I mentioned in a prior post that my U12 Boys team was, shall we say, struggling. We played last Saturday to a 1 - 1 tie. It was an outstanding game. Both teams played well. I thought we should have won the game, but could have lost it.
While the other team was not top flight competition. they were quite good. Their tying goal was a nicely executed 3 v 2, which we defended well, but couldn't stop. For our side, Prince Tilam scored from outside the box with a hard shot that caught the goalie a bit far out, but ducked under the cross bar at the last second. (That he managed to hit the upper part of the back of the net from 22 yards was pretty cool.) I was behind him when he struck the ball and from my vantage point on the sidelines, there was no doubt it was going in. We also missed a penalty; hit the cross bar another time; and missed from point blank range with < 1 minute remaining. Unfortunate, but it was still a great game to watch.
Several of the parents were still a bit frustrated we could not finish, but I said to them in an e-mail: "[Let] me stress one thing to remember when watching the game. The difference with soccer and every other major sport is that everything important a player needs to do on the field they do balancing on one foot. So while soccer has the same flow of basketball or hockey or lacrosse, at least those players get to use both their feet to stand. In soccer, dribbling, receiving, passing, shooting, etc. is all done with only one foot on the ground (and one touching the ball). As a player, you can see the right thing, know the right thing and want to do the right thing, but being even slightly off balance or leaning the wrong way makes it nearly impossible or causes a pass or a shot to be slightly off." Well played soccer is as pretty as ballet, if you know what to watch for.
Anyway, we picked up our first point...and some badly needed momentum.
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