Looks like it's arm wrestling night

After playing a couple games in a couple days, I was pretty exhausted, but wound up playing with the Eagles on Monday. Usually these are the worst games for me to play, because I end up doing the most running during them. I ended up playing at least 45 minutes of the 50 minute game against the top team. We didn't score any, though I came close a couple times, once from a free kick, a couple times from carrying it through a couple people, and once more from a very close long one-timer. We lost 5-0.

After the game, we got together and discussed strategy, and decided we'd play anti-football next time around. We will play defensively, then just pass back constantly on offense and spread ourselves out until the midfielder (me) can get a good opportunity to get around somebody. Once we get a goal, we go back to frustrating the other team. At the very least, we will end up lowering the amount of goals against us.

Tuesday night I had the option of going to a Team Gigantic game or staying at work and playing with a couple other teams. Due to the blizzard, I ended up staying at work. This was fortunate because my legs were dead. I was terrible, but I used my lack of speed to try a bunch of tricks. This was a nice experience, as I found that it's not so hard to do. We won the first game 4-3 (with the Ducharmes), but tied 2-2 the next game.

The next game was essentially battle of "the people who destroyed every chance they got" vs. "the people who destroyed me every chance they got". My team, in spite of having easily over 30 shots, could not help be shoot the vast majority of them over the net. The other team laid the lickens on me, one trip in particular made me hit the ground remarkably hard. I played in net for the first half of that game because I was tired, and I let nothing in. Call it half a clean sheet. A couple of the other team's degenerates tried to kill me when I was distributing the ball, but other than that, it was fairly routine. The strangest part was when one guy did a tuck jump right in front of me, out of what I would assume was anger for him not knowing the out of bounds areas.

I haven't been to school yet this week, because I'm lazy. I've also been staying at my surrogate family's house this past little while, and I've been sleeping until three daily. Partly, this is because I saw the movie Quarantine last weekend.

In other news, my friend Rob wants to me to write a Uniter (my University's newspaper) column. I'm not sure what it'd be about, but I would enjoy doing it. Of course, I had him make a facebook group with targets determining how often I would write.

"I'd have felt bad had it kept you awake"

Saturday and Sunday consisted of the kinds of games that really work you, one per day.

Saturday it was with Fury, I played defense and discovered that my ball control is not what it should be. My first touch is fine, but I just can not plan ahead when I touch the ball. Part of it, I think, is panic from just being pitted against somebody else. Another part could be the fact that whenever I try to put the moves on somebody in co-ed and other teams, I just sprint by with the ball, or have enough time to do something, whether it be a step over or roll with bottom of my foot. After I do a move, I usually end up sprinting by anyways.

Anyway, we won that game 7-3, with very few talking points to speak of.

If there were something to fault AFC Soccer on, it'd be the chronically late players. We frequently start games late because we do not have the proper amount of players, and tonight was no exception. We had 3 and a goalie, and had two scored on us before we were able to fill the field. We then tore through the opposition like a TV dinner, to the tune of 14-5. I played defense and scored once, off a rebound that I had enough time to blast it in off the keeper. I came close a few other times, kicking a squared pass a foot above the top right corner, and then having another attempt thwarted at goal line while I was on the ground. Another team mate popped in and finished it though, so I suppose I can call it an assist.

The leg injury on the back of my knee is still preventing a full range of movement, but only bothers me when walking, and not while playing. I feel the issue will resolve itself in a couple days.

For news of the more personal flavor, I ended an un-planned stay at my surrogate family's house for a week. It's nice to be back in my own room, but it was strange; I came into my house and was welcomed by a batch of freshly made cookies. And boy, were they good.

"Patience, patience... I want to look at my heart now"

Three games last night. Three. In a row. While injured. My post-game wind down consisted of stretching, drinking, eating chocolate chips, and sitting in a hot tub for an hour. It was lovely.

In the first game, the Duchearmes took on the top-ranked team in Winnipeg Rec League, and only lost 2-1, to an absolutely TERRIBLE goal. I mean, I've never seen or heard of anything like it. The ball trickled in from behind the net using it's own spin. Ridiculous.

The second game I played with The Soccer Team. If you'd remember, this was the team that really had nobody who has played soccer before. We lost 13-0, so I pulled out the tricks. I ripped apart pretty much anybody I went against, but a combination of passing near their net and a lucky goalkeeper kept my team shut out. I did, however, successfully preform the seal dribble for a few (4) bounces. Between their players, too.

The lovely seal dribble. Please excuse the song.

In the last game, the Yellow dogs were playing last year's champions and a team I was lined up to play for; Balls in the Ayer. It was an intense game, and there were times when I had to quieten everybody down. After coming back from two goals down to lead 3-2 at half, they complained about the amount of time I had allocated for the game (the first half ran late, so I shortened the second). I allowed the game to go 5 minutes longer than usual, and my team managed to win 4-3. I scored two goals in the process, the first was a sloppy tap-in, the second was a self-created breakaway with a bottom corner picked out.

