Soccer Night in America

Wednesday night was my soccer game. The team was trying to rebound from a 5-5 outing the previous week. We were again without our normal goalie. We were also without our backup goalie, The General. Our team has also been suffering from a lack of turnout of field players. We were again short on subs, with only 3. At half time it was 2-0. Midway through the second half we pushed out lead to 5-1. I think we were just tired, and our lead slowly started to disappear. With 2:30 minutes to go the match narrowed to 5-4. Our team finally found a sense of urgency for the first time in the game. We spread the field out and moved the ball around and I don't think the other team touched the ball for the last 2:30 of the game. But I did think that we were going to put the ball in the back of the net over that last part of the game. It just seemed like we were too lazy to put together a real push. So we milked out a win. Their is just a huge difference in how you play with 3 subs rather an 5 subs. The shifts get longer and the pace of the game really slows down. We did push out record to 5-0-1. And with two games left against teams we have already beat, it seems highly unlikely that we will not win the league. On a personal note, I really didn't play that bad. I had one assist. I warm-ups before the game, I was hitting the ball fairly well. But in the game I couldn't hit the water if I jumped out of a boat. Of course that didn't stop me from trying. If I had the ball within 15 yards of the goal, I was shooting. I also came to realize that I without a doubt leading the team in fouls. I am not going to candy coat it, I do play with a rather physical style. But I do think that I get more fouls called on me because I am bigger than most of the players on the field. A little guy pushing me, isn't going to draw a whistle, but if I push the little guy back, I am for sure getting called. And because of my size, I also getting hacked pretty good. Tree, knows what I am talking about, it used to happen to him all of the time when we played basketball.