August 14/13
Last night was our first game since suffering a loss for the first time in over 2 years and I was a bit nervous how the team would react since we were playing our biggest rivals, a team that lives to trash talk and spends as much energy pushing, shoving, clutching, and grabbing as it does trying to move the soccer ball down the pitch.
We were looking to be down a few players due to holidays but at game time we just had enough to field a full 11. I told the boys we needed to play smart, use short crisp passes, rotate when we were covered in order to create some space and opportunities. My son mentioned that during the warm ups one of the other team had kicked a ball into our area on purpose in order to get close enough to start trying to play mind games by asking how last weeks loss felt. I asked him how he responded and he laughed and said he asked the other player how it felt to get his ass kicked the last time we met 10-0.
As the game started more of my players showed up and by the time we were 5 minutes into the game we had 16 at the field so we had 5 subs.
I won't go into the details of the game but will say my boys came out with something to prove and before you could get settled it was 3-0 for us with both my son and my assistant coach's son scoring sweet goals off of wicked crosses. The game ended in our favour 8-1 and could easily have been worse for them but for some missed shots on our part and some very good goalie work for them.
Now winning the game wasn't my reward.
My son scoring 2 goals and assisting on 2 more wasn't my reward, though it was pretty damn impressive.
No, my reward came on the last goal we scored with about 8 minutes to go in the game.
We have a player named M on the team who as Aspergers Syndrome who tries and tries his best to be like the other kids on the team athletically, and for the most part he succeeds. The one thing we haven't been able to do is get M a goal for the past two seasons, not for lack of trying by his teammate's or the coaches in getting him to the right spot and being relaxed enough to take his shot.
That is until last night.
Being up 7-1, I started to move my best players back to defence and slotting other players in as midfielders and strikers to give them a chance at some shots. Now M always plays as our center forward when he is on the pitch as it puts him in the middle up front and should he lose focus, like he does now and again, we have coverage on either side and behind him on the pitch.
My sweeper took possession of the ball at the top of our 18 yard box and really hammered a high shot down the middle of the pitch just past M, who all of us were yelling at to run to the ball. M made this speed burst and slid between the two defenders to put the ball on his right foot and after taking 2 or 3 steps with it just slammed it towards the goal. As I watched the shot track towards the goal I thought he had shot too soon and it was going to sail wide left of the post when it literally bent right and just scrapped by the inside of the post and into the back of the net for a goal.
I shouted so loud my throat hurt "Way to go M" and felt myself tearing up. My assistant called for a line change as we always do after a score and as M came towards the sideline he looked at me and sprinted towards me and threw himself into me and gave me the biggest hug ever and than looked at me smiling his smile and asked me why I was crying.......
I don't coach to stroke my ego by winning more than I lose
I don't coach for money or gifts
I don't coach to make friends
I coach for the pure joy of a moment like last night when a young man's life is enriched for a brief moment in time
I coach for the text message I got at 11:57 pm last night from my son that simply said "well done coach"
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