Recently, my 16 year old daughter decided to take up Soccer. She's never played a competitive sport ever. Unless synchronized texting across an iPod and cell phone is a competitive sport. I don't know. I use my phone for calling the wife and surfing porn. Anyway, if you were to see my daughter, you'd instantly peg her as a natural athlete. She looks, talks, and walks the part. However, this is a horrible twist of nature. She is woefully uncoordinated. She stopped chewing gum because it was causing her trip and fall while walking. We've replaced three of her cellphones, one that broke when she sat on it, one that she destroyed in anger, and one that she accidentally flushed down a toilet.
She's a klutz.
The team that she's on is one of the low-middle level talent teams in a co-ed league. There's a few players that are really good, some that are ok, and a bunch of players like my daughter, who are there for social interaction or because the cleats look cute.
Watching her play soccer, it's evident that she'll NEVER be a soccer star. She normally lines up at fullback, the last line of defense before the goalie. She really has no clue where to be, how to defend, how to kick, or anything like that. But, she does look cute while doing it. When an offensive player with the ball comes into her area, she'll run along with that player at a distance of 5 feet. I guess she's trying to make it look like she's defending the player. That player could run directly to the goal, and she'll stay with them...at a 5 foot distance. Like an escort. Soccer just isn't in her DNA.
There was a player last night who did have it. The opposing team had a hispanic-looking kid who was REALLY good (I know...hispanic that's good at soccer? Racist much?). I felt bad when I first saw him walking on the field. I immediately thought, "Well, there's the kid they're gonna have to beat".
Anyway, he was waaaay beyond the skill level of anyone on that field. He probably had 2 goals and another 3 assists until the opposing coach finally pulled him out of mercy. This kid had soccer in his DNA, for sure. The final nail in the coffin was when he got the phantom soccer injury. If you've ever watched professional soccer, you've seen this before. Two opposing players will be running side-by-side, and one of them will all of a sudden fall down clutching their knee like it was just shot. Trying to goad the ref into making a call. This kid did that last night. A couple times. All the parents watching were cracking up about it. At one point, he was running up against this 115 lb girl, and all of a sudden he's on the ground holding his ankle and SCREAMING. He rolled around a few times while he was screaming. The ref stopped, looked at him, and laughed. AMAZINGLY HEALED BY THE SOCCER GODS, the kid jumped up and continued playing the game, actually scoring about a minute later.
Are these kids taught this? Do they pick it up watching pro soccer? If they did, then someone must have started this at some point? We should find that person, however old they are, and just beat living bejesus out of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment