The taste of victory

It tastes sweet. I've been playing indoor mixed soccer on Friday nights this season which has been fun. Mainly because we tend to win all the games. The team lost a few while I wasn't there (I don't think there was any connection) but we finished second. Unlike Salisbury, at the valley they have one week of semi-finals and then you play the final on that weekend. Which I think is a great way to go, if you don't make the finals you get a week off :)

Anyway, we did make the finals and we played on Friday night against a team I presume came 3rd. We only had five players (the bare minimum) and that was a great game. The end result was 3-3 but it was such an even and fair game to play that I haven't enjoyed a game that much in ages. We were leading 3-1 at one point but they got it back to 3-3 with 30 seconds to go. We weren't too happy but managed to hold out for the draw which meant that we went through to the final since we finished 2nd.

The problem with that was our playmaker, our number 10 if you will, wasn't available. Nothing wrong with Grant who was able to play Saturday after not being there Friday but Pete is very much the centre of our attacking thrusts. That's my thoughts anyway. So, with the bare minimum again we lined up for the grand final. We took the early lead and then got another goal through the only own goal I've seen there. Al pushed up on the left, got the ball and tried to cross it to me lurking on the far side of the circle. A girl on the other team tried to pass it back to the keeper (which you're allowed to do) but he was completely out of position and she put it in the net. So that made it 2-0 to us which was good. Unlike most games I was trying to be a bit more physical like I normally would in an outdoor game but the ref wasn't having any of it. Which is fair enough, but I would have been much happier if he pulled up the other team for the same things. The team we were playing had one guy who thought he was the bees knees. And he was pretty good but he kept trying to run the ball instead of passing it. Drawing on all my years of playing defence, I can say with confidence that he didn't manage to get past me once in either half.

Going into the second half, they got a quick goal to make it 2-1. Given they had subs that was the last thing we wanted as ideally we'd just sit on the two goal lead for the rest of the game. Jen had taken a knock and wasn't really able to run so we were down to 3 very tired outfield players. Still, we kept running and got another goal to make it 3-1. From the resulting kickoff they scored. I thought I'd gotten in the way of the ball and felt it brush past me, but what really happened was I missed it altogether and the guys shoe hit me. So we managed to hold them out for the next five minutes as they ran all over us, then we released Al and he scored to make it 4-2. At that point it was all over as the momentum shifted and we ran all over them at the end. Final score 5-2 to us.

So as our trophy, we got a very nice mug. So we all sat down, poured our beers (or in Jen's case soft drink, boo!) into our mugs and drank them. Victory does indeed taste sweet.