A soccer tournament has been organized for the unit, a first since I've been here. Last week we had a raft in which about seventy guys from my half of the unit went to eight teams. Despite only playing in a few games over the past couple weeks, I was picked up in the first round. The rest of our team looks decent. Hopefully, we'll get the passing done what we will need to win some games. Most guys here prefer to keep the ball to themselves.
We play on a small field with small goals - 4' X 6". We had been using rubber soccer balls, but someone donated two stitched leather balls for the tournament. They are supposed to look like the crazy Jabulani World Cup ball. The yard crew spent a couple days leveling the field and trying to take out the few mounds of grass. Yes, we play in dirt. The corners are still wildly unpredictable when it comes to ball control.
My team started our first game yesterday evening an had to stop early to come in from rec. The remainder of the game was played this afternoon. I definitely liked the cool evening better. Even then, we didn't do too well. FIrst, we struggled to have a full seven-man team to show up and almost had to forfeit. Then, since we hadn't played together before, we misjudged a bunch of passes. One guy just began booting the ball when it came near. The other team had a handball in the box that should have been a penalty kick for us, but went uncalled. We lost 1-0 in the end on a goal where our goalie was far out of place. It's a double elimination tournament, so we have one more shot at a win. With this crazy goalie, I'd be nuts to expect to win the whole thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment