08 July 2006

Some thoughts on team sport

A few thoughts, before going back and working on my project.

Just so you know, I'm not the only one who's confused. If we have a Chinese living in Canada rooting for Argentina, then it is not impossible to have a Taiwanese living in the USA rooting for Germany. The photo above in this case is even funnier because I believe those kids were rooting for Japan as well.

*** RANT ALERT ***

Yesterday, we had our weekly amateur soccer game out near the Tallahassee Skate Park. This time, the turnout was huge: we had a 10 vs 10 game going on. Since there were so many people (and we have no jerseys), we decided to do shirts versus shirtless. Initially, I was the only girl on the shirtless team (aka "The Skins"), and even though I had a sports bra on, I didn't take off my shirt (didn't want to scar anyone's mind). We had three players that joined us on the fly, and all the other players brought their own friends.

Though it was a spectacular attendance, I didn't get to play much and was crestfallen halfway through the game. There were some great players on the field for both "The Skins" and "The Shirts", but some of my teammates ended up hogging the ball and not passing it to the other teammates. I know I'm not a great athlete, but the whole point of starting this little match is so that everyone could play and have fun. Scoring goals is not important as we never really kept track of the points. Basically, I was the defense for the first quarter of the game, then Juan asked if I would like to be one of the forwards. When we switched, only one or two players passed the ball to me, and I was running up and down the field most of the time with four of my teammates constantly hogging the ball. Poor Fernando also rarely got the ball, even when he was open. Our opponents "The Shirts" did much better and scored several goals because they worked better as a team, whereas "The Skins" rarely scored because most of the players were trying to go solo instead of working together. Then we had the one player who was just a stickler to the rules, and got angry when we didn't take any fouls seriously. It just took a lot of the fun out of the game.

I'm beginning to have doubts about attending the next session. I wanted to have a fun game, but if this kind of atmosphere continues, I might just only attend the impromptu night sessions that Em has been setting up the last few weeks.

*** END OF RANT ***

Portugal and Germany played today, and to be honest with you, I would rather see those two teams at the World Cup Final tomorrow. On the other hand, it might be a good thing for France to win, since currently the EADS and Airbus are in a mess, a boost in morale would be good for most of the personnel in the company.

Both teams played very well, and Portugal made one beautiful goal. Germany scored two goals that was just amazing. Oliver Kahn finally played today as the captain of the team. I am very sad that the World Cup is coming to an end, and that there's a chance Miro will not be back in the next World Cup. Strikers have a shorter life span on the field than the goalkeepers or the defenders. Hopefully, I can follow Miro and the other players as they go back to their respective clubs.

All the photos were taken from FIFA Website.

3 comments:

kgh said...

it is my experience that if you are not a good player and you play defense, the forwards from the other team will try to come through you. if you can get tha ball off of them, well... then you'll have the ball. if you are not a good player and you are playing forward, you are easier to cover and so you don't get passed to because you are covered.

moral of the story: if you want some action but aren't very good, play D. (or, if your ego needs a boost, cherry pick if they let you)

"stay in front of him!" -->
<-- "get open!"

k.

DJ Were-Panda said...

K, that's all well and good. But the past few games before this friday, we just played whatever. Defense or offense, it didn't matter as long as we were able to play.

I know there's a strategy to the game, and you're right. However, players like PM was literally hogging the ball. Even when J and F were wide open he refused to pass the ball and try to score goals (and failed several times). I was complaining about that.

One of PM's student got angry at Em for a minor offense and stayed angry til the end of the game. That's not what I had in mind when we started this weekly match. I didn't want this game to be overly official. I just want it to be relaxing and fun. I was ranting for several players, who came up to me and told me the same thing after the game. Most of them left early because they were intimidated by players like PM. At the end of the day, I heard the same complaints from five different players on both sides. That's not what I wanted out of this.

kgh said...

i know, my wife complained. when i play at leon, i have days like that where i barely get to touch the ball. there were some ball hogs for sure and once it becomes known that say Mr.X, is a ball hog, there is no need to cover anyone else... X won't pass it. you can throw 3 or 4 players on him and he's going to loose the ball. that's how skins lost. i would watch he other forwards pushing up, but X would have nowhere to go but back. i would offer X the drop but, X is too occupied on the goal and won't drop. Maybe X can't see the field because he's watching his feet, so he's locked into dribbling. X will get beat down and his own team will suffer. Its a tough situation. Its a stage of life for X, the ball hog.

another note, the field was awfully small for 10 on 10, with tiny goals, it gets to be what we call cloud soccer, everyone mobbed around the ball, only the most dilligant actually able to touch it. when we get that many people, you really need to move to a full sized field. i surely didn't get to touch the ball much with a "get open" strategy. lots of quick passes, and very little room for error. more like pachinko than soccer.

so i hope this explains things a bit. i'd really like to try playing on the fully curved outfield sometime just for kicks [yuk yuk]. but i'm an expirementer by nature...

k.