First Soccer Game

I'm writing this while there is stile some adrenaline left to keep me from falling over into an exhausted sleep. Being 35 is certainly different than being 15 or 25 when it comes to running and gunning up and down a soccer field. In 91 F heat, our team met for the first time an hour before the kickoff and got our bright yellow Sierra Vista Soccer shirts, spent a good deal of time figuring out what position we'd each play, and those of us who were new to the league got our digital photos taken for our ID badges.

Somehow we pulled off a really good first game against a seasoned team of very good players. In fact, I don't know the score. I think it was 4 to 2 or 5 to 2, but I'm not sure. We scored two other goals but both were called back by the referee (one for offside penalty and the other for an illegal slide tackle). The slide tackle goal fiasco injured the goalkeeper and set one of their players to ranting at the referee so much and so flagrantly that he got himself a yellow card, then a red card, then finally ejected from the field area. Thankfully we all kept our mouths shut and were professional even when the goal got taken away from us. I was impressed with our sportsmanship.

We played good defense and our goalkeeper stopped numerous shots. I played midfield and briefly as a forward. I'm not as speedy as I used to be and I get winded way too quickly to be as effective as I'd like to be. Nonetheless I did have a couple good runs with the ball that were harkening back to the thrilling days of yesteryear. These days I'm far more apt to pass the ball than try to run the length of the field with it, which is a good thing...both for the team and for my cardiovascular survival. Apparently I made a good play when I jumped into the air, tucked my knees to my chest, met the ball in mid air, knocked it down in front of me, and wove it through two defenders...all fine and good and probably looked cool as heck...but the ball then went out of bounds. Such is life. Pant, pant, gasp, wheeze, pant, double pant...then time to run, run, run again!

All in all, a very good start to our season, even though we lost. We all came out to have fun and we all had just that.

Oh, and since my ball was used during the game along with several other balls, and since there are manzanitas and palo verdes and scrub brush just beyond the goal on one end and parking lot on the other, my ball made trips to the tarmac and ended up stuck under a thorn bush. So after the game, I had to do some tricky prickly ball removal.

Next week we'll see how we do when two of our lady players are absent. One of them plays college soccer and the other is our team rep. It should prove interesting. In the meantime I'm going to take a soak in the hot tub and work on some sprinting drills during the week so I can be in shape for the next go-round.