What's the use of having your own blog if you can't use a bad play on words.
Sadly, the title says it all. Eldest's second soccer game of the season ended in a 5-3 loss. As a father, I told him he played well (which he did) and was happy to hear him say he was fine with it. After the game was over, he got a bag of chips and a bottle of Gatorade and he was over the loss. I had a little more trouble with it.
I knew this was going to be a tough game. We won our first game 3-1. It was well played, and we basically dominated the game, notwithstanding the fairly competitive score. Our opponents in the second game won their first game about 12-0. That was the estimate given to me by a friend who either intentionally gave up counting the score or forgot his abacus and couldn't keep up. When I got to the game, I recognized the assistant coach on our opponents as the man who completely outcoached me the previous spring. I had a pretty bad feeling at that point.
The game began about as badly as I feared. We gave up a pretty quick goal on a nice crossing pass to a wide open player in front of the goal. My entire defense left the goal open and our inexperienced goalie had no chance. We gave up a second goal on an incredible shot. I was fine with that one. I don't even remember the third goal. The fourth goal was some flukey corner kick that either curved into the goal, was an own-goal, or was perfectly placed for an easy shot by a teammate. I was too far away to see exactly what happened, but everyone closer looked surprised that the ball went in the net. That left us behind 4-0 at halftime. I was thinking a 7-1 final score would be a moral victory.
The second half was a completely different game. Our offense started putting some passes together and we got 2 goals early in the half. Then I had a self control moment. Our opponents had the ball in our penalty box with our goalie scrambling a bit. He managed to get his hands on the ball, but had questionable control (I will admit.) A player on the other team kicked the ball out of his hands and scored a goal. To this very moment, I am not sure if I was most upset that they scored the goal or that my goalie almost got kicked in the head. Admittedly, I don't know the exact rule for our U9 league, but I am fairly certain the ref should have protected the goalie, rather than letting him almost get kicked in the head.
My first thought was to berate the referee for failing to protect a 9 year old who I believe had adequate control of the ball. I quickly realized that wouldn't be the best move and that in my present state of mind I would have slipped into a profanity-laced tirade in front of my boys and their parents. I was, however, so angry I almost began said profanity-laced tirade under my breath. Luckily, I saw the three boys sitting on the ground right next to me and left it in my head. Score was now 5-2.
We quickly struck back to pull to 5-3. Visions of pulling out a tie started to dance in my head. A little later, I was wondering why we couldn't get the ball past midfield. I was pretty sure my pre-set line-up had us in a strong position at the end of the game and couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I looked next to me and realized 2 of the boys I wanted on the field were sitting on the "bench". (There is no bench, but there they were, sitting on the ground next to me.) I checked my substitution schedule and realized I messed it up. We played solid defense (particularly Eldest who is becoming quite competitive) and held on for a 5-3 loss, despite what has been called my "Andy Ried-like in game decision."
I am coaching in a recreational league. The most important thing is to get everyone to play. I try to give everyone equal playing time and believe I have done a pretty good job. Realistically, the group who had trouble getting past midfield for the last 10 minutes would have been on the field during the 10 minutes that we scored 2 of our 3 goals. So my decision to not have a strong line-up on the field at the end of the game probably cost us nothing. But it still sat with me all day. I will wonder all season if we could have pulled out a 5-5 tie if I had the right line-up in the game for those last 10 minutes.
The boys deserve a ton of credit. They played with a lot of heart and never backed down, even after falling behind 4-0. That may be what gets to me the most. I feel like I let them down. I feel like we had a chance and my Andy Ried-like decision blew that chance. I am most likely wrong. It is unlikely we would have scored 3-4 goals in the last 10 minutes. But you never know.
Later in the day, we went to Middle's baseball game. He is in coach pitch, so everyone gets the chance to hit and there are almost no unassisted outs. The day was gorgeous. Eldest, Youngest and a couple of friends were running around the open grassy area playing. Middle got three outs, one while playing pitcher (outran the runner coming from third for a force out at home), two while playing first (field the ball, step on first). He had 3 solid hits and is convinced they won the game. I enjoyed watching him play. I enjoyed the beautiful day. I enjoyed watching the coach's son do his best Ryan ZImmerman impersonation by cleanly fielding a ball at third base and sailing the throw over the first baseman's head. Unfortunately, I spent most of the time thinking about that soccer game and wondering if I had just done things the way I planned...
No comments:
Post a Comment