Vidor and I walked across the pitch to join the ¡FUTURISMOS! our match was set to kick off. But it turned out My Liege and I weren’t the only ones to cross over for the match; so did 5 of the Green Mambas: one lady, 3 guys, and the keeper.

So ¡FUTURISMOS! v. Chickenmoose FC was in a sense Round 2 of Double Ataris vs. Green Mambas. “All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.” As it would turnout, in this case never have truer words been spoken.

*FULL DISCLOSURE: I can’t do any of that but I am Norwegian-Danish-French-German. Ugh, ¿when will my ethnic powers kick in?

Roll Call
Ladies: Belle, Zarate, & Ms. Dunagan
Gents: Elliot, TB, Big Pete, Heartbreaker, King Vidor, & Me

On Friday when I sent the playoffs announcement I withheld a piece of debilitating news so as to not discourage ¡FUTURISMOS! fans everywhere. Despite the fact it would be our first ever playoff game we were going to be short ladies.

Li’l Pete, Messi, and Run MC were all going to be out of town. Zarate and Diosa had standing unbreakable commitments. That left Belle and handful of ladies who’d either made it to zero or a couple games this season. I fully expected to show up and find Belle our lone lady.

Enter the Voodoo.

Zarate decided to risk permanent damage to her relationship with her boyfriend. Despite the fact she’s “pleased as the proverbial Pawtucket peach” with the relationship she felt compelled to break off critical plans with her boyfriend to play in the match. When I asked her what compelled her to do so she said, “I saw a black halo around a white futbol as though I’d stared into the Sun for too long and I just knew I had to be here.”

Hmmm…

Zarate is a bona fide amoureux du futbol though so I wouldn’t have thought much about this if it weren’t followed by a truly stunning participant.

Rachel Dunagan had played in exactly 1 game this season, but oh what a game it was. The last-second 4-3 surprise victory over Mad Dogs. But that was over a month ago. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had seen neither hide nor hair of Ms. Dunagan since then. Yet here she was eschewing a previous commitment for reasons she couldn’t explain. Her boyfriend is a brain surgeon with an exactly 1-hour window to spend with her for the first time in 2-weeks, which when closed wouldn’t open for another 2-weeks.

¿That hour?

You guessed it: 10am to 11am on Sunday, June 15th. Game time.

¿What drove her to slam the window shut on that precious hour?

Oh, yeah. You know it. “I saw a black halo around a white futbol as though I’d stared into the Sun for too long and I just knew I had to be here.”

Ladies and Gentlemen of the ¡FUTURISMOS! Fiefdom. I present to you facts and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. Pong draws a black circle around a white futbol. Zarate and Ms. Dunagan had unbreakable commitments. Each saw a “black halo around a white futbol.” Each had an inexplicable compulsion to play. Each made it to the match. Without either one we were doomed.

Don’t make me add a link to entry with the story about God trying to rescue that guy who couldn’t take a hint.

KICK OFF

¡GOAL! TB (12th min): ¡F! 1 -- C FC 0
I can’t remember who I was talking to on the sideline but we were discussing who our most reliable goal scorers are and why. We’d just finished talking about how TB has a curious knack for being in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing. I’m sure he’s the clubs all-time leading put-back goal scorer.

Right on cue, a ¡FUTURISMO! fired the ball into the C FC keeper who couldn’t control it and the ball spilled back into play and found it’s way to… hold your breath for a second… TB, who smashed the ball home.

Our first ever playoff match lead.

¡GOAL! C FC Person (13th min): ¡F! 1 -- C FC 1
I don’t know anything about this goal because it happened in the span of time that it took for me to stoop over to pick up my water bottle and stand back up. When I thought “mmm, water” C FC was nowhere near scoring. Before I could even get the bottle to my mouth the ball was in our net.

King Vidor was on the sideline with me I asked him what happened. “There was some passing and then they scored.”

That’s going to have to do.

¡GOAL! C FC Person (17th min): ¡F! 1 -- C FC 2
Some shots could only be defended with Voodoo. This was one of them. A C FC guy had the ball 20-yards from straightaway goal. His shot was on the ground and literally grazed the right upright on its way into the net. Nothing Elliot could have done about it. Probably something a defender should have done about it. Let’s assume it was me.

¡GOAL! TB (20th min): ¡F! 2 -- C FC 2
This was a doozy.

TB had the ball and couldn’t have been more than 5-feet from the end line, 10-feet outside the right post of the C FC goal. The C FC keeper was in good position. There were C FC defenders all over the place. TB cranked up a shot that somehow (¿Voodoo?) found its way past the keeper and through that mess of C FC defenders. The ball hit the far left post and thanks to the spin TB put on it kicked into the goal.

From time to time I look at TB and wonder if he’s human. Not because of his superhuman abilities but because I’ve never met a more stoic person. TB’s emotional range seems run from a brief laugh to the occasional testiness. After this goal his humanity is no longer in question.

TB let out a bellowing accompanied by a fist pump that I momentarily thought would draw a card. It didn’t. Perhaps the ref was also happy to see TB display his humanity.

HALF TIME
I think the mood at halftime was relief more than anything. Not because we were being outplayed and lucky to be in it. More like because half way through our first playoff match we were right there. Without Li’l Pete or Diosa to orchestrate our defense was spotty again. [NOTE: If I’m playing center back and setting the defensive table, well, that’s not a good thing… and it happened quite a bit.] Our offense was fine. We had a handful of near misses to go along with the goals (but so did they).

SECOND HALF

¡GOAL! Heartbreaker (29th min): ¡F! 3 – C FC 2
There was nothing spectacular about this goal which was the best thing about it. Belle got the ball at center midfield with open space in front of her and burst toward the goal. Heartbreaker saw there was no defender on the right side of the pitch and sprinted toward the goal.

Belle ran the ball at the nearest C FC defender until he committed to her and the calmly laid the ball off to the streaking Heartbreaker on her right. All he had to do was get a nice easy touch on the ball to deliver it into the goal and he did.

A perfectly executed break: perfect run, perfect pass, perfect touch, perfect goal. It looked so easy, which is how it always does when it’s done correctly.

When Heartbreaker jogged back to the middle of pitch after his goal I asked him, “Heartbreaker, ¿was that your first goal?”

He paused a moment to think about it. “Uhhhhhhh… I think so. I don’t remember scoring another goal.”

Classic Heartbreaker. If you just talked to him about his futboling you’d think you were talking to me. Then you see him out there and realize he’s out of his mind. Heartbreaker is a proper futboler and this was goal befitting a proper futboler.

¡GOAL! C FC Guy: ¡F! 3 – F CF 3
This one was 100% my fault. Two C FC guys were side by side at midfield, one them advancing the ball. King Vidor was in the vicinity but I was the center back so it was my call to screw up.

Elliot starting yelling at me, “Sawyer, step to the ball.” But in the long moment it took for me to process that information the C FC guy was teeing up his shot from 30-yards out. And a hell of shot it was.

The ball was rocketed chest high toward the left post, spinning so it tailed away from Elliot. The ball just grazed the left post so it made a sound like a hollow metal poll being flicked with your finger.

A beautiful goal and 100% my fault.


The Last 5 Minutes
Often in close games the intensity picks up in the last 5 minutes. Not so much this time. I’m not sure why and it wasn’t like either side geared down at all. It just didn’t get crazy or anything. The game just played out.

End of Regulation Time
On to the penalty shootout.

Penalty Shootout
Again, 5 shooters from each team alternating between men and women.

¡F! Shot 1: ¡GOAL! (1-0). King Vidor missed his penalty in the Double Ataris shootout. Not this time.

C FC Shot 1: ¡MISS! (1-0). Doppleganger, one of the guys who hit the post in for Green Mambas in the shootout against Double Ataris, was still afflicted by Pong’s Voodoo. He hit the post again.

¡F! Shot 2: ¡GOAL! (2-0). Zarate stepped up to take her first-ever penalty kick in her life. She drilled it once again casting doubt on her assertion that she is not related to the Argentine Zarates.

C FC Shot 2: ¡MISS! (2-0). Elliot made a diving save to his right, knocking a chest high ball safely clear of the goal.

¡F! Shot 3: ¡GOAL! (3-0). TB calmly smashed the ball into the top of the net. His third strike of the game. If C FC missed the next shot the game is over.

F CF Shot 3: ¡GOAL! (3-1). They didn’t miss. If we converted our next kick the game is over.

¡F! Shot 4: ¡MISS! (3-1). Belle put the ball just over the cross bar but there’s no rest for the weary. C FC had to make their next shot otherwise the game was over.

C FC Shot 4: ¡GOAL! (3-2). They made their shot, but no worries. All we had to do was make our next shot and the game was over. Taking that shot was none other than Heartbreaker whose foot was no doubt warmed up by his first ever goal earlier in the game.

¡F! Shot 5: ¡MISS! (3-2). Heartbreaker noticed everyone who’d taken a penalty prior to him used the strategy of kicking the ball hard. Always thinking, he decided to throw the keeper a crazy curveball and gently tapped the ball toward the goal rather than kicking it. The keeper threw himself to the ground and then just laid there for a few seconds waiting for the ball to get to him. It did. He’d actually fallen asleep by then but thanks to his excellent positioning--namely, laying on the ground in front of the goal--he stopped it all the same.

So the Penalty Shootout boiled down this. If C FC made their fifth shot the shootout would go into sudden death. If they missed the game was over and your ¡FUTURISMOS! would advance to the Final.

C FC Shot 5: ¡MISS! (3-2). Elliot made his second spectacular diving save of the shootout. Again laying out in a full dive to his right he deflected a waist high shot, poking it safely beyond the right post.

Fittingly enough our first playoff victory was sealed by a piece of class keeping from Elliot.

END PENALTY SHOOTOUT
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! have advanced to the championship game.


Die Unentbehrlichen Award: Belle, Zarate, and Ms. Dunagan
Rarely can a person be told “we couldn’t have done it without you” and have it both be meaningful and true. What we usually mean when we say that is “that would have been more difficult or just notably different without and we appreciate your presence.”

I mean this in the literal sense:

Belle, Zarate, and Ms. Dunagan, we couldn’t have done this without you.

I tried to scrounge up another lady for us but couldn’t because everyone had to get home for Father’s Day Propaganda Observation. There literally wasn’t a lady on hand to pitch in. Considering how close the match was it’s far fetched to think we could have won playing short. As a matter of fact there’s direct evidence we wouldn’t have.

Belle assisted on a goal. Zarate converted her penalty in the shootout. And then there’s Ms. Dunagan. First you have to keep in mind that Belle and Zarate are proper futbol players (Zarate even plays on multiple clubs) so playing a whole match with no break is an incremental challenge for them. For Ms. Dunagan playing a whole match with no rest is a monumental feat. Then factor in that minus the match she played with us a month ago she hadn’t played in 10 years and neither Li’l Pete nor Diosa were there to help call out her responsibilities. Well, her performance was something worthy of a nicknaming.

