More Soccer

It's late, and I'm distraught over the Celtics' 115-111 loss to the Heat tonight. Though I should be going to bed soon I need at least 30 minutes of Gary Tanguay and Tommy Heinsohn bashing the officials and complaining--rightly!--that Paul Pierce is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NBA (he gets no respect, that is) before I dare put my head to my pillow.

The worst part? Telling Andres tomorrow morning that the C's lost. He's become a true fan these past few months, bleeding green like his dad, wishing KG and Paul (he knows their names and their numbers too) to victory. Alas his encouragement can do nothing to help Ray's ankles. I let Andres stay up and watch part of the first quarter with me tonight, and when I said goodnight, he asked me to update him on the score every few minutes. Or, in his words, "Daddy come into my room and tell me how many the Celtics have and how many the Heats have, ok?"

Anyway, lots of things have been going on here, many of which will be the subjects of future blog posts (just not tonight), and I have been remiss in sharing various videos/photos that chronicle our days. Of particular interest seem to be soccer videos--so I am now sharing the clips from Game 2, a hard-fought battle between the Bobcats and the Gators, which took place a few weeks ago.

After a spectacular 3-goal effort in his first game, the expectations for Andres were sky-high when he laced up his cleats--I mean velcroed his shoes--for game number two. Could he repeat his feat? Would he come crashing back down to earth? And what kind of support would he receive from his teammates? This is why we watch YMCA Little Kickers soccer--it's drama of the highest order, with impossibly low stakes.

Big boy started out on the right foot, stealing a goal from one of his teammates.



Lots of stop and go in this second video. It's hard for a game to take shape when only a handful of players seem to want to be there.



And now the drama we were promised! Andres makes a beeline for the goal, narrowly misses, and then crashes into the frame. Like any concerned father, I make fun of him for flopping before he limps off the field, clearly in some pain. Woohoo.



They clearly worked on the handshake line in practice, because they executed it much better than in week 1.