rone | soccer report threefer (Reply)

Last week marked the final games of my soccer sessions. On Monday, Crossfire completed its second and final season at Off The Wall Soccer by losing in a different fashion: by forfeit. Officially, Vortex won 3-0. We played anyway and lost something like 11-2. Our captains managed to forget the team jerseys, and the OTWS assholes wouldn't let the game be official, even though our opponents were wholly amenable to us playing in mesh vests, even though the other team had a chance to take first place (although needed to beat us by something like 13 goals, which even a team of our quality could've avoided).

On Thursday, Centavo beat Old Man U 10-7. We started the game a man down, but only fell behind by a couple of goals. We managed to pull away late in the second half, coincidentally when the ref let one of the opposing players languish in the penalty box 30 seconds past his due and we scored.

After the game, we faced the fact that our captain hadn't registered us for the next session (because he was moving away), and our division was full. The only slot was in Division 5; we agreed that we'd take a shot, even though it's a top division and we'd probably get killed. And even though i didn't want to captain the team (because that means paying up front, then dunning my teammates, plus stressing over jerseys and keeping a roster), i ended up volunteering because, well, nobody else was. Now, OTWS had co-ed on Mondays, men's 1-5 on Tuesdays, 6-10 on Wednesdays, and 11-15 on Thursdays. However, they recently altered it so that 1-4 is on Tuesdays, but 5 is on Fridays. So now we're set for Friday, but since 4 of our players already play on Fridays, that means that our roster is suddenly quite short. Add in another couple of dropouts for random reasons and things are looking very grim.

How grim? Well, we played our first game yesterday and lost to Arsenal USA, 15-8. Our defense was outclassed, and it could've been much worse; they seemed to be new to OTWS, so they kept making 3-line infractions and didn't play the ball off the wall very well. Also, i had thrown my tattered gloves away after the last game, and i forgot to buy new ones, so i ended up playing with batting gloves. Those fortunately didn't become a problem as i made most of my saves with my legs. It was an interesting game for me because i was forced to shift side-to-side a lot and guess often, because of the quality of the shooters. And guessing mostly worked for me this game. So, like i said, it could have been worse.

As for Crossfire, last i heard we were shooting for reforming at Striker's Den. My membership at OTWS expires in November, and i'll not renew it, because i'm just tired of their crap. If Crossfire doesn't reform, then i'll try to find a team at Striker's Den or at MVP Arena.