Considering Ms. Dunagan has a knack for showing up for only our most incredible matches, that she appeared out of nowhere for this one, and that surely Pong’s Voodoo was partially responsible, her Nom de Futbol is: Juju. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! own Voodoo talisman in human form.

I wanted to award Belle, Zarate, and Juju the Li’l Pete Award but it wasn’t big enough. In light of their collective contributions I had no choice but to coin a new award: Die Unentbehrlichen Award (the Indispensable Ones Award).

Once again: Belle, Zarate, & Juju, the ¡FUTURISMOS! first ever playoff victory would not have been possible without you.

Oh, and “all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again,” so show up for the Final with extra water.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Saint Peter.”

¿Is This Heaven… Or The Dunn Bros in the library?
¿What if you can’t tell when you’re dead? You’re just sitting at a coffee shop chatting with a friend about whatever and you have no idea you’re being evaluated for Heavenly Admission. Then you both stand up, walk to the door, and your friend says, “Congratulations, you’re going to heaven.”

At that moment you realize you’re dead but it isn’t a shock. It just makes sense and all you feel is elated relief. Like, “Oh, thank ¡SOLUSTRON! Phew.” Then you skip into what is surely a perfect futbol pitch with a thrilling match waiting only for you to take place.

That’s what making the playoffs in the CSC is like.

¿PLAYOFFS?
The playoffs consist of only 2 games and that means only 4 teams make it. Prior to Game 8 your ¡FUTURISMOS! were in 4th overall place in the league; guaranteed to make the playoffs. After our Game 8 loss we fell to 10th and the playoffs were very much in doubt.

I say “in doubt” rather than “clearly out” because the overall league is divided into divisions. Each division has its own playoffs but the kicker is the number of divisions is unknown.

There are 68 teams in the league overall. It could be 2 divisions with 34 teams a piece, 3 divisions with 22 teams each, 4 with 17, or so on. We had no idea. So if there were 2 divisions, 8 teams make the playoffs; 4 divisions, 16 teams make it. For your ¡FUTURISMOS! to have any chance of making the playoffs there had to be at least 3 divisions.

Turns out Saint Peter really is into threes.

¡PLAYOFFS!
It takes the CSC up to 2 days to post results and announce matches. Game 8 was Sunday at 10 in the morning. Nothing was posted on Monday and I didn’t sleep. On Tuesday the whole work day came and went when finally, just after 6pm (so the workday hadn’t gone for everyone), they posted the results and matches.

I scrolled down to see what time our next match was and there beneath the game time was something I’d never seen before. It looked like this:

The bold, green all-caps PLAYOFFS jumped out at me. We made it. I leapt out of my chair and sprinted through the office to find fellow ¡FUTURISMOS! to freak out with. The only one I found was King Vidor who responded like this:

“Oh, that’s great,” he said with a level of enthusiasm that can only be described as Henry Kissinger-esque. “I wonder if my other team made it. [clicks something on his computer] My other team made it too. Wow. Cool.”

I couldn’t find anyone else so I just ran around the office for a half-hour intermittently whooping and screeching. Never once during that half-hour did the thought occur to me “maybe this means too much to you.”

Never once during that half-hour did a single negative thought enter my mind. My usual existential tormentors were all forced to twiddle their thumbs. The fact human beings are destroying the Earth faster than it can repaired; the fact that human beings as a species lead lives worthy of damnation by any reasonable measure; the fact I have no idea what I’m doing on this planet; and the fact that I’m beyond a doubt wasting my existence; none of that crossed my mind for one sublime half-hour.

There’s a Nike futbol campaign running now about “this is why we play.” It’s all done in first person and the story arc is you go from being a hero on a nobody club to a nobody on a big time club to a hero on a big time club. That isn’t why I play.

I’m a nobody on a rec-league club. Hero status or playing for a nobody club are forever beyond my reach. But for one half of one hour the Universe stopped and in its ineffable way gave me a nudge to say, “There you go, kid.”

So your ¡FUTURISMOS! Greatest Season continues with our first ever playoff match. [By the way, it’s Sunday at 10am at Augsburg College… and there are bleachers… just in case anyone feels like showing up… whatever.] It’s safe to say the next blog entry will be first thing in the morning Monday, June 16th no matter how long it takes the CSC to post the results.

Game 8: ¡FUTURISMOS! 1 -- Weasels FC 2

The Impossibility of Preemptive Grieving in the Mind of Someone Who Isn’t in the Throes of Dealing with a Death
I took a class in University called The Psychology of Death and Dying. I didn’t like it but I took two things away from that class. One of them is irrelevant here but the other is this:

When someone dies a protracted death--like a long bout with cancer--people don’t preemptively grieve for her or him. The death still hits as hard as it would have had the person been struck by lightening.

I thought that was rubbish and I even took issue with it with the professor (it didn’t go well) but over time I’ve come to see it his way (yes, this is the sort of thing I contemplate--differences with professors from classes I didn’t care about and had nothing to do with my major or minor). Today for the first time I feel it his way.

Your ¡FUTURISMOS! aren’t a marauding juggernaut set loose on the Lilliputians of CSC World. Through 7 matches we won a game we should have lost and drew a game we could have either won or lost. ¡SOLUSTRON! works mysteriously in any given instance but has a way of making things work out over time.

We were due for a loss.

I’ve known that since Game 0 so our first loss being a narrow 2-1 stumble in the regular season finale shouldn’t hurt. I had a whole spectacular season to prepare myself for this and yet here I am alternating between writing and staring off into space dwelling on the scoring chance I botched; a few bad passes I made (no disasters though); replaying two instances where I felt lost and reacted slowly (again, no disasters); wasting a brilliant effort by our keeper (more later); and that Zara’s first game with her new club was its first loss of the season (again, more later).

