The Team
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Email from Dan
Subject: Gunner News
Game,
We really missed Adam and Ernst in the back last game. PG guys came out all fired up and we just couldn't match their conditioning or their aggressiveness. We are seeing a lot of small injuries. We have several games to go this season, so please take care of your body and warm up before you get on the field.
We have a game against Monterey United this Sunday @ 2 PM. Please let me know if you can not make it to the game.
We have practice on Thursdays. Please bring a ball.
Daniel
Week 9
You may be saying to yourself, "Dave, why has it taken so long for you to post again?" As usual, you have asked a very insightful question, gentle reader. I'll tell you why, shame, pure and simple, it downright pains me to relate the events of week 9 to you. I will do my best to not short out my keyboard with my tears as I relate the sad tale of our game against PG United.
First off, I was sick Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Some sort of flu. I didn't work out except for Monday and I ate like crap all week. This would come into play later.
On Friday, Chris, Gunner Babe Autumn and I went to dinner. While there we ran into Adam, our stand out fullback. He told us that he would not be playing this week because he had hurt his rib in our last game. This was a bit of a shock and I began to have concerns that we might not do so well with both Adam and Ernst out.
Chris has decided it would be a good idea to take Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to get in better shape for soccer.............what the fuck!? So let me get this straight, the guy who gets speeding soccer balls blasted into his body every week, who gets kicked, who gets run into until his body is hurt and broken has decided that taking a martial art focusing on grappling will be a good idea to get in shape....crazy. Strangely enough, Chris had pretty much broken his thumb at Jiu Jitsu practice during the week. Are you as surprised as I am by this turn of events!?
On to game day. We actually got a line up out of Dan a few minutes before the start of the game. Ernst surprised me by showing up. We picked up a new guy named Raul or Rahul or something. Let's hope he can show up to more than a couple of games. Geoff "Crazy Legs" was there as well. Noticibly absent was Jeremy, who stated he would be missing the game....just because. Also missing in action was Greg. Greg got kicked in the ankle last game and it was still bothering him, so he didn't show up to this game.....huh, okay. Everett was also missing, we found out later that he was sick. Paul from the Brit was hurt and couldn't play. We wound up with 12 players there, so we had a sub. We picked up a guy named Ben, who played with us one other game, but only for 5 minutes before he got hurt.
The last game we played against PG United was a 2-1 affair and I guess that PG United was pretty fired up to do better. With all the injuries and what not, they had quite an edge. I started the game at fullback which is where I played for the whole affair. Ernst and Ben were in the middle along with Kristian playing on the outside on the left, I was on the right.
No one played well, not one single person. Well Geoff, had a good game, but that is like a bad game for the rest of us, so it doesn't count. I know I wasn't there mentally. After getting the ball stolen from me and getting schooled as a guy ran in and scored, I subbed out for Ben who had subbed out earlier. A couple of minutes after me subbing out, Ernst pulled his hamstring. He hobbled off the field and I wound up coming back on and then playing the rest of the game.
It was like we didn't show up to play, couple that with every shot coming bouncing off of Chris and none of us getting back to clear the ball and we were doomed. I had one bright spot in the first half. Some idiot decided it would be a good idea to shoulder charge me as we fought for the ball. I put his ass on the ground. I then tripped up another player and because he fell into one of our players, he got a foul called on him. Other than that, I sucked. I routinely had the ball stolen from me, couldn't kick worth a damn or do anything right. The only saving grace was that the rest of the team was stinking up the field too.
Early in the second half, Scottish John came back to play in the back field with us. Unfortunately, about this time, someone thought it would be a good idea to send ol' Ben up to play midfield giving us a 3-5-2 look (back to front kids). I didn't understand the logic of this as we were having problems with 4 guys in the backfield, lowering that number to 3 really didn't make things any better.
PG United went on to spank us 12 to 1. There was nothing we could say about it. We just plain got our asses kicked.
