Rivals make soccer more fun. My first year playing recreational soccer, our biggest rival was a team that we always tied, but could never beat. We looked forward to playing them the next year, but they went to the comp league, which was really disappointing. The good thing was that our coach arranged a special scrimmage with them and then we finally beat them. We were feeling really good about ourselves until he arranged a scrimmage with a class 1 team, who creamed us. Ouch!
Last year, our rec team became rivals with a team called the Pink Panthers. We beat them over and over, but each time by less. My friend at school finally told us that the Pink Panthers team was having extra practice and the coach was calling it “beat-the-Vipers-week”. We laughed, but then they finally beat us. To make it worse, their coach videotaped the whole thing. Humiliation!
It was our last game with the Pink Panthers and no more chances to beat them back. So our coach started making us work extra hard for a shot at an upcoming tournament. Even though the year before we only won one game in the same tournament, this time we won all our games and guess who was our opponent for the first place game… if you guessed Pink Panthers, you’re right!
We were all tired out from the tournament, but we were determined to win because this was actually our last chance to win against our rival. It was a really crazy game, but our coach really worked us hard before the tournament and we were ready. We won, about 5 to 1.
In my last blog, I mentioned the “Tomatoes”, not their real name, who are the closest thing we have to a rival right now. We felt like we should have been able to beat them, but we’ve played them at terrible times and they’ve beat us twice.
Once again, our coaches have been working us a little harder for a tournament. Lots of fitness drills, passing, receiving… all that good stuff. On Saturday, we finally played the Tomatoes again… and we lost. Just kidding! We totally creamed them! Although to give them credit, we let two in at the very end. Final score: 5-2.
Other soccer highlights this week: We went to two Santa Clara women’s soccer games and they won both of them! We also saw the Earthquakes’ Chris Wondolowski score two goals against Portland at Buck Shaw stadium. It was very exciting and in my opinion, I think he’s going to make the 27 goal record mark.
Next topic: I might have to write about the Broncos because I really love them. Also, my team’s upcoming tournament in Santa Cruz…