I played Soccer again

So I played soccer again this week. After watching O'Brian White, Akeem Priestley, Josh Ford, Stephanie Labbe, Meghan "Amazingness" Cunningham and of course Ryan Marciel Grace, you begin to want to play soccer every once in awhile.

I tried to bend in like Bildstein, or Beckham, whatever you prefer. I kind of did. It went in but I didn't think it was as beautiful as Bildstein's shot heard round campus...or heard by me...or broadcast by Cory to her team...but I've heard that she is way too (I mean way too) humble to have done that.

Sometimes I get things twisted. It's up to you to figure it out.

We got around to playing 2 vs 2 vs 2 with a goalie on Memorial...Basically my friend Vlad and I were a team...and well we basically are no good. I'm good at defense, I'm good at stopping others. I'm not all that good at dribbling or making accurate passes or especially being like Boogie with the ball. Basically I'm a slightly better soccer version of the kid you would laugh at for playing basketball...you know keeps his head down while dribbling...and dribbling really high, making it easy to steal from.

But I vow to work on it...that's why I want to learn how to juggle a soccer ball.

Anyway somehow Vlad found the back of the net on a lucky play. One of the 2 vs 2 teams won so they sat out and let the last two teams duel it out. The two kids we played against were really quite good. Somehow I stole or got the ball and dribbled it a little and then decided it would be good to shoot it on goal. I kicked it pretty hard (I have strong legs) and the ball hit the cross bar or goalkeepers fingers and then cross bar and bounced off his back and into the goal...I couldn't believe it. It was like the 16 seed beating the 1 seed. The other guys there were like "great shot, wow that was amazing." I was more than happy to tell them that I'd never played before. I celebrated because I knew that this is not going to happen to me that often...and it was the first time I scored because I made something happen...the other time I was just in the right place at the right time. I ran over to Vlad and gave him a chest bump...Like I've actually never been so excited in sports...When I had a game winning or tying hit in baseball I never really celebrated. When I've scored game winning shots in pick-up basketball I never celebrated. But scoring a goal in soccer??? THATS WORTH CELEBRATING. I almost did a dance...and thats a scary thing.

Then I decided that I wanted to play goalie. I thought I might be good at it because I've been good at defense when I played soccer. Plus I had just met Stephanie Labbe this semester so I decided that I would love to see how hard it is to be a goalie. And of course I saw Ryan Marciel Grace play and I wanted to see if I could be as good as him.

I am as good as Ryan Marciel Grace...maybe better.

I thought I should have been better at goalie. Everyone said I was pretty good...I thought I should have been better. I made a good foot save...like I squeezed the ball between my feet on a volley...I'm sure that's not how your supposed to save it...(I've never seen Josh Ford or Labbe do that) but it worked. I was really good at the shots that were like volleyed off of rebounds. They probably didn't score on any of those. I remember them being frustrated by a couple of my saves. I also showed my inexperience. There was one slow roller that I thought for sure would go wide of the goal...and of course it didn't go wide...it went right in. I think I let another roller go in because I didn't want to get too dirty. That won't happen again though because next time I play I will be prepared to wear bad clothes and get extremely dirty.