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.
- posted by David @ 4/28/2005 06:57:00 PM