Of course I’m justifying the frak out of the loss too: we needed to get it out of the way for the playoffs; I needed to burn off some bad Karma for the Kevin Garnett in advance of Game 2 of the Finals; we needed to get our hand caught in the cookie jar so we remember that sting and play better next Sunday; this is ¡SOLUSTRON! telling us that Messi needs to breakup with her boyfriend and disown her family so she stops missing matches thereby degrading her touch and diminishing her finishing effectiveness.

This was exactly what my professor was talking about. Coping is the imposition of reason on an emotional response but until you have that emotional response there’s nothing to cope with. This makes life worth living and being a Buddhist so darned hard. Hopelessly falling in love and then being devastated when the relationship ends are one in the same. To diminish the impact of one necessarily lessens the other.

At the moment I’m in the roiling sea beneath the crashing wave of being dumped by Undefeated Season. Even though I didn’t expect it, never wanted it, and thought it couldn’t last Undefeated Season and I were looking at buying a Condo together (as close to the Guthrie as we could afford) and discussing our approach to automobile ownership. Then at the end of an hour on a Sunday morning that was equally unexpected and inevitable, seven perfect weeks were a memory rather than a foundation.

Adieu, de saison invaincue. Adieu.


The Opinion of all ¡FUTURISMOS! Who Aren’t Named Sawyer About Loosing Game 8
I’m guessing if you ask any other ¡FUTURISMO! about this game they’ll say something like this, “Yeah, bummer we lost but we had our chances and it was fun match.”

If you hear that it’s 100-percent true. Weasels FC were a fun bunch and I’m pretty sure Ryan Carlson was playing for them (figures, talk about salt in a wound--he never played a single match for us). I didn’t experience or see a hint of bad blood anywhere on the pitch. Great weather. It was a good match and once my emotional spasm has passed I’ll feel that way too.

Roll Call
Ladies: Messi, Run MC, Belle, Zara, Yoda, and Diosa (sort of).
Gentlemen: Socrates, TB, King Vidor, Heartbreaker, John, and Me.

Diosa ended up playing for Weasels FC because they were short a lady and we had an extra. Never mind that she didn’t know any of her new teammates, that didn’t stop her for even an instant from talking up a storm, telling people what to do, and basically taking the pitch like it was made for her.

[NOTE: This was already Diosa’s second match of the day. Then the team playing after us was short a lady and she played with them (that's 3 matches in 3 hours)… and she still had two more matches to play later in the day. So she played in at least 5 matches in one day and maybe more. ¿See what I’m saying? Clearly Diosa is at least partially not human.]

Double Ataris Giveth, Giveth, Giveth, Giveth, Taketh, Giveth, and then… Taketh
I don’t know how many ¡FUTURISMOS! games have featured players from King Vidor’s Double Atari club but it’s more than I could hold in a hand. This match featured Double Ataris on both sides of the ball.

Elliot was out of town so John filled in. John has played with us several times in the past. In Game 8 he played so well he earned himself a Nom de Futbol. More on this later.

Weasels FC was augmented by two Double Ataris. One was a guy in a green shirt. The other guy’s name isn’t actually The Machine. It’s something far less appropriate like “Mike” or “Steve” or some other name I’ll never remember and don’t care about. But no bother, I’ve never let people’s wishes or actual names stand in the way of me calling The Truth the truth to its face and I won’t stop now. That guy is henceforth The Machine for reasons you’re about to discover.


KICK OFF

¡GOAL! The Machine (24th min): ¡F 0 -- Weasels FC 1
For you to appreciate the bitterness of the goal you have to realize each half of play is 24-minutes long. Everyone knew the half was nearly over because the game being played next us had just gone into halftime when Weasels FC won a corner. So the corner would be the last play of the half.

A Weasel booted the ball into play, the ball bounced around in the box, and in swooped The Machine through the melee to punch the ball in as time expired. I think I heard every single ¡FUTURISMO! blame him or herself for the goal as they trod off the pitch for the half.

Halftime
It was a ragged first half for your ¡FUTURISMOS! On offense we consistently got the ball down near their goal but our passes were invariable intercepted because it seemed like they always had 3 defenders in the box. So a lot of empty trips after good work to get there.

Defensively we were a mess. There were open Weasels so often we wondered if they were playing 4 forwards. Fortunately a combination of John playing totally crazy, good recoveries, and dumb luck kept things close.

¡GOAL! The Machine (36th min): ¡F! 0 -- Weasels FC 2
The short of this one is there was another melee in front of our goal. The ball bounced around. John parried a shot and the ball was rolling just in front of the goal. The Machine tried to tap it in but Heartbreaker stepped in to block it. The ball bounced in the air and ended up falling back into the net despite Heartbreaker’s efforts to clear it.

In essence but not execution a replay of their first goal and The Machine’s second of a tight match.

The Tenor of Play Over the Final 12 Minutes
Your ¡FUTURISMOS! played considerably better overall in the second half. We had a bevy of shots and near misses and definitely picked up the intensity over the last 12 minutes. There were long stretches where we were consistently beating the Weasels to the ball. They looked gassed and our additional subs were keeping us fresh.

¡GOAL! TB (44th min): ¡F! 1 -- Weasels FC 2

Our goal was much like theirs. Socrates blasted a shot from straight way that the Weasel keeper blocked but couldn’t control and TB was there to drive home the put back.

