I Know, It's Been A While

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom-type figures out there!  All sorts, no exceptions.

Speaking of which, these days it seems like a lot of the things I might write about have to do with my own kids, and the older they get, the more like it seems like an invasion of their privacy to write about their lives.  God knows the three of them have enough going on, but I have to be considerate.  So, in honor of Mother's Day, after I give a shout out to my own seriously awesome mom and MIL (honestly, how lucky can one woman be to love and respect both her own mother AND her spouse's??) I have to tell two soccer stories.  Because of course I do.  I'm a soccer mom.  (And because I have spent every %&$#^$ Mother's Day since 2011 at a soccer field somewhere, since the travel soccer powers that be don't respect it as a holiday.  Ahem.)

Since the moms of virtually all travel soccer players DO find themselves at a field somewhere at least once on Mother's Day (as opposed, to say, sleeping in, or sipping mimosas at the latest hot brunch spot) the coaches often try to forestall total maternal revolution by bringing a bunch of flowers to the field and giving each child one to present to his or her mom after the game.  It's a very nice touch, and at least demonstrates that the coaches appreciate that the moms are spending Mother's Day in a way that might not be their top choice for some strange reason.  However, I came across a new twist on that yesterday, and it blew my mind.

Like I said, getting a flower from your own coach to give to your mom is a fairly routine gesture.  Enough so that when Thing Two arrived home yesterday afternoon (my FIL had taken him to his game for divide-and-conquer-type reasons) bearing a perfect coral rose, I assumed that was what had happened without specifically asking the question.  Then this morning, he offhandedly mentioned that it had not been given to him by his own coach, but by the other team's goalie.  Wait, what??

Turns out that the opposing coach brought roses for not only the mothers of his own players, but for the mothers of OUR players as well.  My three kids have been playing on Mother's Day weekend for eight, six and five years respectively and I have NEVER seen that happen before.  What a classy, thoughtful thing to do.  And the game in question was between two teams of thirteen year-old middle school boys...it wasn't like they are in kindergarten.  Think about the example that set for them.  I was impressed.

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As it happened, I was not at Thing Two's game because his older brother Thing One had a *Very Important Game* at roughly the same time in a different place.  Murphy's Law is a beast.

Thing One's team was not expected to be playing in that game, to start with.  The event in question is a sudden death elimination tourney of sorts and in both of the past couple of years, they were knocked out two rounds earlier.  To add insult to injury, the opposing team is one of the best in the state, and top 20 in the country.  Thing One's team is pretty good, don't get me wrong, but not in the same category as these other boys by any measure.  Any objective observer would have rightly predicted a bloodbath going in.

And we looked ugly, I have to tell you.  Really ugly.  Our game is a passing game, and these other boys were so much bigger and faster and stronger that they kept our guys from connecting passes.  Without the ability to get an offense going, our defenders were on their heels for maybe 85% of the game, struggling desperately and valiantly just to keep the ball out of their own net.  But they succeeded.  They couldn't get any offense going for the first 89 minutes of the game, but at the 89 minute mark, the score was still 0-0 because of the blood and guts left out there by our defense.  And with 45 seconds left in regulation, the other team had one defensive breakdown.  Just one lapse, but that was all it took.  Our center mid drilled the ball into the back of their net, and it was over.

1-0 final.  A win for the ages.  Epic upset, on the order of David vs. Goliath.

Thing One and the other centerback (central defenders) played every minute of that game.  He staggered off the field after the game glassy-eyed, streaks of dried white sweat lining the grooves of his face, too exhausted to even smile.  It took everything those boys had to hold the line, but they held.

As he told me later, if they were to play that team a hundred times, they'd lose 99 times.  They were better in quite literally every way, but our boys wanted the win more.  That was one of the most amazing triumphs of sheer will over adversity that I've ever seen and it was my honor to witness it.