One other story of note, long time readers will remember Dan's feud with "Victor" from Monterey City. Well Victor's real first name is Luis and he plays on PG United now. Toward the end of the game, Dan got in a shoving match with Luis, drawing a yellow card for himself and Luis as well. At the time, Dan claimed that Luis was making faces at him. Another conversation with Dan tonight, revealed that Luis was also holding his arm back. When Dan turned to look, Luis was making faces at him. Now, I have played a few seasons against Luis. He has a perpetual goofy, sardonic smile on his face when he plays. I think this is just his default look. I think Dan let his personal hatred of Luis cloud his interpretation of events, but I could be wrong.
There you go, gentle reader, the sad tale of Week 9.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Email from Dan
Game against DLI
We started with 10 against DLI. It helped a lot that Jeremy and Cisco started giving us a lot more firepower. We were able to put up a good fight in the early first half, but DLI were able to take advantage of us having one man short. They overloaded one side on their attack and find a way to score. Adam scored our only goal, but it was a beauty. He was all over the field, playing sweeper and scoring on a header. Steve had a great shot at the goal that hit the top post. John had a shot that hit the top corner bar. We were really unlucky. It appears that Mark is out for the season with the injury from last game.
Next Game
We play PG United at 2 PM this Sunday and Monterey United at 2 PM next week.
Please let me know if you are not going to make it to the game. This really helps forming our starting line up.
Practice Thursday.
We have practice on Thursday same field, same time.
D72
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Week 8
It is a mere 2 hours past the end of our game and here I am to relate the events to you, dear gentle reader.
Unfortunately, we had a low fan turnout at our second game against DLI, oh the gunner babes were there and Andrew H. was there as well but then it got awfully thin. We also had a low player turnout, as usual. We started the game with a mere ten men. Dan showed up early and did a much better job organizing a starting line up. I played right fullback for most of the game.
I say it was unfortunate that our new fans did not show up because I had a hell of a game. We still lost 5 to 1 but I had a hell of a game. I felt much better with the week off, I had my shin splints all healed up and they did not bother me all game, despite the amazingly large amount of running I had to do. I also felt good from a conditioning stand point. I only ran out of gas about the last 5 to 10 minutes of the game.
Now on to the action: DLI scored a couple of goals early on as we were down a man and they had plenty of subs available. John showed up and we were at full strength. I had a lot of hits in this game and came close to getting a red card, but more on that later. I started off by delivering a lovely blow to the back of number 16's head with my shoulder during a corner kick. I didn't mean to give him a blow to the head, I meant for my shoulder to hit him in the back but I forgot to take into account just how much taller I was than the other guy. He ran off rubbing his head and complaining to the ref.
Let me go into a little detail about just how I delivered that blow, I set myself up just behind the little guy. As the corner kick came in from the left it began to sail just over his head, so I stopped moving and lowered my shoulder for the blow...BAM! Good stuff!
I had a couple of nice slide tackles and was getting a lot of touches on the ball in the first half. The working out is starting to pay off with better speed, agility, flexibility and endurance. I wasn't dying anymore and was able to recover quickly after runs. I booted many a ball down the field and recieve quite a few compliments from my fellow teammates to boot.
DLI were able to put in 2 more goals in the rest of the half. Why was this, if I was playing such a wonderful game? You may be wondering. Good question, I always maintain that I have the smartest blog readers on the planet and you have proved it once again. Well, the reason is that our team has an average age in the low 30's while our erstwhile competitors from DLI have an average age of about 20. Not only were we giving up 10 years to these guys but they are required to stay in shape, they run daily! We on the other hand...not so in shape. What this translated to on the field was our team had better soccer skills overall than the DLI fellas but with their conditioning, they were able to move their entire team up and down the field causing "numbers up" situations when they were attacking and when they were defending. None of the goals scored where from a single player dribbling through our defense, but rather they would bring the ball down on the sides of the field with 3 or 4 players and pass around us then cross the ball into the center of the field. This was incredibly frustrating to say the least.