The Final 4 Minutes
We pressed hard for the equalizer. There were a few near chances but either we’d come up a step short or the ball would just wouldn’t dip or break our way. But it appeared the game would end with a reversal of the close of the first half.

TB raced toward the goal in the final seconds with the ball. Socrates filled the middle and Run MC swept in unmarked from the opposite wing. Had the ball been able to find it’s way across the box Run MC had an open net but it wasn’t meant to be. The ball ricocheted around and ended up in the keeper’s mitts as the Ref blew for time.

Game over. Our first loss of the season.

FULL TIME

On the Benefits of the Much Maligned, So-Called “Racial Profiling” (or Introducing Zara Gonzalez)
I actually had a good week leading up to the game. Everyday had a definite highlight or two. Tied for first place for the best moment of the week was receiving an email announcing a new hire at Colle+McVoy, the ¡FUTURISMOS! generous and much appreciated benefactor. In the email there was some talk about what this person’s job was, maybe some facile personal information, and probably a suggestion to introduce yourself. But I didn’t see any of that because I was blinded by two words:

Zara Gonzalez

First: ¿¡Zara Gonzalez?! Whoa. That name is like a thought I didn’t even know I’d had sneaking out of my brain, taking human form, and then meeting me for coffee at the library… ¡with ASIMO!

Second ¡¡Zara Gonzalez!! If that isn’t the name of futboler then no futboler has a name. They’d be nothing but numbers. [Q: “Who is you’re favorite player?” A: “Oh, you know, I love 19 but there will always be a place in my heart for 13.”]

Some might think this is racial profiling and to quote Run MC’s favorite refrain, “I ain’t gonna lie to you… it is.” But if it is indeed the case that “the true test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time” then I contend I’ve reframed the issue such that question becomes:

¿If a person is named Zara Gonzalez and due to her name the Captain Emeritus and Chief of Recruitment of her local futbol club immediately tenders her a club offer, then isn’t that person being punished by ¡SOLUSTRON! if she doesn’t play futbol?

I rest my case.

Unfortunately for Ms. Gonzalez the obscure futbol match I attended in Buenos Ares last year featured an 18-year-old phenom playing for a second-rate club. [He’s now apparently set to sign with English Superclub Arsenal, by the way.] That gentlemen happens to be the youngest of a futboling family dynasty. ¿Their last name?

Zarate

¿Coincidence?

No way.

So ¡FUTURISMOS! fans, I present our very own Zarate.

I grilled Zarate (Ms. Gonzalez) about the incontrovertible connection between herself and Argentina’s Zarates. She claimed to have never heard of the Zarates and pointed out that she’s not in the least bit Argentine.

“Oh, really,” I said in the most dismissive, sarcastic tone I could muster as I straightened my spine to take full advantage of all 6-feet and 1-inch of me for full looming effect. “¿Then how do explain away the fact the Zarates are also know for being short futbolers?”

At that point Zarate simply glared at me with a pursed lipped frown. Clearly she was steamed that I’d discovered her secret famous futbol lineage. ¿What can I say? My powers of perception are simply impeccable.

Zarate did not disappoint her family or fellow Argentines in her first match. With Li’l Pete out of town (¡¿AGAIN?!) and Diosa playing for the wrong team our backline was without a captain so Zarate was often left on an island to fend for herself without knowing which of her teammates she could rely on or for what. Yet she looked perfectly comfortable like she’d been there all season.

Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had an-honest-to-goodness futboler fall right into our collective lap. A fortuitous late season pick up all thanks to a little racial profiling.


The Delayed Launch of Zarate & Diosa: Las Señoras Mortales
The big news from week heading into Game 8 was your ¡FUTURISMOS! signing two new players. One is the afore mentioned Zarate and the other is the resplendent Diosa, who graciously accepted our invitation with an outburst of jubilant profanity that both warmed the heart and reddened the face. [If you don’t know who Diosa is read the second half of last week’s blog.]

I’ve already belabored the fact that both of these people are good futbolers/supernatural/genetic heirlooms, but what I haven’t yet bellowed from the mountaintop is both have (in some measure) recent ancestry that the US Government has deemed Latin/Hispanic and both speak Spanish (to degrees ranging from Sesame Street to Dora, so I’m informed). That’s plenty good enough for little ol’ German/French/Dutch/Norwegian-like-100-years-ago USAmerican me.

People from the United States of America are born believing foreigners are naturally better at futbol than we are. And for good reason because it’s essentially true. Not that every non-USAmerican is better at futbol than every USAmerican. It’s just that futbol is soooooo vastly more important in the rest of the world than all of our professional sports put together so it’s difficult to comprehend. You know, like the concept of infinity or George W. Bush’s RE-election.

To wit if you had to choose players for your club based on nothing other than their country of origin it’s a safer bet to choose Argentines, Brazilians, Germans, Spaniards, Ghanians, Ivory Cost-ians (however you’d say that), Turks, and so on, rather than USAmericans. Because there’s a fighting chance you’ll pick people who have played some futbol in the first group. With USAmericans you’re more likely to end up with a bunch of skiers or Frisbee Golfers.

So now your ¡FUTURISMOS! are one of the clubs with people on it that plausibly look and sound like they’re not originally from The States because they can yell at each in Spanish even if all they’re saying is “¡Watch out for the diarrhea!” and “¡Excuse me, but that was my cab!”

Alas, because Diosa ended up playing for the opposition this week I didn’t get to see our new secret weapon in action. ¡SOLUSTRON! willing next week your ¡FUTURISMOS! will unveil:

Las Señoras Mortales

¡Just in time for the playoffs (if we made the playoffs)!

