Us: 2; Them: 3

Big Delta 2, Little Catholic 3

At Friday's practice after our morale-boosting 6-1 loss to Big Catholic the day before, I noticed my players looked a bit too happy. I told them, if you're proud of yesterday's game, go home now. We lost 6-1, and that is nothing to be proud of. Yes, we made some big improvements, and yes, we scored a goal, but if you all are happy losing 6-1, go home. We need to move on.

I thought it might have been a little harsh, but they responded well during practice. It was report card day, which meant more running than usual for a practice sandwiched between two games, but it was good for them. Saturday's game showed me even better how well they had responded.

We arrived late for the game, courtesy of a bus that was governed at 55 mph, and barely had time to get a stretch in betfore kickoff. I stuck with essentially the same lineup that started the Big Catholic game, but I put F. on as my centerback. We conceded a goal from a corner, a neat little nearpost header, but we were taking the game to them in midfield, and equalized almost straight away. D.J. used his cornerback speed to get in behind the defense and take the ball past the onrushing keeper, whom he then leapt over to slot the ball into an empty net.

At that point, I knew we really had a chance to take something out of the game, but I knew we'd have to score again. Seeing out the next 60 minutes without conceding was never very likely for us, so I encouraged us to be more attack-minded after the interval. M.W. scored a neat goal as a marauding right midfielder, and his control and drive made our attacks down that flank a sporadic threat, but often left us open to counter attacks in the back. We still had 30 minutes to play when we took the lead, and I knew we couldn't defend in our own half that long, but we also don't quite have the technical skill to play a controlled, passing game, so I urged my players to keep the tempo up, to keep playing our game, and to stay tough. At this point, though, we were running out of energy, and they equalized about 15 minutes from time. I don't even remember how they scored, but at that point, my only thought was to try to preserve the draw. We switched to a 4-5-1, with even my lone striker doing more defending than anything else, and we held them off bravely. D.S., my sweeper, headed off the line after my keeper made a rare blunder on an afternoon when he drew the praise of even the opposing coaches and referees. We were forced to hack another ball off the line a few minutes later, before my keeper went down under a heavy challange with less than two minutes remaining, and the referees signalled to me that we had blood on the field. As I trotted out there with the med kit, I shouted instructions to F. to warm up.
C. B. had, as I had so often worried about, taken a solid shot to the face and not only did his glasses cut into his nose but he had managed to bust open his lip and was spitting blood. The officials told me that he could continue, but he had to get a new pair of gloves, since he had bled all over these. Now, these were brand new gloves that we had just given C.B. that morning, and I was sure that in his mind, he was attributing at least some part of his inspired play to those gloves. His other gloves, it turns out, were on the bus, and as I was about to tell him to just play with his bare hands, my assisstant arrived with an ingenious solution.
"Gimme that peroxide out of the med kit" she said and then proceeded to douse the gloves, draining the entire bottle on them while vigorously rubbing them with cotton balls. "Here" she said, handing them to me "Dry these on your pants." And to the officials, smiling "That oughta work just fine now." They agreed, and we commenced to play out those final two minutes. The clock on the scoreboard had run out, and just as I was sure we had made it through, we failed to clear and they struck a shot from just inside the 18 that flew past everyone and into the roof of the net. Before most of my players could even begin to react, the final whistle blew, and we collapsed.
My strongest players were in tears. After losing every game for three years, we had come so close to at least salvaging a draw. It was all I could do to keep my own eyes dry, watching their immense effort slip away without reward. I had no speech for after this game. I told my D.S., my sweeper and captain, as he boarded the bus, that we have a long season. We stayed in this game until the very end, and we'll stay in this season until the very end. He barely responded, and I decided to wait with any kind of peptalk until after the visit to McDonald's. The mood as we entered the golden arches was still glum. As I went from player to player, checking for any injuries I might have missed, I asked little B.W. (there are two B.W.'s of very different sizes) if anything was hurting. "Just my heart Coach" he responed. But by the time we left, D.S.'s womanizing antics and seven dollars worth of heart attack food had significantly improved the team's collective mood. Back on the bus, D.S. gave the speech that I was still struggling to find the words for, and for that, I'm very thankful.

In the school parking lot, as we were all dispersing, he came up to me and said "I know we lost, coach, but even though we lost, it feels like we won. I know, this game shows, that we can compete with anyone now."

My next step is a still a little unclear. We have big, division games coming up this week, against schools that are better than any we have yet played. But I am starting to get the impression that we can, in fact, compete with anyone. I'm not sure how to interpret this game for the team, but I feel like I can't call it a success, because that would imply we aren't good enough to win games. At the same time, though, this may be the closest we come all season to a victory, and if it is, we should celebrate it. However, I simply can't allow myself to believe that, and I can't allow my players to believe that. We will win a game this year. Hopefully, that will start on Tuesday, 7 PM, at home, in our first division game.

**It's getting tiresome not using real names in this blog. I slipped up last week and mentioned a few, but I was able to go back and change them. Not being able to use the name of my school, or even our mascot, makes game descriptions especially difficult. From now on, my school will be known as Big Delta High School, and our fictional mascot will be the eagles.