soccer game at Oak Sq Y Oct 2
Today at the Waltham Y from 12:30 PM to 3:16 PM I did off-corner & off-wall drills. Then at 6:35 PM -7:20 PM I played in some 5:00 minute games at the Oak Sq YMCA.
I knew that generally pro athletes do not practice the day of an official contest, prior to the contest/game/match. Still, I decided to do 166 minutes of corner & off-wall drills, which ended just 3.3 hours before the start of the games.
I noted that I had been avoiding the evening games at the Oak Sq Y, because participation in the game would mean not practicing the day of the game if I followed the pro-athlete model.
So I decided to simply break the pro athlete model while exercising no more than 3 hours prior to the start of the games.
4:30 PM - 5:15 PM I took tried to nap, but simply lay in bed awake.
The drive in the rain, via Washington St. (runs next to & parallel to Mass-Pike/90) from Waltham at 5:46 PM - Oak sq Y 6:16 PM, took 32 minutes, much longer than the normal 24 or so minutes.
I wound up on a team wearing red shirts composed of persons left over after cliques of friends had formed the other team. We were up against a fearsome team wearing dark shirts, which included Marty (wearing Messi shirt) & Andre on offense. I played defense. Marty was playing 'pivot' for his offensive team, standing all the time right next to my team's goal. I had to stay back so as not to let him get too open; no offsides rule was being inforced.
At the end of the game, with time running out I chased down a ball rolling to my right, wheeled about & faced the enemy goal, crouched down as if to consider dribbling forwards (drills done earlier in the day involved dribbling forwards before kicking), & instead sent a perfect chip over the heads of 3 defenders to a team-mate 40 feet away (drills done earlier in the day involved left-footed chip passes). If this chip-pass had instead been a low-altitude pass at a velocity the team-mate would be able to handle, it would likely have been intercepted by the defense. If the pass had been a high velocity pass, it would likely have been mis-handled by the recipient. But despite the success of the chip-pass, time ran out before the pass-receiver could do anything.
We ended up losing this first game 4-3, which was a good score, given that we were players who had never met each other, whereas the other team was a clique of friends. Seems most shots that reached goal got in past our big white red-headed goalie. The fearsome combination of Andre & Marty ('Messi') would have been limited to just one goal and we would have one, except, time after time they got a shot off over my outstretched foot, with their foot only four inches or so ahead of my blocking foot. I expect this situation to improve as I get used to playing in games with people again after a few months of solitary drills.
In another game, our team wearing red, as in the first game, had to face a team of friends who knew each other and had formed a team, whereas we were just left-vers who were not in one of the cliques that had formed. We lost this game 2-1.
We won one game, 2-1, against this team composed of small brown black-haired europoid males & east-asian males. Every player on this team had a green colored jersey with a white number on it, every player on the team had his own number. They looked intimidating when they first walked into the gym.; they looked Mexican, & Mexico won the soccer gold at the 2012 London Olympics.
Once the little greens left-winger was trying to dribble slickly, & I kicked the ball 3 times in a row, the 3rd touch dislodging it from him, b. He screamed his complaint. Correctly, no foul was called. I told him, something to the effect of, 'you can't expect us to give you the world, just because you're little'. Another time I jumped forwards to knock the ball away from a dribbling green & to a team-mate.
In one game after the first game, I did some moves that got a loud hoot out of the crowd: the ball came to me from my right; I turned with it to face the defenders; as the first defender came at me I swerved to my right slightly, past him, & forwards at high speed; as the second defender came at me, my body moved again as if I was to swerve to my right, the defender took the feint completely & swerved to my right, & a third green defender guarding the team-mate on my left-wing, also swerved to my right, taking the feint completely. I could have dribbled the second defender cutting to my left, but instead I passed a lead pass off-the-board to my left-winger, perfect pass. This was the right decision because the man guarding him had also been deceived by the feint, which was actually not a feint but a last minute change-of-mind. Both of the green defenders swayed at least 5 feet to my right as a result of my 'feint' to the right. But in the end nothing came of it because the pass-recipient either did not want to get the ball back to me, or could not get the ball back to me. Sometimes great passes end up accomplishing nought, simply because the receiver cannot handle the pass.
Overall I often felt, that I was making a positive impact for my team by positioning myself, without even touching the ball; the ball when in the other team's possession seemed to simply avoid me; I did not feel I was playing badly, I simply was'nt accomplishing anything, because the ball was avoiding me.
