What I Know About Soccer II

Soccer season is upon us again.  I’m proud to say that Griffin’s team (The Razordogs) has won both of their first two matches.  This is something brand new to us as we went through the entire season last year without a win.  Griffin seems to be adjusting well to it.  His only complaint at the beginning of the season was that he was being coached by girls.  They couldn’t possibly know what they were doing.  I think the results speak for themselves.

I’m very grateful that I had a chance to study the sport with my oldest son last year, because Gage started this year as well, and things are totally different in the 4 year old league.  In fact, if I were to learn everything I knew about soccer from the footballing four-year olds, it would go something like this…

Soccer is not at all what I thought.  I imagined it to be a game where teams fluidly passed the ball up and down the field with their feet trying to kick it passed the goalie and into the net.  Instead, what I see resembles a cross between a flash mob and a mixed martial arts competition.  A soccer ball has been thrown into the cage as an afterthought.  There is an honest to goodness penalty box that is used during each match!  I thought that was only in hockey, and yet I see the necessity of having it with these young ones.  My son has logged quite a few minutes in the box already, but don’t think for a second that he’s the bully of the field.  No, Gage takes as good as he gives.  Last Thursday’s match left him with a sore on his tongue where he bit it during a tussle.  Poor boy has barely been able to eat this weekend.

It turns out I was completely wrong about the goalie.  There is no goalie.  You would think that this would lead to some high scoring games, but that hasn’t been the case so far.  In fact, I’ve found that a large amount of the game is played behind the goals, an area I previously thought was out of bounds.  It seems that the only true boundary is the chain link fence of the softball field, and I think that’s only an artificial limit imposed by the fact that little ones can’t kick the ball through an open gate.

I also found that I was in error about the point of the game.  In my mind, it was to kick the ball in the net and score a point.  I was only half right.  The goal of the game is simply to kick the ball or tackle the person who is keeping you from kicking the ball.  Direction matters not.  Kick it toward either net you want, kick it past the net, and then keep kicking it.  The more time your foot is in contact with the ball, the more you are winning.

It’s thirty minutes of loosely officiated mayhem that the kids love.