There were many factors that lead to our last scheduled game not going as we wanted it to. To begin with, our leading scorer and goalie are on an extended leave of absence from school from last week's incident. In addition to those two, six more players from our roster have not been to a practice or game in over two weeks which left us with 11 players for this game. Five players were in afternoon detention and four of those completed their homework and punitive quotes in time to make it to the game. So, we went to battle with 10 players.
Arriving at the game the clouds were threatening to open up and douse the field plus the temperature was the coldest we have had yet this fall. Prior to the game I talked with our opponent's coach and found out that they had tied one of our opponents who beat us by 1 (playing 11 on our 10) so with a full roster we probably should have beat this team. He graciously agreed to play us 10-on-10, so that he could have one sub. The game was ref'd by a parent/assistant coach making 5 out of our 6 games not officiated by a "real" soccer official.
It was clear within 10 minutes that this official was not about to make any "dangerous" or "rough play" calls so there was a LOT of pushing, grabbing and cleat-first jumping and sliding. This proved particularly frustrating for me and our players since I coach my kids to play a style opposite of this, but the physical play more closely mirrors how our kids live day to day.
They scored the first goal of the game with 5 minutes to go on a questionable non-call on what I believed to be offside on one of their players. (When I went home and checked up on the rule, it turns out the call is a ref's discretion- so technically he was correct if he saw it as not a violation. Though I still think the guy was offside.) This was the only goal of the half leaving us down 1-0.
Overall, we were much more aggressive on offense than our opponent in the first half, but we were unable to capitalize on any attack. Our keeper (playing only his second game ever in goal) looked comfortable and made a couple clutch saves as well. My half time talks are getting pretty similar since we have had only one game with any subs- "Get a drink. Keep fighting. You're not tired! GO TIGERS!"
In the second half we gave up two quick cheap goals and lost a lot of wind as the game continued to be rough with no calls and we could not punch anything through. We managed one great attack from the sideline in with a great cross and a rebound score, but we could not get anything else and fell 3-1. Again I had nothing to complain about from our kids' effort- they gave all they had but the bounces did not go our way this night.
Our record now stands at 2-4 and we have a tournament in 10 days to end the season. I am trying to get one more game next week prior to the tournament, but I am not sure if that will happen. I really hope to end the season on a positive note, but our lack of consistency is starting to really hurt us.
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