Win when it counts.

As mentioned in one of my earlier posts back in the Spring, I put together a men's outdoor soccer team for the summer season, but it was not as easy as I thought it would be. Around the time the first deposit was due in March, I only had 9 guys aboard for the team. If you're not familiar with soccer rules, a soccer team consists of 11 players plus a maximum of 7 substitutes.

Our first game was on May 25^th, and the seven or so weeks leading up to it were quite hectic and exciting; hectic in the sense that I was trying to add 6-7 players to the squad, and exciting because everyone involved at that point was really into it. I purchased around 19 brand-new Umbro jerseys from a store at a price of $40 a pop, but they weren't ready until our second game.

In short, we had a difficult season. We lost more than we won, some of our players had hectic personal schedules which meant we played most of our games short-handed, and a few picked up significant injuries, myself included; I was in a cast and crutches for 3 weeks nursing a severely sprained ankle. However poorly we played, we weren't the worst, and we managed to qualify for the playoffs.

On Sunday, a semi-final match, we were drawn against the best team in our division whom we had lost to three times during the regular season. We ended up winning 2-1 in a very nerve-wracking game. In two weeks time, we'll be playing in the final at 9pm under floodlights. Friends and family will be in attendance, and it should be an all-around excited game to watch.


Justice United FC
2008