Justin’s team had their first proper soccer match this weekend. Something of a pain, since it was the middle of the afternoon and 70 miles away, so it basically ate up half of our day.

But what a game.

First off, they need eleven kids to field a full team — one kid couldn’t make it, and two just didn’t show up at all, so that left 10 players for an Ironman match against a team of 15.

It was a 1-1 tie, and it was great to watch. The coach just played all the kids in the best positions he could and told them to play hard. Justin was in the field the whole game (first time for him doing that for the whole game) and he did great (his goalie instincts kicked in a couple times, but since it saved a couple shots, no problem).

Anyway, a hell of a game coming on a weekend when I was feeling pretty negative about the sport and the organization running it in our area. Nice timing.