"How many coca-colas guys?" "It's COKES"

As usual, Tuesday was a busy soccer day. I played 3 games, tying only one of them, losing the others with a team I guested for and the Soccer Team, who played the Wannabees again. As luck would have it, the tie was between two of my actual teams.

I'm always given a rough time by the team I guested for, they say I always play against them. While there is truth to that, it is a gross exaggeration. We lost in the second half by a couple late goals (3-1), but kept the game tied for the majority of it.

The great thing about the Winnipeg Rec League is that I've been built up as a player to fear in that league, and that alone improves my game by mentally effecting the opposition before we even start the match. I play much better in that league than others, because people give me space to dribble; they fear closing me down to get burned (which is the opposite of what they should do). It also helps that my frantic style of play allows me to freely roam the small court, the distance of which is easily covered in a few short seconds. Those who've seen me play midfield in indoor will note that I don't often assign myself a role or position, but rather pick up various bits of slack around the field.

It helps in another way too, in that people pay particular attention to me in that league. This is how I helped get my team's goal. I made a diagonal run, and two people followed me, and everybody else glanced over in my direction. The run itself was not entirely productive, but it allowed my teammate to shoot and score between their goalie's legs from about 6 meters out; which is quite a distance with a size-5 ball and hockey nets as goals.

In the second game of the night, I played with my easily one of my favorite teams, "The Soccer Team". The Soccer Team is by no means a juggernaut, but rather a team of people (including a teacher from my old high school) who have rarely touched a soccer ball, but are in it for the fun. In all honesty, they are the least skillful team I have ever seen; however, they have copious amounts of fun all of which is incredibly infectious. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I've heard oohs and ahhs from the bench after I pull something out of the style basket. This endears me greatly to them. When playing with them, I try to set up what usually ends up being a missed shot; I would love to see them grab a few goals for themselves, however. We lost 6-1 to the Wannabees (a former pseudo-team of minemisfits), but I did manage to set up the team's first goal not scored by myself. I ought to take less credit though, as I just rolled the ball to my former teacher for the toe-punt from Valhalla that practically ended the universe as we know it. I hope he mentioned it (and me) in the staff room.

If there's one thing I miss from youth football, it's the extremely powerful toe-punts that take the keeper five minutes to go find in the brush behind the field.

In the final game of that night, the Yellow Dogs and Ducharmes faced off. I played (once again) for the Yellow Dogs, due to a lack of male attendance. By this time I was pretty exhausted, and the LCL injury I sustained a few days ago began to act up. My lazyness showed from the first minute, when one of the Ducharmes, Jordan, went ahead and scored on us. They went up by two, but then a teammate pulled one back. Close to the end of the game, I got an indirect free kick in the attacking zone, so I just kicked it at the net, not having any options. It took a deflection and found the back of the net, tying it up 2-2. I felt a cocktail of guilt, elation, and empowerment. I didn't celebrate, though I'm not sure if that was out of grief or enervation.

Tonight, I answered the call of duty. Jahan called me at eight in the evening, asking me to come to the AFC Soccer game. I asked about how he got the team reinstated (remember that he had told me he had canceled it days earlier), and he fed me some incoherency. I had a choice to make: A White Eagles game, or the AFC Soccer game. I dangled the carrot in front of his face with this while weighing out my options*, but eventually told him I'd be there. It was unfortunate to be missing an Eagles game, especially considering that the game was against our rivals (who are based solely on both teams stewing at the bottom-of-the-divisional-system-barrel). They lost that game 5-4 after blowing multiple leads, it would seem from the online scoresheet.

I played the entire game on defense for AFC soccer due to a lack of substitutes, and I may have found my place in that team. I blocked many a shot, at one point blocking such a hard shot that I aggravated an ancient injury of mine, shown below. Question: What do you think it is? The answer at the end of this blog post.

Note: That is my shin bone, which normally should be relatively straight.

With that, I got to go in net for 5 minutes as a break. I let one in, but it didn't matter; we won 8-5 against a team twice our size. I got back out and started blocking more shots, slightly aggravating it again. I had a couple nice long passes as well, one resulting in a goal, the other was a perfectly weighted, lobbed through-ball from about 40 metres away. It unfortunately resulted in nothing, other than looking awesome. When I kicked it, I thought of David Beckham's new position/nickname with AC Milan, which is "Goldenballs". I chuckled.

And so after the game, the group of us went for a round of "coca colas" courtesy Jahan. We aggravated the server of our coca colas by calling them that. Many other odd things were said, including the establishment of the word "scores" meaning (and being used in the same context as) chances.

When I got home, I found my right leg has taken quite a beating, between the LCL, shin, and various ankle injuries I'm carrying. It reminded me of a favorite childhood game, Mechwarrior.

Anybody else experiencing extreme nostalgia? Note how intense the game must be, seeing as the background of the box is fire. Also, 31st century combat? Whoa, hold the phone, that is my kind of game.

In particular, whenever your "mech" would get damage, a robotic, feminine voice would alert you of the damage by mentioning that the particular part took a "critical hit". Since the injury, this voice has been reminding me of the "Critical hit; Leg" that I had sustained. This is a good indication that I am a loser, but in addition to that, this may my mind's outlandish way of alerting me that I need to settle down.

At any rate, this can't happen before Friday, Team Gigantic has a season-defining game against our most serious of rivals, Tony's Academy Autobody.

Answer: It is a break on the inside, or cortex of my bone. I am extremely thankful for the effects of calcium, and their salvation of the exterior part of my bone. This injury first began when I ran into a bench at full throttle while playing Basketball in grade 9 gym class. I sat out ten minutes, then began playing again. When I had heard that I almost broke a leg in quite a gruesome way, it began a streak of ego-inflation in thinking that I was made of adamantium or some other cool space-borne mineral.