SOCCER GAME...THEM 5 - US 2

Well, my 11 year old son played his first soccer game ever yesterday. It was okay!

It was a real learning experience for him (and for me). It started out pretty bad for our team The Eagles. We were playing The Tigers, and I could tell just watching The Tigers warm up that this wasn't their first rodeo. Those boys had alot of experience. We only have two boys on our team that have ever played before. It was pretty obvious.

Right off, this one fast white boy from The Tigers busted out of the pack, and headed straight down the field all by himself toward our goal. It looked like a sure goal. But all the sudden our star player Timoteo Reyes come slashing down the side of the field, and slid right in front of that boy at the last second and kicked the ball away. It was impressive. Now Timoteo is a Mexican. I have known him for years. His family used to rent one of Daddy's apartments next door to us until they got a house to live in. He's a cute kid...real respectful...real smart...and one good soccer player. I think his Momma put a soccer ball in the dresser drawer with him when he was a baby.

But this big old ref blew his whistle and said something like "free kick...no sliding tackles!" The Mexicans on the sidelines started booing. One of them yelled out "No sliding tackles? Is this football or what?"

Well, I was thinking to myself "nobody got tackled, and this sure ain't football," but I held my tongue seeing as I don't know anything about the game.

OOOOOHHHHHH that big old ref got mad. He walked right straight over to that Mexican fellow that had yelled, and gave him a piece of his mind about being in charge, and told him to take it up with the man in charge of rules, and to keep his complaints to himself (that's basically what he said). But it turned out okay. After the first quarter the ref came over and made up buddies with the fellow. They talked to each other in Mexican for awhile and laughed...it was all cool...turns out the ref don't like that rule either, but he's gotta enforce it.

Anyway, the other team got a free chance to kick. So our Eagles all lined up in a line in front of him with their privates covered up...all of them except my son Paul. He was in the line, but didn't understand about covering up the privates. I started to yell at him "Paul, cover up your privates!" But I held my tongue. That would have been pretty embarrassing for the boy.

Luckily, nobody got racked. The boy free kicked it over everybody's head...straight into our goal. 1 - 0

Then in just a minute another boy from The Tigers busted out and right down the field, and he kicked one past our goal keeper. Alphonso is our goal keeper. He's a real sweet boy...just as nice as he can be. He's about 5 feet tall, and weighs about 225...he's a 5th grader! He don't move around real fast.

Then in another minute that first boy busted out of the pack, and here he went again, and it was a goal. So I asked this big Mexican fellow that had yelled at the ump "Do they have a ten run rule in Soccer?" He laughed! "No, just get ready for a long game" he told me.

But things turned around. Our boys started getting the hang of it. Our defense boys started playing back. Alphonso started making saves. And their boys started missing shots (thankfully).

Paul did good. He played about half the game, and didn't make any mistakes. He kicked the ball once or twice, and stopped a couple of fellows.

We got 2 goals made by Timoteo. They were pretty ones, too. That boy took the ball the length of the field both times...weaving in and out, and faking out The Tigers, and left-to-right footing the ball, and scoring easy. He's gonna be a star one day.

And I'll tell you what...when Timo' made those goals us Eagles fans flat tore up the pea-patch! There was great rejoicing both on and off the field! It was pretty exciting.

Like I said, Paul did okay. The main victory of the day for me is that he kept playing for his own team the whole time, instead of getting confused like he did in practice and helping the opposition. I think the fact that there were boys that he didn't know on the other team, and that they were wearing different colored shirts made all the difference.

We got a blue Slush Puppy, and a SweetTarts roll on the way home. (Don't waste your money on SweetTarts rolls...just buy the real thing).

It was interesting. It's gonna be a long season...