Off the Bench: Goalkeeper virgin
We last left off with me making my playing debut in the Fort Worth Vaqueros Liga 7, in which I fell over, got winded and watched my team lose 3-2. One week later, the Liga 7 Free Agents would return to Sycamore Park for our second match of the season.
Our opponents this time were CTR 12.44a, a team name that I don’t understand in the slightest, but heard rumors that their female players were ex-TCU. I mean, it’s not ridiculous, we’re not that far from the TCU campus, and if I were a graduated D1 athlete still living in the area, I’d want to keep playing. Anyway. CTR, as I’ll be referring to them, showed up with matching uniforms in red and white, and immediately looked like they knew what they were doing. For us, we once again had a situation where we were missing people as kickoff approached.
Our coach, Mark Snell, was here to hopefully guide us to victory, or at least get us somewhat more organized. Mark, by the way, is a veteran of the original NASL and MISL, and has been a fixture in coaching in DFW soccer for over a decade. It’s both very cool and terribly embarrassing having him as my first-ever coach. Kickoff was minutes away, our opponents had nearly their entire roster present and we were still short one woman. We made another agreement to play shorthanded (with me once again not starting), as I attempted to get in touch with the tardy/absent players. One responded that she was on her way and would be there by halftime at the latest. Perfect. The other had only just received confirmation from the league that she was registered and hadn’t seen the schedule yet. This was less than ideal. Whatever, we would manage until Livia arrived.
At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, CTR was good. Proper good. Far better than us. And to add insult to conceded goals, our heroic ‘keeper Hugo was away on work. We agreed to split our time in goal to hopefully survive, but this meant that my completely inexperienced self would have to attempt to play ‘keeper at least once today. To put it lightly, I wasn’t looking forward to it.
At roughly 10 minutes in the first half, I subbed on for my first shift. We were already down by several with just one scored, and the CTR women were every bit as good as the rumors suggested. Fortunately, Livia arrived around the same time, so for much of the remainder of the half, we were at least playing something akin to full strength. My primary objective was defending, playing almost entirely as a typical right back. My teammates were all giving me defensive pointers; who to mark, where to stand, where to look, when to move. I was getting the hang of my positioning, but I was nowhere near comfortable putting pressure on rushing attackers. This directly led to at least two goals conceded.
At halftime, the team walked me through more Defending 101, and even one or two of the opposing players gave me advice on what I should be doing. Pretty sure that’s a first, having your opponent try and help you out. I started the second half, again defending, before getting asked to switch into goal. Oh, okay. This should be fun?
It wasn’t. I had just about no idea what I was doing, or should be doing, and it showed. We were technically still in the game, if only barely, but then I conceded four goals. My goalkeeper debut thankfully lasted only five minutes or so before my team realized that I was a complete liability back there and stuck me back out at right back. Not long after, I actually registered what I’ll consider my first career save, blocking one shot with my leg before kicking it from the goal line.
We had a total of eight players present, so by the end of the second half we were all truly winded, and it seemed as if CTR started to ease up the pressure the final few minutes. This led to us getting our first, and only, goal of the afternoon. Not that it really mattered all that much, we were still down 10-1. I still found the energy to crack the joke: “You know what they say, 10-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer.” It got a good enough reaction on both sides for me to feel marginally better about my tragic goalkeeping. CTR put another two past us, and the clock siren sounded to end our day with a rough 12-1 defeat.
Honestly, though, I could tell I was actually playing better this game than the previous, and were it not for both our ridiculously tough opponents and our AWOL goalkeeper, we might have had something resembling a chance. Alas. Onward and upward. I packed up my gear and returned home to recover for game three the next weekend.
Follow John on Twitter: @JohnMLTX.
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