"I don't understand, there's a raptor there"

I have had the busiest time of my life in the last few days, between my three jobs, house-sitting duties, umpteen teams, and brand-new girlfriend, among other things.

That being said, it's good fun, mostly.

I've had five outdoor games, an indoor game, and a couple practices in the last 5 days as well as some games that I'm forgetting about, but I want to keep it short and sweet anyways.

Friday was host to a co-ed outdoor and then competitive outdoor game. We had very few players for the first game, so I ended up playing striker, which I really enjoyed. I was able to make many dangerous runs and challenge a lot of players, but my shooting was just off; I hit the post twice and was just wide a couple of other times. The runs I made were great though, I felt like a truly natural striker, aside from the lack of finishing. I also megged a guy pretty well, it was awesome because I actually had to predict what he was going to do. I addition to all of that, I had a bicycle kick too, but I may've been showing off just a bit in that case. We ended up coming from behind and tying it 3-all.

I was benched for the first half of my competitive game because I arrived late, and then kept my girlfriend sweet in the stands for the rest of the warm-up. I definitely deserved it, but I feel slightly guilty because of the two goals that were scored against us in the first half while I wasn't on. One, in particular, was off a penalty kick that should've never happened. This was against a team that we needed to beat, too, but didn't. In the second half, we had one more scored on us thanks to some strange keeper positioning and one of my fullbacks getting beaten.

I find, that while playing as a sweeper, the hardest part is when the other team beats a player of mine and I can't get to him in time to fill in and make the tackle or slow him down, and that was exactly what happened. Otherwise, I had a lot of solid blocks and clearances, and I find that I'm getting better at the position. I just have to work on my offside trapping, and then I'll be even better. The only issue with that is when my fullbacks get dragged way behind me, it's completely shot to hell.

Since this issue has been wasting away on my PC for days now, I'll go ahead and post it and play some catch up later.

For now, I've another road trip to Portage La Prairie.