So we head into the half down 4 to 1 but feeling pretty good because we are getting a lot of chances on goal. Shortly into the second half I recieved my first yellow card of the season. There was a direct kick situation just after a penalty about 25 yards out from goal. We were getting a wall set up but there were a few stragglers. I heard one of the DLI guys yell to hurry up and take a shot. I ran up and turned my back to the ball, give my guys time to set up the wall. The rule states that the other team can request 10 yards for a free kick, but until they do, I can set up right in front of the ball. The ref went to walk off the ten yards to set up the wall and one of the DLI players dribbled the ball forward and around me. I went to step forward and to the side and my foot hit the ball. The ref became annoyed with me and carded me. I gave him a look of "Whatever" and shrugged my shoulders at him as I walked back into line. I think this may have annoyed the ref.
Later, number 4 and I were running to a 50-50 ball, as we drew close, I shoulder charged him, which I think was perfectly legal. 4 fell down and as he did so, hooked my legs with his and whipped me to the ground. I fell and whacked my head a good one on the ground. It hurt a little so I tried a little acting, I cried out and then held my head rolled over face down. I heard a penalty called and Les, one of the refs came running up to ask if I was okay. I lay there for a moment, realizing that I actually had a bit of a headache now then got up and responded to Les, "He hooked me with his leg and threw me to the ground." I then ran off getting ready for play as the penalty had been called on me. That was it, gentle reader, an honest response to an honest question. The other ref, from across the field, yells to me, "That's enough of that!" I yelled back, "He leg whipped me to the ground!" The ref responded, "That was after, you already have one card, do you want to be thrown off?" I was perplexed, dear reader. Does this mean that if you are fouled first it is okay to commit a foul of your own? Obviously not. I think I was getting a little pay back for my dismissive nature when I got the first card. I shook my head a ran off to my position.
It did not take long for me to get revenge on number 4 and, in a passive aggresive way, the ref himself. The ball was kicked out of the end line by DLI, prompting a goal kick. I was see spots and took a knee as Chris retrieved the ball. I stood up as Chris prepared to kick the ball. It went sailing up to about the mid line where it was promptly intercepted by DLI and sent down the right side. They played the ball a little too far and I was able to get to a bit ahead of number 4. He was closing in fast, at first was going to let it go over the end line as were just a couple of yards from it. However, he was going to get there too fast, everyone began to yell for me to kick the ball out but, like the cagey fella I am, I waited. Number 4 drew closer and the trap was sprung, just as he came up to take possesion of the ball, I sprang forward and swung as hard as I could through the ball and through Number 4's shins. I sent the ball off of him over the end line and he went tumbling after. I looked up at the ref across the field and smiled. A perfectly legal play on my part and revenge satisfied.
I went over and played a little left full back when Greg went off with an injured ankle. I was only there for a short time as Greg recovered on the side and came back in.
We held DLI to only one score in the second half but we weren't able to put a ball in either. Some things that might have helped us: Subs, where the hell was everyone? I figured we would have 14 people, no Charlie, no new Andrew...this is really ridiculous. Especially when we have midfielders who walk and walk and walk. They could use a break to catch their breath while we keep up the pressure on the other team. Conditioning, they, more or less, ran us into the ground and we were never able to create numbers up situations because our halfbacks just don't have the conditioning to run the whole game. New shoes for Jeremy, I can't tell you how many times I watched him slip today. He wore the equivalent of artificial turf cleats for the game, and he didn't bring his normal cleats with him, just in case. He should know better by now.
Chris was on himself a lot today. He claimed that two of the goals in the first half were his fault and I know he was blaming himself for the goal in the second half, but those crosses are hard to goal keep against and those other ones came off of a few mistakes upfield, so I don't think Chris needs to beat himself up about that.
So that was week 8. Stay tuned for more updates as we go!