[ASIDE: I’m not going to get into how weird white, mainland USAmericans are about classifying people from so-called “Latin America,” but it is a subject I enjoy discussing--as I do all issues pertaining to race/ethnicity/culture--so if you’d like to chat about it I encourage you to let me know. We can get a coffee… as my people say “the coffee.”]


LI’L PETE AWARD: JOHN
John, the Double Atari keeper who stepped in for Elliot, is the hands down recipient of the Li’l Pete award this week. He was throwing himself all over the place, getting into people’s legs, seriously putting retention of all his teeth in danger. I had the good fortune to be an arm’s length away to see him take a fully blasted ball in the gut from no more than 3-feet away as he dove into a Weasel shooter’s feet. The amazing part was he held on to the ball. That would have broken my stomach.

The reason our defense didn’t allow more goals was rarely because of our defense, it was mostly John and I’m guessing he’ll be suffering for it the rest of this week. It was a performance worthy of the greatest modern keeper whose last name also makes for a nice rhythmic rhyme with “John”--Oliver Kahn. So now John is:

John Kahn.

The only thing missing from his otherwise perfectly Oliver Kahn-esque performance was grabbing one of his own teammates by the ear to cuss him out and then threatening to bite an opponent’s neck. Next time I’ll even offer up my ear for the cussin’ and if Diosa plays for the opposition again I’ll do my part to make it her neck.

Game 7: ¡FUTURISMOS! 5 -- Maki United 3

A NOTE ABOUT THE SEASON THUS FAR
I don’t want to loose track of this: through 7 games your ¡FUTURISMOS! are still undefeated. With one regular season game left we’ve notched 5 wins, 2 draws and zero losses. I think that means we’ll make the playoffs for the first time in club history (provided there are playoffs, which there might not be).

ROLL CALL
I had written a long section berating people for their level of commitment to the club and decided to cut it at the last second because it felt like airing dirty laundry in public. Let’s just say attendance continues to be an issue.

Here’s who was on hand for Game 7:
Ladies = Li’l Pete, Run MC, and Maria.
Gents = Socrates, TB, Big Pete, Big Duke, Heartbreaker, half of Elliot, i.Madnle, and Me.

A PREGAME SLAP IN THE FACE
Yes, only had three ladies, but they were three stellar ladies (more… much more… perhaps frighteningly more on Maria later) so all was well on that front. Despite the fact we had a squadron of gentlemen we were missing the indisputably most important one: Elliot.

As I’ve belabored at length in the past, Elliot is a bona fide keeper. With him patrolling the goal line we enter games knowing we can win. Without him all bets are off and we begin holding our breath because our reserve keeper is none other than yours truly. I have the reflexes of a heavy Dostoevsky reader and a feel for the game similar to a contemplative Capybara.

After handling the pre-game coin toss and team introduction I ran back to the sideline to change shirts (the keeper has to wear a shirt different from the rest of the team). As I was pulling my grey shirt on Big Duke said, “Uh-oh. I know what that means.”

So did I. We were screwed.

KICK OFF

¡GOAL! Maki Guy (4th minute): ¡F! 0 -- Maki United 1
A Maki Guy had the ball roughly 7-yards from the goal, basically straight way. He was actually well defended by Big Pete when he just teed up and cranked the ball. It glanced off Big Pete but still headed right toward me bouncing low on the ground. I got down on it but the combination of the spin of the ball and the ricochet off Big Pete confounded me. The ball spun out of my hands into the net. [An easy save for Elliot.]

¡GOAL! Big Duke (8th minute): ¡F! 1 -- Maki United 1
We forced a throw-in in their corner. It went to Big Duke who beat a defensive challenge and then had wide open space to roam toward the goal from the right side. He carried the ball into the box and then blasted it over the keeper’s head.

¡GOAL! Maki Crazy Dread Guy (16th minute): ¡F! 1 -- Maki United 2
Maki was awarded a corner kick. Everyone marked up and then Maria called out to the ¡FUTURISMOS! not defending anyone “watch for runners.” Then she specifically called out for someone to mark the Maki guy one could not miss--he had dreadlocks down past his waist. His hair must have literally weighed over 5-pounds. The ball was put into play and Dread flew in unmarked. The ball landed on his foot as he leapt into the upper left of the box and he pooched it toward the right side of the goal. I was hopelessly out of position and the ball gently fell into the upper right corner of the goal. It was actually a really cool goal.

As everyone turned back up field one of the ¡FUTURISMOS! jokingly asked Maria, “¿Was that the guy you wanted someone to mark?”

With a smile that was half good natured/half chastisement she confirmed it was.

¡GOAL! Socrates (20th Minute): ¡F! 2 -- Maki United 2
Socrates had the ball to the right of the goal, beat a defender, had a clean look, and coolly slotted the ball inside the far left post well beyond any hope of the Maki keeper. It really was as simple as that.

HALF TIME
Our defense in the first half was superb. I really only had to make one proper save; to clear the ball away from a charging Maki guy with a path to the goal on two occasions; and then had to scoop up a handful of gentle shots on a few other occasions. It was a near perfect of execution of my plan: “Don’t let them shoot.”

The other side of the pitch wasn’t as smooth. We had chances beyond the two goals but the ball wasn’t moving quickly and we were generally out of sync.

Yet despite a tense first half we breathed a colossal sigh of relief at half time and felt sure of ourselves headed into the second half because Elliot arrived. With Elliot minding the timbers all we had to do was calm down, move the ball, and we should win.

