Pulling Up Short

I am always willing to talk about all of my impressive feats. And although they don't happen very often I am also willing to discuss my shortcomings. Last night was a major short coming. I have been playing soccer up here in Appleton on Sunday nights. It is not a very competitive league. Actually classified as a rec league. That being said I would put myself as one of the more accomplished players on the field. Again, not the case last night. I play sweeper which is pretty much the last line of defense. So I take every goal that the other teams scores to heart, and no matter how the other team scores I feel highly responsible for every goal. The game started out alright. I managed to perfectly chip a ball from our side of the field into the other team's penalty box over my players shoulder and he was able to one touch chip the goalie. A sweeper getting an assist, I felt pretty good about that. Again it is all relative to the level of play and I should be making plays like that. We move to the second half, and the other teams ties the game up. It was a good shot and maybe I could have done something different, but I don't feel too bad about that goal. Shortly after our team is awarded a penalty kick. Statistically speaking penalty kicks are converted for goals, something like 95% of the time. I have never missed one. Until last night. The coach told me to take it and I missed back. I kicked it right to the goalie. I was in absolute disbelief. I totally let the team down. Our team did eventually score another goal and went up with a score of 2-1. But with minutes remaining and after one of our players got a red card, the other team mounted a comeback. A player from their team took a shot, but it wasn't a good shot and it wasn't hit very hard. It came right to me. I went to stop the ball and dribble it out, but the ball went right under my foot and on to another player on their team who promptly placed the ball in the back of the net. You can pin that goal on me. As we were pulling the ball out of the net and preparing for the kickoff the ref blew his whistle and called the game. You can place direct blame for the tie on my shoulders. After last night I wanted to quit the game for good. I have had bad games before, but I can't recall the last time I played a game where I was directly responsible for 2 goals.