I know I've been mysteriously absent the last few days. It was for a good cause. My son's soccer team, The All American Patriots, had their first soccer tournament since reforming and creating a team to compete in a premier league. It was a weekend of driving to Olathe and back Saturday and Sunday, getting a bit sunburned, and watching the boys play their hearts out.
Going into the tournament, my expectations ( admittedly ) were not exceptionally high, but I figured it would be good experience for them. They needed to get "clicking" and working together. Since the team consists of boys who have played together for about a year and a half and a bunch of new kids, communication is very important as well as getting a good feel for knowing where your teammates will be when you need them. They lost their first game. A couple of the players got lost on the way to the tournament, but showed up in time to sub in the second half. A few more straggled in, but it was too little to late. The other team had worn them down and scored too many points for the boys to recover.
Since they now had plenty of subs, they won the second game after a six hour layover between games. My son ate too much before the second game. He shook it off by the second half thanks to some pepto-bismal. That second game really, really was a demonstration in poor officiating. I won't complain too much, since our boys won. But there were a plethora of bad calls for and against us. A note to soccer officials: I'll get up on my soapbox just for a second.
You are supposed to be objective. The decisions you make and your behavior really tell a lot. You would expect that 12 year-old boys will make mistakes from time to time. Most of them are not intentional. However, when you consistently call against one team and the other team has absolutely zero calls against them - well, it looks a little suspicious at the end of the game. Throwing our coach out of the game on top of it all because he called you out on your lack of professional ability to officiate a game was merely an act of vanity on your behalf.Like I said. Our boys won that game in spite of poor officiating. So not only did they beat the other team, they beat the officials as well. The second day they tied. This put them in line to play for the championship. The team they played for the championship is a team they'd faced before - twice. They'd beat them once and lost to them once. Another thing . . . and I won't let this digress into a rant . . . the other team's parents are not my definition of good sports. They bitch about every little thing. Every call. Every time a kid trips another player regardless of whether or not it was accidental. I had the misfortune of sitting near this team's parents at a previous game. It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep myself from going off on them. I wanted, so very much, for these kids to beat this other team into the ground. I know they most likely couldn't hear the parents criticizing them unless they were on that side of the field. But it didn't matter. I would know. And a few other parents knew as well. I wanted my son, and his entire team, to be able to feel that sense of accomplishment that comes from pouring your heart and soul into something and emerging victorious. I wanted them to be rewarded for having the courage to go out there and leave nothing behind taking home their pride.
And they did. They blew them out 3 to 0. The All American Patriots were victorious. U12 Kansas Rush Autumn Festival Soccer Champions!!
