All made up

Played my indoor soccer league tonight. As the readers know, I began playing again after about 30 years of not playing. It’s hard to get going again, but great for fitness and fun at times. Indoor has been tough. It’s fast and you have to weight balls perfectly and with 7 v 7, you are always moving, so being in shape is paramount. You get a cold or sinus infection and stop running (and start eating) and you have trouble getting it back.

There are some guys in their 20′s and naturally, some guys with mad skills playing. You show up with the rust, and they judge you very quickly and you see little of the ball after the verdict has been rendered.

I was always a striker as a kid, but that was 30 years ago and everyone wants to play up there and there’s a pecking order. So I am learning defense and making do. I’d love to play up, but even if I get an odd shift forward, which can happen with subbing, I don’t get the ball up there. So I’m making runs and I’m INVISIBLE. So that’s not the answer. But, you always feel in your mind that you could do well if given the chance.

Tonight, I get thrown up front early and quickly I get a a ball well out from goal that is falling to my left. I have my back to goal. I spin around and just instinctively take it off the bounce as I’m spinning and catch it real good and it goes in from distance. I heard someone make a crack about “goal of the year”, so that is nice to hear. I’m thinking to myself, “…hey, I might be a load on defense, but I can turn and shoot and finish…”

Next shift I’m up front again and my friend who I car pool with is tied up near goal with a man or two draped on him and I go drop for him and he looks up and sees me and rolls a nice ball to me and I step into it and catch it 100%, low and hard. The keeper sees this and he’s ready, arms out, and it just lasers past his head–nothing he can do. What a nice feeling to catch it square and keep it down. Again, I am thinking, “…I can do this”.

The game is 2-2. Then we go down 3-2. The play was physical. It was the kind of night with a kind of weird energy. Lot of hard challenges on 50-50 balls and the ref is letting all kinds of physical stuff go. The young guys are getting mad and they want to win. The old guys just want go to work the next day–that’s the difference.

I was going to go in, but the sub would have put me at midfield and I didn’t want that in this close game, so I let the other guy have it and he goes in and scores and it’s 3-3 now. We fall behind again 4-3 and I get a shift up front. My thinking was that these guys were fast and skilled and I didn’t want to be playing defense on them in a close game that the young guys wanted to win so badly. So when I could get a shift up front, I took it.

I ended up inside the 6 and a corner got through to me and I tucked it in nice and calm for #3. You have to understand that I don’t score. There are several guys on the team who will not pass me the ball almost under any circumstances. While that hurts somewhat, I do understand the jock-ocracy and why it is. Still, you win plenty of 50-50 balls and it doesn’t much matter. Besides, it’s tiring to have a lot of the ball and a lot of the time, I’m looking to conserve energy and don’t want the ball. But up front, you have to make runs and do positive things or it stands out. So it was nice to be scoring goals. The last one, ANYone on the team might have scored, but still, I got myself into the correct spot and that’s key. Be where you’re supposed to be is half of it.

The first 2 goals? I don’t think anyone on the team would have even shot the first one and the second? Low percentage; maybe 2% of those get hit well and beat the keeper in that situation. So obviously, as they say in Liverpool, I’m all made up about tonight. I had a bad game 3 weeks ago and thought of dropping the indoor. Just saying “I pulled a hammy” and bagging it. I think that was a night I was wide open for drop on a guy who was getting stripped and he looked up and saw me and I saw him recognize me and DQ the idea to drop it to me. And there was no one within 15 yards of me. We’re talking IN SPACE. And, yes, that, and s***ing most of the night, hurt. You wonder, “…at my age, why am I doing this?” For nights like tonight. That’s why.

And it was funny too, because I look at these things like a Sociology experiment. I observe and I enjoy noting what the group dynamic is. Some guys might be oblivious that they don’t get passed to or just not care. I notice it and track it. Nothing personal, I just find it interesting. So tonight, I noticed that no sooner do I score the cracker–the first one, that wah-lah, I’m getting service [angels singing], and of course, I did nothing with it (almost nothing).

But it’s funny. If you watch. A “good” player will lose the ball and play bad balls a lot of the time, but that is overlooked. A player like me has a clunky touch and you can just hear everyone, “…oh, look, he can’t do this or that”. It’s just the way it is. I’m not making a normative judgement. It is what it is and I find it interesting.

I’m also finding it interesting how much of this game is confidence: Between the ears. I thought baseball was the most mental game (well, golf), but this is up there. You can have made skills and it won’t do you any good if you don’t have the confidence to back it. And in soccer, confidence can be audacity almost. There’s a reason that good strikers are almost universally Big Prima Donnas–because to be good, you must think you are superman, and MEAN it. I think of Cantona. He was nuts. There wasn’t anything he didn’t think he could do on a pitch.

Scoring a goal is HARD. It’s ridiculously hard and to do it, you have to make very quick, very risky decisions, most of which, will turn out bad and look quite selfish; but you must do them to score! And you can’t be self conscious to take those selfish risks. Look at my first goal tonight. No one would hit that ball. But I play a lot off the wall and I have, for years, enjoyed practicing the turn-and-hit. Left side, right side, what have you. When I saw the ball fall there (it wasn’t played TO me, just a random ball that fell to my vicin), I immediately felt comfortable and formed the thought, “…I can hit this well”, and so there was no hesitation whatsoever. In fact, I had been to the wall on New Years Eve and hit several of these in my workout. It was a warm day and I had a great workout–totally enjoyable. As I’m spinning to hit that ridiculous shot, all I need is a lane to the goal. There’s no time to look, you just factor it out and hope. In your mind, you have a very definite idea of exactly where you THINK the goal is, so all you’re doing is thinking: (1) hit it well (2) Keep it down and (3) on goal; edge of goal if possible.

One of the beauties of that shot is you are back-to-goal. With good defenders, you will get many balls in that state, so being able to do this is a big plus. The other thing is that it is such an outlandish strike attempt that goalies are flat footed, or better; they’re screened. They aren’t expecting a shot from that distance and position. You also aren’t lifting your leg and telegraphing a shot so some defender yells “shot!” and all of a sudden you have no lane. It’s funny, playing off a wall will not do much for your ability to play with others (I’m living that now), but it does totally hone your ability to one-time balls and be two-footed.

Hopefully, I’ll see a little more of the ball and hopefully, I’ll do good things with those opportunities and not just waste the little capital I’ve amassed with my team mates. I think I’ll have a window of about 1 game where I’ll be more involved. You know, I didn’t want to go around campaigning for playing striker. I just don’t want to campaign with my mouth. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping that I get up front a bit more. I won’t campaign though. And I’m not thinking that I can go out and do this routinely. Some nights the ball falls for you fortuitously and gives you chances to do things you know you can do. It ain’t baseball, where you’ll hit at least 3 or 4 times. In footy, you may not get the chances to do the things you want to.

Liverpool vs Man City in the league tomorrow. Then 2 more times in 3 weeks for the home and home semis in the CCup. I want the points tomorrow. Big time. 3pm game. I’ll watch the replay at night–no spoilers you emailers! Come on you Red Men!

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