Good old Winnipeg Rec League. I quite enjoy getting paid to play.

Very funny guys, now get the hell out of here.

What a weekend. Saturday, I ended up going to only one of my two games because I injured my hip in the earlier game with the White Eagles. We had one sub, so I had to tough it out, and I ended up playing about 46 minutes; way more than half of those minutes carrying the injury. I'd have played the whole thing, but after about 15 minutes straight, I developed a searing pain in my shins, so I sat off for a couple minutes.

The other two minutes were due to a yellow card. My team's captain told me to "get that number 3". He ran top speed at me not 5 seconds later, and I gave him one fuck of a shin-to-shin. I have hard shell shin pads, and we both fell, if that gives you any idea on how hard the hit was. I did swing a little, yes, and definitely deserved the card. I was more or less doing it for the two-minute break... And because I'm impressionable.

Yellow card.

Before that, I had been pushed into the boards, prompting a yellow to the assailant. I suppose I hit my hip, because I think I received a minor contusion of the right gluteus maximus.

In other words, I hit the muscle on the back of my right hip. This hurt (and still does) quite a bit, but got much better overnight.

We only ended up losing that one 4-0, which was pretty good.

Much to my chagrin, I ended up missing the second game of that day, 10 hours later, with AFC Soccer. This was a sacrifice I was willing to make, as I assumed we were ill-prepared for the Team Gigantic game today, hearing from the manager that "everybody's gone for that game". This included our prima donna top scorer, Jay.

The manager, before she left, was pretty taciturn about who would and wouldn't be around for the game, so I attended with the idea that I'd play if absolutely required (I estimated having 5 guys, so one outfield substitute minus the goalie). I sorted the team out before the match, and got everything rolling. We hit full stride quickly, and I felt fantastic while playing. We put one in the net thanks to Adrian, and then shortly after, he set me up for our second, which was quite a stroke of luck. I shot on target to the near post from a sharp angle, however the goalie tipped it slightly off-course. It still remained roughly on course, but it no longer headed into the small space of net that I had planned for it to go in. It hit the wall, bounced off the goalie's back, and rolled in.

If we had hit full stride before, we were really hitting extreme stride now. When I was on (playing midfield), we had not conceded a goal the entire game, and we had a deluge of shots going at their net. We passed incredibly, and at one point I almost nailed a left-footed volley, but it went off the crossbar, hit the ground, then off the crossbar again before bouncing out. My shots were incredibly hard today, as well. At one point, I had four people in front of me in a T-shape, and one attacker with me. With no run up, I rolled the ball with the bottom of my foot ever so slightly and cracked a low driven shot at the keeper, curling it around a player. I surprised myself, and attribute the shot power to the Sunday night workout.

Later in the game, I misjudged a bouncing ball and wasn't able to win it in the air, so I gave chase, easily beating an opponent. He shoved me down, and the ref blew play dead. Derek ran over, and I knew he was about to do something that the ref wouldn't agree with, so I held him back. I ended up getting in between Derek and the goon, which resulted in Derek throwing a light open palmed punch by my head and onto his adversaries'. The response to that was to stick his middle finger into my mouth (hopefully) unintentionally. Bite reflex kicked in, though not hard.

Red card.

Derek saw red. I had sweat in my mouth, but their player decided to mouth off to the ref, warranting two yellows. We played the rest of the game 4-a-side, and I started really going crazy with the lengthy runs, but vouched to get off sooner rather than later. We won 7-2.

We didn't shake hands, but Derek said he'd be my next Valentine... Just so long as he doesn't steal my arm-whirl goal celebration again.

It's bedtime for me though, just after some stretches. I am stiff as a board tonight.

"Fun's not the right f-word, I need some drugs."

So after that depressing blog post on Sunday, I elected to get off my ass and get better, so I worked out. The idea was to start a daily regime, except on days before games and days of games. I figured I could go hard because my next game wasn't for two days. I went crazy with my legs, working out every muscle that could possibly help me kick harder or run faster on the weight machine. I did this for two hours, preceded by juggling and dribbling and finishing with plyometrics and squats.

I was still incredibly sore up until yesterday. The work out, coupled with some ridiculously icy weather made for hampered general locomotion both Monday and Tuesday, but I survived. I did go drinking before my games/work Tuesday to take my mind off of the stiffness, and it really worked wonders. The soreness, combined with the top injury in the picture (a slice on my ankle from futsal) made for a day of resentment towards socks. The lower injury is a bruise from a bicycle kick during halftime that drove the ladies on my team wild. Oh yes. It even went off the crossbar, and yes, I played it off like I meant to.