Friday, April 15, 2005
Further Conversations with Chris
I had dinner with Chris and gunner babe Autumn tonight. We spent some of the time rehashing last Monday's conversation with Dan. The amazing thing to me is that if you read Dan's email from earlier this week, you will not see any mention of Dave S. running subs or coming up with the starting line up. This is funny because this is what we agreed to.
Anyway, back to the conversation. Chris still feels pretty frustrated, mainly because he feels that Dan completely missed the point of the earlier conversation, namely that Dan needs to get more organized. Dan tried to make things up with Chris by telling him about plans for getting the starting line up together and what not, but Chris was not having it.
We talked about Chris' reasons for not wanting to assume a leadership role on the team. He has a leadership role at work, he joined the team instead of starting it and he is just looking for some recreation. I followed this up with a comment about Dan not willing to be a follower but refusing to be a leader.
Anyway, we are down three players already going into the weekend. Everett, as you all know, has bronchitus, Mark is out with a knee injury and Geoff "Crazy Legs" N. will be returning from a trip to Arizona and won't make the game in time. Also questionable is Ernst, who has had problems with a pulled muscle in his thigh. This leaves a pool of 14 guys to pull a starting line up from...good luck to us.
Next post will come after the game, so in the immortal words of Casey Kasem: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!
Email from Dan
Hey,
Take care of yourself. Thank you for letting me know and hopefully I will see you at the game. Dave will carry this team until you come back next week. He is working out and practicing.
D.
A Side Note
I have heard that the readership for my little blog is growing! I'm very excited to hear this! The more readers I have the more fired up I am to update the ol' blog, so thanks for reading and please feel free to add some comments!
Your Humble Author
Email from Everett
Dan,
I won’t be able to play soccer this weekend because I have bronchitis. Any running and heavy breathing puts me in a coughing fit and makes it hard to breath. I may come out and support the team though and after a heavy dose of Antibiotics I should be good to go by next week. Besides, I have a hard time keeping up with high performance standard that Dave brings to this team! He is the anchor the team you know…
Everett
Thursday, April 14, 2005
First Team Practice of the Season
We had the first team practice for this season. I think it might have been a little too early, the season is only half over. I think we should have probably waited until the last week of the season to start practicing. We wouldn't want to wear anyone out.
We had a great turnout: I was there, Dan showed up and Andrew H. was there. Andrew is technically on the team but he is on injured reserve at the moment. And that was it. No one else showed up. Not one person. Not a single other person showed up.
I can understand that, I mean everyone on our team is so damn good. I think our record speaks for itself. Although it might have been nice to get some dribbling tips from Geoff "Crazy Legs" and maybe some trapping tips from Charley...but hey, those guys are pretty busy. I totally understand why they didn't show up.
Also, it wasn't like Dan sent out an email or anything...oh wait. Anyway, like I said, prime time ass whoopin this Sunday, can't wait.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Another email
An email from Dan. Inter refers to International.
FYI
-----Original Message-----
From: jlo678
Subject:
Gentlemen,
What started out as "team meetings" for Inter has been reduced to drinking beer and rehashing the plays of the week, both good and bad. This Tuesday, at about 8pm, we will be celebrating the mid-point of the season at the Brit. This is an open invite to our colleagues to join us. Keep in mind, it is Farmers Market on Alvarado Street, so either walk or park a few blocks away. We also play at PG High beforehand (sometimes at PG Middle, depending on how many)from 530-730pm. Captains, please pass this on to your players and we hope to see some of you there! Joe
Email from Dan
FO Gunners,
We have our first practice of this season this Thursday. We will have a short team meeting after the practice, so show up and provide your feedback. It will be at the same field at 5 PM. If you don't know how you get to the practice field, just let me know.
Game against DLI
We have a game against DLI @ noon. DLI beat us pretty bad early this season and I would like a little payback this time around. Please let me know if you can't not make it to the game.
