I promise, not every post is going to be about soccer...but last night I was playing at the Lakewood YMCA and the team we were playing against was such a bunch of tools, I had to post about it.
So, I just wanted to play any kind of soccer, and I joined a co-ed league for the heck of it. It gets me touches on the ball, and I got to meet a few cool people and have fun on Thursday nights. Now, I was supposed to be on a team with the Randolph soccer coaches and some of their friends, but the league decided to close memberships to full teams, and so I got thrown on a makeshift team of whoever just kind of signed up to play. Needless to say, it is not the greatest bunch of players on the world. Sure we have a couple good ones. Myself, yea, I'm awesome so screw you (now I do not actually believe I'm awesome, but 4 year starter at a division 3 school that was in the national tournament twice and robbed of a 3rd trip with 21 seconds remaining, I'd say I'm pretty good), Joel and Kurt are definitely the three best players we have, without a doubt. Our team actually does not have a girl on it, but it is not our fault, no girls signed up blindly, however, I have quickly noticed that not every team does have a girl, so what can ya do. However, what our team does have is two people who have no right to be playing soccer. I understand it's a co-ed league and it's for fun, but seriously, they should not be out there. One of them is in his 60's overweight, and still rocking rec-specs (much respect for the rec-specs though!), and no matter which way he is facing, will one-touch the ball as hard as he can every time. The other is overweight and uncoordinated, and may touch the ball once every 10 times he tries. I feel terrible writing this about them because they are both very nice people, but I do not understand why they are playing soccer. The problem is, the younger one never subs himself out, and if he does it's 8 minutes into the 10 minute period. So we play with 4 people who are OK, and him, plus a keeper. Sometimes, we have both of them on the field at the same time, so it's basically like we have 3 people plus a keeper, and 2 cones, who work hard, but leaves us very short of players on the field. It does get us a rest, but when you are playing against 5 competent players and a good keeper, we definitely struggle to compete for those minutes, even when only one of them is on the field, we still are playing a man down basically. Anyway, even with those handicaps, we are always competitive. Joel, Kurt, and myself, along with the rest of the team, who work hard and aren't terrible, but are not anything too special, find ways to score goals and keep us in games. We have only won 2 games so far this year, our first one, and then last night, but we are only losing every game by about a 2 goal average, so it is not so bad considering what we are working with. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we also do not have a real keeper on the team...so Joel plays the first quarter, and then one of our other players plays 2 quarters, then someone else plays a quarter. It's absolutely terrible.
So onto the main reason for this post (sorry, had to rant about the situation first), last night we played against a team of kids that play for JCC, Jamestown campus, or at least, so they say. So they play together a lot, and are most likely from the area, so they are used to playing in the Lakewood YMCA, so they already have 2 things going for them. Luckily for us, they also do not have a real keeper, but they also do not have one of their best field players playing in the goal either. I get to the Y, and am warming up, Joel comes over to me and explains that the ref just talked to him and said that the JCC team was dirty and played overly physical, specifically for a co-ed league, but in general, they are just dirty. And less than 1 minute into the game, I defend a guy and he grabs me and tries to turn me around. Now, I have been playing soccer since I was 5, played at a great Division III school, and know how to control myself and body people, so his attempts to pull me off the ball were futile and he failed, but he did get called for a foul, thank you referee, stay on top of it early and try to stop it. I insist on getting in that players head and say "nice try, but you aren't gonna throw me around" and if you paid attention to my earlier post, well under the 15 word limit for a good trash talk/heckle. However, the ref calling it did nothing to stop it, they were cheap and dirty and did everything they could to get an advantage (that they did not need most of the time). I score a rocket shot from about 20 yards from the goal, BOOM!, but at the end of the 1st quarter (yes quarters...haven't played quarters since I was 10...) we are down 2-1. Keeping it close, but these guys are younger than our team by an average year span of at least 10 years. They should be all over us. Only one of them looked like he was in his 20's. 2nd quarter starts and we are actually all over them, it is a physical game, as I was saying, I am in behind the defense, and their "bruiser" because apparently they need a bruiser in co-ed soccer at the Lakewood YMCA, just takes my legs out from under me and rocks me to the ground as I go to shoot. Red card in real soccer, only a yellow right now. Lucky bastard really. As I am getting up I talk trash, call him a douche bag...not going to lie, probably shouldn't have he reacted, wanted the ref to do something, but the ref didn't hear anything, so I laugh, and re-emphasize that he is, without actually saying it, and say a couple times to try for the ball next time, and wave him off saying see ya. It was fun :). Ensuing free kick, saved by the keeper, damn shame too, bent it very well. O well, the kid if off for the last 2 minutes of the half. We go into halftime up 4-2. At halftime I explain to Joel that the kid that took em out, he is definitely going to be pissed at me since I called him a douche bag, and will probably try to take me out. He did attempt to drop me a couple times, but they were well within the limits of the game, and both failed anyway, so whatever. He ends up getting pissed about 3 minutes into the third quarter, yells the "f-bomb" as the referee called it, which is an automatic yellow in the YMCA, and BOOM, red card, see ya, they play with 4 people for the remained of the game. It was still 4-2, but somehow we were handling the game, and the opponent. We scored one more before the end of the quarter, and go into the 4th up 5-2. The next quarter clearly is going to be heated, and the ref talks to everyone one more time, saying he will call the game if it does not clean up at least a little bit. It did not, but he did not call it either, he just continued to call the game to the best of his ability. And as dirty as it was, good for him. Now, I'm on the boards and I steal the ball from a kid, and push it forward, he takes a clear strike at my back leg, that I brush off, once again, weak attempts from a weak kid. He then gets a yellow card for trying to take me, out, yells, "are you fucking kidding me?" and gets another yellow right away. BOOM, red card, now they have to finish with 3 players and a keeper. At this point we were already up 5-2. Needless to say, we had the advantage, why rush anything. We win a ball forward, I make a bad pass...which I have done many times in my life, but Kurt was also lazy and didn't try, I led him only a little he didn't try, so it went to the corner, he hustled got it and laid it across on the ground and I tap it in, we go on to score one more and win 7-2 against the "scary college team from the area..." as a bunch of scrubs thrown together, playing a man down for the entire freaking game basically. I played about 36 minutes because every time I subbed out, someone else came out 30 seconds later. I once got a break for 2 minutes because I sat to start the third quarter, being exhausted, but I was in 2 minutes into the quarter, just in time to make sure the ref knew that it was the kid who took me out, that it was his 2nd card.
Moral of the story here...To the team we played against...You play soccer at JCC, you are not that big of a deal, you are not all that, and if you want to play a physical game and be douche bags, you'll get it right back, and apparently you can't handle it when a team comes right back at you. Oh, and the 2nd moral, don't fuck with me...I will make you look bad especially when you try to take me out. I won't be cheap, I won't be dirty. I'll trash talk for sure, but I won't get chippy. I'll beat you with my play, and because you are used to getting into people's head, but I get into yours because I am not affected by you being a jackass. Good luck next time, work on playing soccer, and not being cheap, it won't work against me. And finally, get in the weight room pussies. You suck, and are weak, I'm not big and you can't move me off the ball without taking my legs out from behind, and that doesn't work with the extra push after I'm recovering, so you've got a lot of work ahead of you, but I'm not holding my breath for you to get any better any time soon.
Current Mood - Better than earlier, but annoyed by stupid people, like JCC soccer players from that game last night
Current Listenings - still ESPN radio...I told you, sports talk at work, but it's heavy metal and rock at home!
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