Thursday Night Soccer Report

Last night was the start of the second season for our 38 and older team – really we are playing 40 and older but they have been nice enough to let a few of us youngsters play with the older guys. Our first game was against the Montville Stallions and needless to say it wasn’t pretty out there. We truly played horribly and deserved the final score of 3 – 1.

I have to start out with how disappointed I was with my play. I felt good going into the game but ended up winded and a step to slow the entire night. I can fairly say I hadn’t fully recovered game fitness since being sick over the weekend but really that is just an excuse. I was lousy. The second goal I let my mark slip past me and then he made an impossible shot off the far post, Frank barely gave him a view of it but he banged it off the post and into the net for the second goal. It didn’t help that we let him goal hang all night, but he never should have had the shot in the first place if I had followed my assignment.

Enough of me for the moment trust me there will be more, as a team we looked like a bunch of odd ducks out there. Our passing was off, we couldn’t communicate for the life of us and until the end of the game we weren’t marking our men. They had very good pressure and when you don’t communicate bad things happen – third goal was a pass from me to no one (I thought Buyar was moving forward) and resulted in a 2 on 1 which turned into a breakaway on Frank.

Frankie (our resident Irishman) played beautiful all night, and saved at least one goal for us. To think he was playing hurt too, had a slip at work and has a sprained wrist. Rolfie on the other hand was not a sight for sore eyes, maybe if you were blind. He went back to playing rugby again, had an open net and put the ball 20 feet over the net looking for a quick rugby 3. He claims it was his left foot and half volley but those are just excuses for really cocking it up. It all started with Nick getting a nice pass from Aharon and putting a low shot on the net, Wes was there for the rebound and put it right back into the goalie, where it then popped over to our aforementioned wanker who claims it was bouncing too much and it was his left foot and the moon was full and the the light got in his eyes….! He did not look good all night. He got frustrated and started shooting from 25 yards out and out of 5 shots maybe one actually made it to the front of the net….the rest were right into the defense. He went one on one a few times and just couldn’t manage it.

Wes was looking for rebounds and scored our only goal on one. We did have our chances but we had our usual suspects shooting wide or over the net. Wes had a beauty that clanked off the crossbar from 25 yards out and then put a nice cross in where I had most ignominious moment of the night. I had no chance at the ball so I tried to go over the top of the bloke in front of me – had my hands on his back and made the grunt to go with it – not my best surfacing whale imitation ever – and yes – the foul was called.

All I can hope for is that we get it back together for next week and put the team back on track, we are better than we played last night and now we have to prove it.