No Goal, No Matter?

On Wednesday nights at Redeemer there is soccer for those who wish to get out and kick the ball around. The number of guys coming out has grown consistently for the last year, it's been great. We have all sorts of nationalities represented- Americans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Chinese, Venezuelans, Australians, Tunisians, and even an occasional Texan. A veritable melting pot of soccer frivolity. From that group of guys we formed a team to play in a local indoor league on Thursday nights. You'll note our logo on the right bar, our team name is RPC United.

We had our first game last night and lost 8-4. Should have been 8-5...but I'll get to that.

I've always struggled to handle losing well. I have learned to maintain a reasonably controlled exterior when losing, especially with "Rev." in front of my name, but I still churn inside. The Lord has brought me a long way in this area and I usually don't act like a complete jerk when I lose, but I definitely get fired up dwelling on it very long. It's nothing against the other team or anything like that, I'm just ridiculously competitive.

Now, on to last night's game. We started out a bit flat-footed with this being our first game ever on this new turf and as an organized team. The other team was pretty skilled and while younger chronologically, more experienced on the indoor turf. They took it to us early and scored a couple weak goals we shouldn't have given up. Anyways, we were behind all night. We settled down and played them tough the rest of the game.

There was one instance that almost brought out the old man in me. The newly ordained (and also "Rev.") Brian Hough moved the ball up the field, somehow the ball squirted back to me and I took a rip at it. The shot went high, hit the wall and came back to me. I then ripped a left-footed shot high at the goalies hands, but he didn't handle it and it bounced down on the other side of the goal line and back in to his hands. The ball was clearly over the line, we knew it and so did the other team. Still, the ref was hanging at half and totally missed the play. He said "NO GOAL" and the play had to continue as if I hadn't just scored despite both teams walking back to line up for the kick-off that happens after a goal is scored.

I was not happy. Neither was Rev. Hough. Neither was Rev. Currey (on the bench at the time). It was a weird feeling of anger, disgust, and dismay I hadn't had since my competitive playing days. I wanted to really yell at someone, but dang....I can't do that, being the Revenator and all. Then, to make matters worse, I asked one of their players to just tell the ref the truth, they knew it went in, they saw it too. Instead, not satisfied with their 4-1 lead at the time, they looked all sheepish and wouldn't tell the truth to the referee! For crying out loud! It's a Thursday night fat old man league! Come on guys, just tell the truth already!

Wait a minute! What did I just say? I need to take my own advice and chill. It was a great time with the guys of RPC United. That's enough, goal or not. No goal, no matter? Right?

I do hope we destroy that team if we get to play them again.