Most Fridays, the teachers at school get a soccer game going after school. I've participated three times so far - the first time was just teachers, 5 on 5, the second time was a bigger game, teachers vs. janitors, 7 on 7 on an expanded "pitch" (more of a court), and today was the third match, this time teachers vs. students from grades 10 and 12, 6 on 6.
(Today's match also happened to be much earlier than usual, because of a school-wide power outage (not the first time this year) which started around 8:30, and by the time it was back on at 12:30, the students had gone home early.)
I look forward to these matches every week - as most of you probably know, I love to play sports, and this is the only regularly scheduled sport I've got going on right now. One week I even stayed like half an hour after school in expectation, only to discover everyone else had left.
Now, in week 1 I was pretty bad. I mean, I'm a decent athlete, but I don't play soccer very often - I don't think I had played in 2 or 3 years, and when I have played it's usually been smaller games, like 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, with friends who are equally inexperienced.
Let me tell you, Colombians are great at soccer! I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise, but it really is amazing how every single kid here (I am not exaggerating, at least with respect to the boys in my grade 8 classes, all of whom I've seen play) knows the game quite well, and even though you're always bound to find a spectrum of athleticism and coordination, every kid somehow makes it work and is pretty darn good.
So when it came time to lace 'em up in game 1, I quickly discovered that being able to run fast and kick the ball hard have almost nothing to do with playing soccer. I lacked that inate sense of the game that one only gains through experience.
By game 3 (today), though, I made some progress. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement - of our team's 10 goals, I scored 4 and assisted 2. Of course, what that actually means is that, on four separate occasions, I happened to be standing in front of the net when the ball magically appeared at my foot, and two other times I accidentally tripped over the ball, causing it to somehow ricochet in the general direction of a teammate, who made some amazing play and scored.
I really do notice the improvement, though. Especially in the area of not making idiotic mistakes and losing the ball because of accidentally kicking the air instead of the ball and then pulling a cartoon-feet-up-in-the-air fall.
I still have a long way to go, though. There are lots of skills I can't perform, and instincts I haven't developed. For example, today there was a ball that found its way into the air and was coming down near where I was. Taking the ball on the body and then subsequently gaining control of it is one skill I've developed somewhat reasonably, so this is what I attempted to do.
Unfortunately, the choice of what part of the body to block the ball with is not an instinct I have, apparently. You know what's coming. I went to stop the ball's flight with my crotchal region, while an opponent simultaneously went for the mid-air kick. The good news: I got to the ball before he did. The bad news: He got to the balls before I did. It was hard, and it was not in the least off-center. Kicked in the nuts!
This kid knows what I'm talking about.
No comments:
Post a Comment