The Soccer Goal

For the past two months, my son has played on a U-6 soccer team in our local rec league. It’s his first foray into organized sports, and the results have been mixed. Sometimes he takes part in the entire practice, then refuses to play in the mini-game. Sometimes he does both. Sometimes he does neither. Sometimes he just wants to chase around the one little girl he holds in higher regard than all others.

(He’s so much like his daddy in this way that it’s frightening: he follows her around like a puppy and makes every effort to stand rightnext to her at all times, and she’s basically just like, “Okay, dude, leave me alone.” Get used to the reaction, kiddo, it’s how we roll.)

His attitude and ability are somewhere in the middle of the road. Our team has a couple kids who never show up, a couple who just kind of go out and chase the ball around (this is where my boy fits in, when he actually plays), a couple who don’t have immense natural talent but play hard and do well, and one who is the total package.

From the first practice, we could see how impressive this kid was. It’s not just natural ability – although GOOD LORD he can fly; more often than not, he simply outruns everyone else on the field – he obviously gets a ton of practice at home.

One thing he doesn’t do well is finish. Every week is the same story: our star player gets in the game, gets the ball, charges down the field, and shoots. Sometimes he makes it, sometimes he doesn’t. That’s not really a concern, of course – most five-year-olds don’t exactly possess deadly accuracy when it comes to putting the ball in the net (and these are small nets). And that’s generally what it is, an accuracy issue: he streaks down the field, kicks the hell out of the ball, it misses the net completely, goes out of bounds, and play stops.

Today, however, was a little different. At one point, he broke away like usual and fired a shot on goal. It didn’t go wide, though, and somehow ended up sitting right at the edge of the net. This was outside the normal routine, so nobody did anything. The kid who kicked the ball turned and headed back to defend the goal kick, as he usually would. One of the other kids started to do the same thing. The opposing team just kind of hung around, probably waiting for the coach/referee to grab the ball, even as parents and spectators on the sidelines shouted to all of them all at once to go get the ball.

And then something really awesome happened. Our third player (we generally play three-on-three, unless the opposing coach is feeling frisky and suggests adding a fourth), a little tiny peanut of a girl who almost never touches the ball, sprang into action. From about ten feet away, she ran as hard as she could to the ball, which was still chilling at the goal line, reared back, and blasted it into the back of the net.

That would have been great enough, but her reaction made it even better: she turned around, big smile on her face, and spread her arms wide in a gesture that could only be interpreted as, “Sup, bitches! How you like me now?” before sauntering back to the other end of the field (still smiling) and flashing her mother a thumbs-up. She knew she did good and she celebrated accordingly.

What made this so fun to watch was it's rarity. That star player who’s better and faster than everyone else? He’s gonna score lots and lots of goals before he’s done playing soccer. Sometime in the next couple years, he’ll learn to control the ball much better and before we know it, he’ll be punching holes in the back of the net on a regular basis. Watch him play and you know this to be true.

That little girl, though? I don’t know if she had touched the ball in a game all season. She certainly hadn’t scored a goal. She may never score another one. But today she got the chance and she did.