Let me tell you about this past weekend…
Sasha had a soccer tournament all weekend. Two games on Saturday and a game on Sunday. I remember laying in bed before the weekend began, talking to God and saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if she actually won this tournament?” I knew it was sort of impossible because the team hadn’t been doing that well as a team and the last tournament we went to they lost all three games. That said, they had been getting better.
Bright and early Saturday morning in Sunnyvale they played a team they’ve lost to twice already (the Mustangs). It was a well-fought game. Our team scored a goal to go up 1-0 in the first half, then the other team was charging and charging and charging the entire game, but they couldn’t score and the game ended. So we won 1-0. Wow, that was nice.
The second game, the same thing happened. We scored a goal early and then we held on to the very end to win 1-0.
That was the end of Sasha’s first two games. Then I went to go coach Hunter’s game in the afternoon. Hunter’s team is the worst team in the league, and the team we’re playing is one of the best teams in the league. Last time we played them, they scored four goals in the first five minutes, and then they had to start taking players off and stop trying to keep from running up the score. So, I was not excited for a shellacking.
On the car ride to the game, I had a conversation with Hunter, and we agreed that as long as he tried hard and stayed positive, no matter what the score, we’d both have a good game. When I got to the field, I conveyed that to the rest of the team saying “Hey, this is a good team, but if we try hard and stay positive, we’ll have a good game.” And as luck would have it, the other team ended up scoring two goals in the first half, but we were battling and we were fighting and we weren’t getting our asses kicked like we had before. At the end of the game, it was 4-0, but our team was happy. We all left the field thinking “Wow, that was the best game we’ve ever played and we’re really getting better.”
Then Sunday came around (my birthday). I was distracted because we didn’t know what to do with Hunter and Diane for the day. We were up in Marin and Sasha’s game was down in Sunnyvale. We didn’t know whether we should drag them 2 hours down south to watch Sasha’s game, just to turn around and drive back. Seems like a waste of time for a 13-year-old who’d rather be doing anything else. But ultimately I decided, “You know what, this is my birthday and I’ll be really bummed if I’m sitting in an office park in Sunnyvale talking to random parents for hours and not with my family on my birthday.” So I got the full team into the car. We’re all going. We may be in Sunnyvale but at least we’ll be together.
Sasha had her game at 1pm and we got off to a good start. In fact, Sasha scored the first goal to put us up 1-0. And we fought hard but the other team was a good team and really put the pressure on us. They scored another goal towards the end of the game and were about to score at least one more when the game thankfully ended and so we escaped with a tie, 1-1.
Because we had won two games and tied one, we made it to the finals to play the best team of the tournament, Marin FC, who are really good. We’ve played twice already this season and they’ve beaten us each time. So again, we had the attitude, “As long as Sasha plays hard and stays positive, we’ll have a good time.” Sasha had already anchored on how fun it would be to get a second-place medal. She’d never gotten a single medal before (in her life) and even getting the second-place one would be really fun. She was excited.
The game started and they were indeed really good but we were scrappy. We were scrappy in a way we hadn’t been scrappy before and we battled as they were bigger and more physical. The other team was good and they scored a goal to have us down 1-0 at halftime. But we fought back in the second half. We had a chance here and there and we actually scored one goal towards the end of the half to make it tied 1-1. CeCe scored the goal – it was kind of a long shot that dipped right inside the inside post.
And then with the game winding down, probably two minutes left, we got a corner kick. It came straight to Skoog who one-timed volleyed it right into the goal for us to go up 2-1. We were all sort of amazed at what happened and then before we knew it the game was over.
I had forgotten about my small request to the man above from the beginning of the weekend. But it’s amazing that we won the tournament. It seemed so impossible. The joy on Sasha’s face was really something.
It was a great experience for her and for us as a family. Hanging together rooting for each kid at each game and for each to compete hard and to emerge with big smiles on their faces.
Someone asked me what I got for my birthday, and I had to reply: I got everything I could ever wish for, and maybe a little bit more.
