Soccer

When I lived in Pittsburgh, Karl, a friend from college, played on an adult indoor soccer team. One time when his team was shorthanded, he asked me and two other college buddies to play with them. I think I feel confident saying that all three of us overestimated our level of fitness. At the time I was playing basketball with teenagers a couple of times a week at work, so I thought I would be okay. I was wrong.

If you are not familiar with indoor soccer, it is played on a field the size of an ice hockey rink with each team fielding 5 players plus a goalie. Ideally each team has at least 10 field payers so that any one person is only on the field for a 4 or 5 minutes shift. You are basically sprinting the entire time you are on the field, so you need to take frequent breaks (unlike outdoor soccer whose larger field and greater number of players mean you are constantly jogging with the occasional sprint - allowing you to pace yourself much easier)

Even with the three of us joining Karl's team, there were only a couple of subs. It was brutal. Not only was the opponent in good shape, but they were all skilled players. Let's just say it was a good thing there was a large trash can right next to the field. There was puking and pulled muscles and generalized humiliation all around.

Fortunately, I had a much better experience tonight when I joined a pickup game at a nearby park. The vast majority of the players were between 25-35 year old, were in decent shape, and had obviously been playing quite a bit. I did fine. Any observer would not have needed much time to pick me out as the guy who had not played any soccer for several years, but the running I have been doing over past few months served me well.

My touch was way off, and I badly misjudged several balls in the air, but I did feel like I was able to "see" the game. There were a number of times when I could anticipate a play developing, and knew where I wanted to put the ball to make that happen, but my feet just couldn't execute what my mind told them to do. After an hour or so, I was able to make a few nice passes.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to get back on a soccer field. I hope to make this a regular thing on Tuesdays, and would love to find another game to join on the weekend. I hope that by playing consistently I can regain some of my touch on the ball. I'm sure I will be sore tomorrow (running sideways, backwards, and the kicking all use different muscles than what are used by simply jogging) and I have a nice little bruise on my left heel. A significant part of my motivation for the jogging was so that I could play soccer again and enjoy it, and I've accomplished that!

One of the fun things about these pickup games is that the players are from all over the world. Of the 17 or 18 guys who showed up tonight, countries represented on the field included the UK, Jamaica, Turkey, and at least one Central American county.