I knew that generally pro athletes do not practice the day of an official contest, prior to the contest/game/match. Still, I decided to do 166 minutes of corner & off-wall drills, which ended just 3.3 hours before the start of the games.
I noted that I had been avoiding the evening games at the Oak Sq Y, because participation in the game would mean not practicing the day of the game if I followed the pro-athlete model.
So I decided to simply break the pro athlete model while exercising no more than 3 hours prior to the start of the games.
4:30 PM - 5:15 PM I took tried to nap, but simply lay in bed awake.
The drive in the rain, via Washington St. (runs next to & parallel to Mass-Pike/90) from Waltham at 5:46 PM - Oak sq Y 6:16 PM, took 32 minutes, much longer than the normal 24 or so minutes.
I wound up on a team wearing red shirts composed of persons left over after cliques of friends had formed the other team. We were up against a fearsome team wearing dark shirts, which included Marty (wearing Messi shirt) & Andre on offense. I played defense. Marty was playing 'pivot' for his offensive team, standing all the time right next to my team's goal. I had to stay back so as not to let him get too open; no offsides rule was being inforced.
At the end of the game, with time running out I chased down a ball rolling to my right, wheeled about & faced the enemy goal, crouched down as if to consider dribbling forwards (drills done earlier in the day involved dribbling forwards before kicking), & instead sent a perfect chip over the heads of 3 defenders to a team-mate 40 feet away (drills done earlier in the day involved left-footed chip passes). If this chip-pass had instead been a low-altitude pass at a velocity the team-mate would be able to handle, it would likely have been intercepted by the defense. If the pass had been a high velocity pass, it would likely have been mis-handled by the recipient. But despite the success of the chip-pass, time ran out before the pass-receiver could do anything.
We ended up losing this first game 4-3, which was a good score, given that we were players who had never met each other, whereas the other team was a clique of friends. Seems most shots that reached goal got in past our big white red-headed goalie. The fearsome combination of Andre & Marty ('Messi') would have been limited to just one goal and we would have one, except, time after time they got a shot off over my outstretched foot, with their foot only four inches or so ahead of my blocking foot. I expect this situation to improve as I get used to playing in games with people again after a few months of solitary drills.
In another game, our team wearing red, as in the first game, had to face a team of friends who knew each other and had formed a team, whereas we were just left-vers who were not in one of the cliques that had formed. We lost this game 2-1.
We won one game, 2-1, against this team composed of small brown black-haired europoid males & east-asian males. Every player on this team had a green colored jersey with a white number on it, every player on the team had his own number. They looked intimidating when they first walked into the gym.; they looked Mexican, & Mexico won the soccer gold at the 2012 London Olympics.
Once the little greens left-winger was trying to dribble slickly, & I kicked the ball 3 times in a row, the 3rd touch dislodging it from him, b. He screamed his complaint. Correctly, no foul was called. I told him, something to the effect of, 'you can't expect us to give you the world, just because you're little'. Another time I jumped forwards to knock the ball away from a dribbling green & to a team-mate.
In one game after the first game, I did some moves that got a loud hoot out of the crowd: the ball came to me from my right; I turned with it to face the defenders; as the first defender came at me I swerved to my right slightly, past him, & forwards at high speed; as the second defender came at me, my body moved again as if I was to swerve to my right, the defender took the feint completely & swerved to my right, & a third green defender guarding the team-mate on my left-wing, also swerved to my right, taking the feint completely. I could have dribbled the second defender cutting to my left, but instead I passed a lead pass off-the-board to my left-winger, perfect pass. This was the right decision because the man guarding him had also been deceived by the feint, which was actually not a feint but a last minute change-of-mind. Both of the green defenders swayed at least 5 feet to my right as a result of my 'feint' to the right. But in the end nothing came of it because the pass-recipient either did not want to get the ball back to me, or could not get the ball back to me. Sometimes great passes end up accomplishing nought, simply because the receiver cannot handle the pass.
Overall I often felt, that I was making a positive impact for my team by positioning myself, without even touching the ball; the ball when in the other team's possession seemed to simply avoid me; I did not feel I was playing badly, I simply was'nt accomplishing anything, because the ball was avoiding me.
posted by David Virgil at 11:08 PM
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