The rain gods were pleased with soccer yesterday and let matches be played all over the metro Atlanta area. Among the matches allowed was our men’s over 35 match. Unfortunately for us however, the attendance gods were not pleased and we started the match with 8 men against a fully loaded plus subs Express.
Fortunately two of our guys were in route so by the 10 minute mark, we were up to a whopping 10 men. Slight consolation seeing that you have 70 more minutes to play with a man down.
Nonetheless, we made a strong showing and kept the score close, with a final of 3-2 going to Express. We had our chances throughout the match – including a botched PK by yours truly. Actually, I hit the ball to toward the roof of the net, but too close to the keeper. The goalie did a good job of stretching to get two fingers on the ball and redirected it in to the cross bar.
We had two good goals by Isaac and John, and kept possession for a lot of the match, but at the end it wasn’t enough to overcome our manpower deficit. The really excellent news is that I think all 10 of us emerged with no pulled muscles! Well done.
17 April 2009
DC United scrap out the point against New England
I caught the last 40 minutes of the Friday night match between DCU and New England and it did not disappoint.
New England went up in the first half on a Shalrie Joseph header and looked like they would hang on to the 1-0 margin until the end in spite of some heavy DC United pressure.
Ben Olsen mixed it up with Wells Thompson after Wells helped Ben out of the touchline by a generous shoulder.
In a touch of payback, Ben beat Thomson to a nicely placed Jamie Moreno far post free kick to slot the point saver home in stoppage time.
New England went up in the first half on a Shalrie Joseph header and looked like they would hang on to the 1-0 margin until the end in spite of some heavy DC United pressure.
Ben Olsen mixed it up with Wells Thompson after Wells helped Ben out of the touchline by a generous shoulder.
In a touch of payback, Ben beat Thomson to a nicely placed Jamie Moreno far post free kick to slot the point saver home in stoppage time.
15 April 2009
13 April 2009
Three Types of Soccer Haters
From far too many discussions on message boards, I have determined that there are three types of "anti soccer fans", if it's possible to be an anti fan of anything. Here they are:
1. The Soccer Hater: this is your sports fan who understands the basic rules of soccer, but was most likely humiliated playing it as a kid. They will isolate one negative component of the game (e.g., diving or fan violence) and then extrapolate that to the entire sport. They are most likely to call the sport, “gay” or “unmanly,” which any one who has taken psychology 101 will attest, they are simply manifesting a response to their own ambiguous sexuality. They may also believe soccer to be communist or socialist. They will use the term “Euro trash” to describe all soccer players, not really knowing what they are describing. These are your typical soccer trolls. Semi-mainstream American sports media has a few: Jim Rome, Chuck Klosterman, Frank Deford, basically shock jock types preaching to their own collective choirs with no real thinking or analysis behind anything. They have an irrational fear of the sport as being “un-American,” without realizing that it’s the most popular participatory sport in the US by a couple of orders of magnitude. They are scared of soccer and its popularity so they lash out at it.
2. The Perplexed Soccer Observer: unlike the soccer hater, these fans simply don’t understand the game. Through no fault of their own, they have not been exposed to the game either as a player or observer which means they are most likely American. They look at final scores as an indication of match quality and equate high scores with good games. They don’t understand positions, creating and exploiting space, nuance of movement, omni-directional options, passing skill, trapping skill, vision, strength on the ball, shooting, heading, multi-step thinking, point of attack, and so on; therefore, when they flip the TV channel to a match, all they see is a ball being moved from one person to another with no purpose, when in fact, the purpose is always to create an opportunity. They will eventually grow to love the game like the rest of us.
3. The Soccer Agnostic: sports fans without an opinion. These people are extremely rare. They are probably big fans of cycling or bull riding; meaning they could care less about soccer, football, baseball, basketball, or hockey. They represent .0001% of the sporting world.
1. The Soccer Hater: this is your sports fan who understands the basic rules of soccer, but was most likely humiliated playing it as a kid. They will isolate one negative component of the game (e.g., diving or fan violence) and then extrapolate that to the entire sport. They are most likely to call the sport, “gay” or “unmanly,” which any one who has taken psychology 101 will attest, they are simply manifesting a response to their own ambiguous sexuality. They may also believe soccer to be communist or socialist. They will use the term “Euro trash” to describe all soccer players, not really knowing what they are describing. These are your typical soccer trolls. Semi-mainstream American sports media has a few: Jim Rome, Chuck Klosterman, Frank Deford, basically shock jock types preaching to their own collective choirs with no real thinking or analysis behind anything. They have an irrational fear of the sport as being “un-American,” without realizing that it’s the most popular participatory sport in the US by a couple of orders of magnitude. They are scared of soccer and its popularity so they lash out at it.
2. The Perplexed Soccer Observer: unlike the soccer hater, these fans simply don’t understand the game. Through no fault of their own, they have not been exposed to the game either as a player or observer which means they are most likely American. They look at final scores as an indication of match quality and equate high scores with good games. They don’t understand positions, creating and exploiting space, nuance of movement, omni-directional options, passing skill, trapping skill, vision, strength on the ball, shooting, heading, multi-step thinking, point of attack, and so on; therefore, when they flip the TV channel to a match, all they see is a ball being moved from one person to another with no purpose, when in fact, the purpose is always to create an opportunity. They will eventually grow to love the game like the rest of us.
3. The Soccer Agnostic: sports fans without an opinion. These people are extremely rare. They are probably big fans of cycling or bull riding; meaning they could care less about soccer, football, baseball, basketball, or hockey. They represent .0001% of the sporting world.
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