Independientes F.C.

So, not the best time for me lately. Blogging is not high on my list of "things to do." But with the first season with Independientes F.C. coming to an end, I thought I should mention a couple things about that.

Although it's basically the remainders from C.T.C.F.C. (this is all over 30s, the Open CTC
team is still around), we do have a handful of new players making this
a relatively new team. Things started to click with our new "two team"
plan of attack, but we still weren't getting the wins we had hoped for.
Goals were being scored, but we were still getting scored on quite a
bit. Sadly, in a game when we didn't have enough players for the two
team attack, we finally got a win. It was still a close match and we
only won by a goal, but we won.

In the week prior to our first
win, I actually got my first goal in a couple seasons. Don't normally
brag about this but it was a goal that had several folks from the
sidelines, my teammates and even the keeper for the other team
complimenting the goal. Danny O. lobbed a ball into the box from the
left side. I came running in from the "18" (it's super six, so probably
closer to the 10 or so), and crossed in front of both the defender and
the keeper to nail a header into the bottom corner. Definitely in my
list of my favorite goals, which up to this point pretty much included
every goal I've scored...all dozen or so of them. After that one, I
decided to narrow it down to my top four or five. (Side note: a week
later, Celtic F.C. played for theSPL championship and won the match with a very similar goal. Made me proud on two levels.)

Yesterday
we won our second match in a row...and this one was another close one,
had to take it into an extra period. As time in the second half wound
down, and we were losing by a goal, I fed KG a ball up the right hand
side. I was immediately upset as I fed it a little further up than I
had wanted to. But KG was able to get control, bring it inside avoiding
the defender and take a pretty hard shot. I still thought the angle was
too much, but rushed the goal hoping for a rebound. We got lucky and
the keeper bobbled the ball against the post and it bounced in off his
shoulder. As the ball was being picked up the ref blew the whistle, we
tied it up! In the extra period (not a golden goal situation) we were
able to put another one in and held on, just barely, to win the match.
Next week will be our final match of the season.

We are probably
going to skip the summer season, with many of our players coaching h.s.
teams and summer is prep time, plus if the heat last night was any
indication of what this summer is going to be like, our old bones might
NEED to sit out this summer.

Well...

I'm currently "watching" the Man U. v. Barcelona Champions League match (recording it at home, the first half sounds worthy of keeping for later viewing)...and just found a news article about the Olympic draw for both US National Teams.

Also, this evening will be the second round of the new season of my new >30s team at Warners. The team name, if I haven't mentioned it yet, is Independientes F.C, borrowed from an Argentine team with the name Independientes ("los diablos rojos"). We're in blue and white (once the uniforms arrive) and the unis are said to be loosely based on the other "red devils," yes, Man U....NOT happy about that, but I guess it's a step up from our previous unis which were loosely based on AC Milan's). Our defacto captain, Santi, listed the Argentine team, Independientes, as one of his favorites (he's also a La Liga follower like myself).

The season has not started well as we lost our first match against Barely Kicking, 4-1 (I think). But the attitude was better with our team and we had a lot more show up for the first match (3 subs is a good thing). I'm hopeful about this season and it seems others are as well. Tonight we play 1040s and our goal is to shut them out...focusing on defense. I hope it works.