Team Robison: Soccer

And so it begins. Now that we have a minivan, it was the perfect time to become an official soccer mom. I signed Matthew up for the U5 AYSO soccer league here in Layton. They play 7 games in the Fall and then another 7 games in the Spring. His first game was the day after we got back from California. He was terribly excited for his game. I was going to buy him cleats to use, but his feet are too small; I couldn't find any in his size. For the younger kids, they have a combined game and practice for an hour on Saturday morning. First they do a 20-30 minute practice on half the field, and then they play a short game against the other team. There are no refs; the coaches just monitor the game. There are hardly any penalties: Picking up the ball is discouraged, but not a stop-the-game offense. Else, the game would stop every two minutes for something or other. There aren't any corners or goal kicks; every out of bounds is a throw-in. Last but not least, we don't keep score.

For his first game, I noticed that Matthew is the shortest kid on his team. And it was so cute how all the boys' shorts went down to their shinguards. Matthew's team was the Alligators, and he was #6, which he told everyone who would listen. Matthew did fine at practice, and did a great job the first quarter of the game. He sat out the second quarter, and went back in after halftime. About a minute into the third quarter, he just starts bawling and has to come out. "I'm never going to win! No one is sharing with me." I basically predicted this melt down and probably should have done a better job preparing him for the fact that we don't share in soccer. He cried the rest of the game, and then cheered up for his snack. After that, we had a discussion about sharing in soccer, and a no crying during soccer rule, and the season went much better. In his second game, he got a few "goals." He wasn't particularly good at stopping after the ball went out-of-bounds, and his goals were all from breakaways after the game was supposed to stop. He was awfully proud of himself, so I didn't have the heart to explain that his goals don't count.

Mark, Hannah and Henry came to his third game, which was perfect because he got his first official goal. Half the time Matthew kind of spaces it as he plays and is in no man's land, but occasionally, he manages to break out of the pack around the ball and break away to the goal. I think he got two goals that game. He seemed to soccer most every game after that. Except for the game that Benjamin, Jess and Daniel came to. That game was a slaughter by the other team. This one kid could actually play, so he would just get the ball and run to the goal every minute, it seemed. I swear I saw two kids pass the ball to each other in the game, which was so far advanced of any of our kids. But the other team gave all the fans popsicles, probably to ease the pain of the beating they gave us. All in all, it was a great season for Matthew. He got some of the basics down, and he had a lot of fun.