We are only half way done with the spring season and we are not starting with 11 on the field. I am expecting 14 or 15, but the game is about to start and I don't have 8 on the field. Teams score goals early in the game and that seams to be the difference between W or L for us. It seams we always play catch up soccer and starting with 11 put us over to the W column.
I am hearing that our starting line up is not clearly drawn up before the game. And that creates confusion among our team and that also contribute to the early goals.
I thought that we can draw up the starting line up with players we have 15 min prior to the first half. We may not start with ideal starting line up, but it may serve our team better.
Please let me know if you have better ideas or feedback.
Daniel
Monday, April 11, 2005
Week 6, Week 7 and begining of Week 8
That's right a second post for you in one night.
This week we played NPS, another military team. There were differing points of view as to how we did this game but more of that in a minute. I played right fullback this game for those keeping a box score.
The first half we looked terrible. Our passes sucked and we couldn't put anything together. This may have something to do with the complete disorganization witnessed before the game. Many players, including your author, showed up only minutes before the game. Dan was also a late arrival. As usual we did not have a starting line up. I asked Dan no less than three times what position he wanted me to play before being told where to go by another player.
Those long time readers of the blog will note that I have mentioned before that when we have chaos before the game I know we will do poorly. This was no exception.
We escaped from the first half down 2 to 0.
One other note. Dan was very angry with me because I yelled at him at the start of the second half. Dan waited until the game started and the ball was in play to turn around and start discussing with me what we were going to do. I yelled at him to shut up and pay attention. He tried a few times to talk to me but I kept telling him to shut up and pay attention until he shut up and paid attention to the game.
To make matters worse, I threw a slide tackle late in the first half and as I kicked through the ball I realized that I was slide tackling and ripping through Dan's shin. I had to make up with Dan at the half to get him to talk to me again.
The second half started much the same as the first half with slightly improved play. NPS put in another goal and then we started coming back. In the last 15 minutes of the game we were on fire, scoring twice and completely outclassing NPS. Unfortunately, it was too little too late. and we ended up losing the game 3 to 2.
Now comes Monday, following the game and we do our usual gathering around the desks the chat. Chris, our goalie decided that he was upset with our performance. Now, oh long suffering reader, you may have read in previous posts how I used to be fired up about the team and how I had ideas as to what we should do improve. I have since been beaten down to the point where I don't care anymore. I am now at the point where I go out to have a good time. I just want to play and do as well as I can personally. I don't care about the rest of the team anymore. I only care about how I do. The reason being that no one else on the team seems to care. More in a moment.
Chris complained that many members of the team show up late and we are disorganized and no one really seems to put in the effort to be a better team. He stated that he would quit being the goalie if this continued because he wasn't going to get beat up anymore if no one was going to put in the effort to make the team any good. While we were discussing this, Dan came up to the office. He thought, like me, that we had played poorly in the first half but had done better in the second half. Chris berated Dan and told him that we were doing terribly. He continued on much as before.
Dan tried to tell us how hard it was managing and playing at the same time. How hard it was to come up with a line up and how crazy things were just before the game with players coming late. We attempted to show Dan that it would not be too hard to assign positions to people ahead of time, have the line up ready and then adjust it at game time, based oh who showed up but Dan was not having it. Eventually, a fan, Dave S. came up with a scheme for both the starting line up and substitutions and promised to run substitutions at future games.
Now back to Chris' complaints. We have a choice when we play in this league. That choice is to either come out and play having fun and hoping for a win or to come out to compete. Option 1 is what we have chosen. It requires no real commitment and no work. Option 2 requires some of each. Our team needs a leader in order to compete. Chris, by virtue of his leadership role at our office and the position he plays on the team is the natural choice for that leader. Instead, he claims he does not want the leadership responsibilities. All well and good except that Chris also refuses to be a follower.