¡GOAL! Big Duke (26th minute): ¡F! 3 -- Maki United 2
Socrates dribbled the ball down to the Maki end line, 10-feet from the goal, beat a defender and closed on the goal when another defender headed him off. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the expression “threaded the needle” in sports terms. The pass Socrates delivered to Big Duke requires a far more elaborate description.

Socrates constructed a Large Hadron Collider, formulated an experiment to reveal a Calabi-Yau folded string, then passed the futbol through all 8 hidden dimensions of the Universe right to the waiting foot of Big Duke who blasted home his second goal of the game.

How the ball found its way through that mess of humanity to find Big Duke deserves serious study by either physicists, theologians, or both. Be it Quantum Mechanics or ¡SOLUSTRON! the result was the same. ¡GOAL!

¡GOAL! Socrates (30th minute): ¡F! 4 -- Maki United 2
At this point it was clear things were going well for your ¡FUTURISMOS! The defense continued to shine and we had sequences like this. Heartbreaker (formerly known as Bradlebum and still known as “Braden Stadlman” to many) was near the ¡FUTURISMOS! sideline when the ball was clear on the other side of pitch at midfield. He looked at the sideline and asked if anyone was ready to come on.

“I’m ready,” Socrates said.

“Okay,” said Heartbreaker.

Neither moved either on or off the pitch.

“¿Do you want to come on now?” Heartbreaker asked.

“¿Do you want me to come on now?” Socrates asked in response.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m ready for a break,” Heartbreaker replied.

“Oh, okay, I’ll come on then.” Socrates said.

“Cool.” Heartbreaker said.

Heartbreaker and Socrates were no more than 10-feet from each other during this exchange. In effect Heartbreaker was playing and just talking to Socrates on the sideline while the game went on behind him. Heartbreaker came off. Socrates went on and jogged straight for the goal where he found the ball--passed by Run MC, I believe--in the middle of the pitch 10-yards from the goal and he simply tapped it home for his second of the match.

It was like that. Your ¡FUTURISMOS! could chat on the sideline and then gently jog onto the pitch and score a wide-open goal. Sometimes that’s the way it goes.

But it gets better.

¡GOAL! TB (35th minute): ¡F! 5 -- Maki United 2
Maki United changed keepers shortly after Socrates’ second goal. The new keeper had the ball passed back to him by a teammate under no pressure. The new keeper was standing with his heels on the goal line and he let the ball get all the way to him. The keeper can’t pick the ball up if a teammate passes it back to him so under these circumstances he couldn’t touch the ball with his hands.

Clearly he forgot about this and let the ball roll up onto his foot and then popped it into the air in front of him. When the ball was chest-high, right when he would have simply caught it, he realized he couldn’t touch it. The ball fell back to the ground but was spinning such that its momentum carried it toward the goal. He blocked it with his leg but it was bouncing so it glanced off his shin and was headed into the goal. At that point he had no choice and reached down and stopped it with his hand. That’s a handball and a penalty.

Normally a handball in the box is a penalty kick but for some reason the ref awarded a free kick instead of a penalty thus setting the stage for the strangest free kick I’ve ever witnessed in any capacity.

The ball was placed on the end line just off the right post. So the free kick taker couldn’t kick the ball directly into the goal. He had to pass the ball toward the middle of the pitch. Maki United built their wall to defend the kick INIDE THEIR GOAL. So there were three Maki defenders standing on the goal line just inside the right post. On top of that literally every player on the pitch save Elliot, our keeper, was within 3-yards of the goal. It was bizarre.

Socrates was the free kick taker. He passed the ball toward the middle of the box. TB banged it toward the goal. The ball ricocheted off a Maki defender and hit the far left post but it didn’t go in right way. It rolled along the goal line back toward the right post and was ultimately knocked into the goal by the wall of Maki defenders who were originally positioned to defend the kick from the right side in the first place.

¡GOAL! When ¡SOLUSTRON! is up to her/his/its tricks there’s nothing we mortals can do about it. I’m sure behind some rainbow somewhere she/he/it was laughing her/his/its ass/tail/fin/tentacle/monolith off.

¡GOAL! Maki Guy (40th minute): ¡F! 5 – Maki United 3
I wouldn’t say the last few minutes were tense but Maki had a few chances to score that just didn’t pan out. Dread nearly scored on another pooched kick that just barely missed over the crossbar. Johnny hit the crossbar and the ball rolled along the goal line but couldn’t get in before Elliot collected it.

It was Johnny who scored this goal and whom you’ll hear more about in a minute. Elliot had raced out to stop the ball but his clearance kick didn’t quite get far enough. Johnny intercepted it and there was literally no one in the net so he scored from 20-yards out but the outcome was already decided.

FULL TIME

OH, SO THAT’S WHAT AN EMANATION OF THE DIVINE LOOKS LIKE
I often struggle with putting the ¡FUTURISMOS! and more generally rec-league futbol in a proper context within my existence. I oscillate between feeling like it means everything and nothing.

On one hand it’s just rec-league futbol. There are no fans. We’re lucky if a loved one of some type shows up from time to time to watch. Heck, occasionally we’re lucky if enough players show up to play. It seems pretty cut and dry. Rec-league futbol is a trifle.

On the other hand we have pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclites’ famed position: “Humans are most nearly themselves when they achieve the seriousness of a child at play.”

The critical element of Heraclites’ position is the child-like part. It describes both the intensity and nature of the “seriousness at play.” Game 7 featured performances by a player from each club who played seriously but revealed opposite natures.

Maki United’s second best player was Johnny. He played keeper for the first three-quarters of the game and then finished in-field. Johnny was really good: fast, good ball control, clearly a proper futboler. As keeper he frequently brought the ball up past midfield and at one point even single-handedly dribbled the ball down to our end line before loosing it out of bounds. So he--as keeper-- ran with the ball from end line to end line, the length of the entire field.

Unfortunately Johnny was also overly aggressive, frequently pushing the boundaries of fouling. This tendency boiled over in an incident where he took Big Duke down from behind with a forearm to the back after a scuffle for the ball. Words were exchanged and Johnny was reminded he should relax. Johnny yelled in retort,

“Come on guys, this isn’t girls’ soccer.”

Too bad for Johnny it wasn’t because Maki United’s best player was none other than Marta, the brilliant futboler who played with us a couple weeks ago. Had his whole team--including himself--been able to play like that girl they would have stomped us.

Hard at play Johnny had unmistakably approached his true nature. He shoved someone in the back out of frustration and then topped it off with a patently sexist proclamation for all to hear.

And now for the other end of the spectrum…

Once again your ¡FUTURISMOS! were short ladies and this time there were no Double Ataris to bail us out. Fortunately ¡SOLUSTRON!--the Great Deity of Unitarianism, the One True Religion-like-ish Thing--has taken a keen interest in the CSC this session and delivered Maria into the void.

Your ¡FUTURISMOS! had the horrifying experience of playing against Maria in Game 1 of Season 3. She plays for NÜRD; the club that pushed us to a near club-ending implosion in the first half of that game. I labeled the second half “Our Finest Hour,” and I still stand by that, as we pushed back and played level with NÜRD.

I was impressed by everyone on NÜRD but she stood out. Not only was Maria clearly an excellent futboler but she talked, smirked, sassed, laughed, and generally appeared to be having the time of her life. Of course I wanted to steal her (surely there’s something at C+M she’d enjoy doing well enough) but I was too terrified of NÜRD and so didn’t pursue it.

Maria arrived at Game 7 with your ¡FUTURISMOS! through Run MC, with whom she plays on a couple other futbol clubs. Earlier in the week Run MC and I had fallen into a game of Do You Know This Person Who Plays Futbol and we discovered the NÜRD lady I’d coveted was her friend. The following day it was clear we were going to be short at least one lady and Run MC asked Maria if she’d be interested. Fortunately for us she was.

Keep in mind I’d only seen Maria play once and that was a year ago. I wondered if nostalgia had shined my memory. If anything time had tarnished it.

Maria is a terrific futboler--excellent ball skills, calm at all times, great decision making--but that isn’t the part I care so much about. Everything I saw a year ago was there but this time but I could appreciate it more. It’s as though her mouth is directly connected to the part of her brain that processes the game so as it unfolds in her mind it’s vocalized in the same instant. That may not sound like a big deal but few people can do it. Talking and playing at the same time is different than yelling at people from the sidelines. On top of that was everything else I remembered. Her sassing, joking, laughing, and generally appearing to be experiencing the pinnacle of human existence.

In a word I place the highest value on people who play with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is from the Greek work enthous meaning “possessed by a god.” That doesn’t mean they have to be the most skilled people on the pitch. It means they are literally spirited, as though there’s something a touch supernatural about what you’re seeing. If you want to see people play with enthusiasm watch children. I suspect this is what Heraclites recognized; as does Goethe’s conception of Dr. Faust.

All humans arrive on Earth from a divine realm. [If you don’t believe me you haven’t spent enough time looking into the eyes of an attentive baby.] When we’re children we’re still connected to that ethereal other world because we haven’t developed a sense of self yet. We just are and the celestial is part of that.

The years go by and we slowly loose touch with that part of ourselves because Earth is just so darned un-heavenly. It’s difficult to maintain that connection amongst the trials of the social crucible of primary education, defining our self-conscious selves, finding money, paying bills, sussing out the meaning of our lives, maintaining family, negotiating relationships, wanting an iPhone, rooting for the Celtics, struggling to figure out why meat byproducts are in so many things (¡¿fabric softener?!), and so on. But some people manage to transcend the daily dross from time to time “when they achieve the seriousness of a child at play.”

If you’re lucky enough to experience a person in that state it’s like looking into a little window torn into the fabric of the corporeal façade of our Earth-locked existence. Through it we see there is meaning beyond our comprehension, something wonderful, something magic, and we are assured.

On the futbol pitch Maria is one of those people. So playing rec-league futbol with her “nearly approaches” the very meaning of life itself. As such she earned the highest Nom de Futbol I can think of:

Diosa (Spanish for “Goddess”)

I’m not the only ¡FUTURISMO! who feels this way either (but I’d wager I’m the most grandiloquent about it). The day after the game I floated the idea with a handful of ¡FUTURISMOS! of asking Maria to keep playing with us in light of our consistent lack of ladies. They all had the same response: a stunned expression and a slow nod. The mere thought of it was initially too much for words (this is a verbatim quote from Heartbreaker after he caught his mental breath, “My dream is to play like her someday”).

The highest ¡FUTURISMO! praise I can think of is Li’l Pete offering to turn over the center back position--the most critical in-field player--which is exactly what she did.

So I will issue my prayers to ¡SOLUSTRON! in the traditional Unitarian fashion: by etching my wishes on a gong and striking it 8 times (one time for each color of the Rainbow of Truth, Justice, Equality, and Comprehensive Sex Education) each day at sunrise and sunset. If it’s the will of ¡SOLUSTRON! your ¡FUTURISMOS! will once more be graced with the divine presence of Diosa.