I just realized how much the top picture makes it look like I harm myself.

I played about an hour and a half, scoring one goal in a losing effort and none in a winning effort. The winning effort was with the Ducharmes, and we won 3-2. The losing effort was with "The Soccer Team" who recruited me "because I'm good". They're all sweethearts, I feel like I'm surrounded by kids while playing with them though, in a good way, because they're in awe of my moves. It's funny, really. Throughout the night I had a few nice passes and such, and the one goal I did get was your typical rebound smash in.

More recently, I'm finally done my exams, now I have a fantastic week long break put in place by universities across the land so I don't kill myself out of loneliness or stress. Sort of morbid, but a fantastic idea anyways.

I played Squash tonight, winning 11-4. Tomorrow, it's legs and relaxation.

You know that fucking guy who waves his hands around, with all the instruments?

I have been so tired lately, requiring ten hours of sleep at least. These are nights that I don't play, either. Friday I was pretty good, but Saturday I was particularly lethargic, most likely because of the game Friday.

That game was a Team Gigantic game, and I ended up playing defense. I had a remarkable game in many aspects: I was beating people, attacking dangerously, but defending well as well. I set up our team's only goal by feeding it through a goalie and defender to an open Derek in front of the net (but don't ask me what I was doing all the way up there), and unfortunately was able to do nothing about the three goals that came against us when I wasn't on. I had one shot, which was from range and hit on the first shot. The shot curved and then just hit the inside of one of the posts, ricocheting out.

I went to the Edwards' for the night and fell asleep at four. Keeley woke me up at seven for snowboarding, but it turned out to be too cold. I went back to sleep for another three hours. Perhaps that had something to do with playing terribly yesterday.

The first game was a Fury game. We won 7-3, but I missed boatloads of chances, and scored twice, playing forward. My first goal was strange, I was a few feet from the goal, with a mostly open net. I put the ball onto my right foot with my left, but the ball was in the air. The best way to describe what happened next, when the ball got to my right foot was that I scooped and flicked it into the net. Strange. My second goal was self-made, with a steal that, with a little roll-the-ball-behind-me-but-towards-their-net move turned into a breakaway.

In the AFC Soccer game, I was playing terribly. At one point I was taking an indirect kick and I miss-kicked it, giving the other team a 2-on-1. They scored, and were up 6-3 at half. I felt pretty bad, and the other guys were angry at me. Thankfully it was only momentarily, but I still sat off the second half. We ended up winning 9-8, with no thanks to me. We all decided to go for pizza after the post-game chat, the highlight of which was this:

"You know that fucking guy who waves his hands around, with all the instruments? The maestro?"

Courtesy Jahan, of course. I don't know what he was getting at.

While we're on the subject of funny quotes, a few weeks back, I forgot to mention one of Mustafa's:

"You seemed a little sluggish out there, did you fuck your girl before you came?"

Funny in itself, but to add to it, my dad was standing nearby, struggling to keep a straight face when he heard this.

During pizza, Jahan kept trying to explain that the system was just not working for me, and the guys were really nice about the whole thing, trying to externalize the problem, but I know that I need a full night's sleep, and to work on my touch. As well, I need to stop panicking when I play with them. They really haven't seen me at my best yet, I think. I am still learning, though. For example, Mustafa (Fury) told me to fake some lunges for the ball while defending, because it throws people off. I've seen this done before, but it never occurred to try it.

As far as Jahan's system goes, he was the midfielder to only defend when we have a third man running to attack us. Other than that, he wants a centralized midfielder, structured passing play, and quick counterattacks, all in a 2-1-2 formation.

I think, when I get back with the Eagles (I missed one of their games tonight, they lost 6-1), things will change, in that I'm going to start carrying the ball more.

It's funny though; right when you think you're improving, a bad game sets you back.

"Always my finger hurts after the game." "Why?" "My Shoes"

Sunday's (half) game with Fury was uneventful, I ended up reffing for half, switching off for Johan at half time. I had to go to the bathroom for the first half, so I really didn't play as well as I could've. We tied that game.

Tuesday, I have a problem - two of my rec league teams were playing each other, the Ducharmes (formerly known as the Wife Beaters), and the Yellow Dogs. I played with the Yellow Dogs because the Yellow Dogs only had two men without me, and the Ducharmes had what I thought was enough players and quality to win. That being said, I didn't want the Yellow Dogs to win, but the Ducharmes are easily the more competitive of the two teams.

It was a very routine match, the neatest part from me was a breakaway-volley that went off the top post. I could not find anything like this on Youtube.

The Yellow Dogs scraped by 1-0. I played 45 minutes, and got yelled at for calling the Yellow Dogs' fouls. I'm not sure what one expects when he puts his shoulders into everybody, but it apparently was not that.