I know, "that's a bit of a strong statement, David," you might be thinking to yourself. And you would be right, dear reader. But, I have a reason for making such a statement. There have been many people who, at one time or another, have tried to lead this team. Each time, that person has been subtly undermined by Chris. I know because I was one of those people. I attempted to coach the team. I went out and looked up drills and excercises, talked to people who had coached soccer teams and generally attempted to do my homework before coaching the team. Each time I attempted to run a practice, Chris was there, questioning my decisions, second guessing me and generally putting up both doubt and resistance to what I was trying to do. It was no different with any of the other people who attempted to coach.
In my opinion if you don't want to lead, and you have experience as a leader, you should then be willing to follow and be an example to the other people on the team so that we can move in the same direction. Dan has the same problem. He doesn't want to be the coach but anyone else who attempts to coach has an immediate problem with him. We are a group of chiefs and no one is willing to follow. Every time someone attempts to instill order or discipline that person is told, "no we can't do that".
I could go on for a while about this as it frustrates the hell out of me, but my last thought on this matter is that, if you are not willing to try and be part of the solution, you forego your right to bitch and complain. Chris wants to be upset about what is wrong with the team but he refuses to do anything about it. He thinks that because he is the best goalie in the league, he can threaten to step down and that will spur people on to action. I say, let him step down it's not like we are winning any games anyway. Who cares if we lose 10 to 0 or 3 to 0? At the end of the day it's still a loss.
Like I said before, I don't care anymore, I'm just out here to have fun, get in shape and become a better soccer player personally.
Week 7
We have a bye this week so no game. I decide that I will go off my jogging program to clear up my shin splints. We are now into week 8 and I am feeling much better. I will stay on the elliptical machine, play this weekend and see how my shins are doing after that.
Dan stopped by today and asked if I was up for Thursday practice. I told him I was, but if my shins started even slightly bothering me, I was going home. Dan complained that I was making up excuses to skip but said he would send out an email before going home, letting everyone know that we would be having practices.
Chris said that his shoulder is still bothering him (he hurt in in the last game). He said that if it continues bothering him, he may be done for the season. We will see.
We are playing the DLI Yard Dogs who whipped our asses 5 to 0 in our first meeting. I expect another ass whipping this Sunday. I am slated to play midfield this week. So no matter what I expect to run my ass off and have a little fun while I'm doing so.
Week 5
Please forgive me, oh so gentle reader. I'm pretty late with this post. Since most of you only read this during the week, you will probably read this post and the post for this week's game at the same time, oh well.
We were graced with the presence of longtime blog reader John W. at this game against Monterey United. We played a man down, only having 10 men there, we picked up a new player, Andrew, not to be confused with the Andrew H on Inujured Reserve.
The fans were given an extra special treat as yours truly played forward for the entire game. My grace, speed and agility were not enough to put the ball in the net, however as I was all alone up front. We put up a valiant effort, holding MU to no goals in the first half.
It looked like we were on our way to a tie ball game when, late in the second half, there was a mighty strange call by the ref. One of our defenders, Ernst, was going for a 50/50 ball (a ball in the air that two players are attempting to head or trap), he put his arms around the other player going for the ball and was called for the penalty, rightly so. Unfortunately, the other player, who, I was told later had been pretty physical the whole game, decided to throw a punch at Ernst. Ernst backed off and asked the guy, "What the hell are you doing?" and he was visibly upset. The ref decided that a good thing to do would be to give Ernst a yellow card. When Ernst protested, the ref told him to take a 5 minute break.
Now, as any of my millions of world wide regular blog readers knows, I am not a zealot about this team or this league, but for heaven's sake! That is not even a rule, the ref can't make a player leave the field for a "break". The only way a ref can make a player leave the field is by issuing them a red card or to send them off to fix a uniform/equipment problem. What this idiot ref did was to put us two men down in a tie game, late in the second half. To make matters worse, while our team was still trying to sort out this completely unorthodox interpretation of the rules, play resumed without a whistle. Monterey U put the ball in the net and that completely took the wind out of our sails.
They wound up scoring twice more finishing the game 3 to 0. Ernst was so disgusted he never came back on the field.
