Sunday, November 23, 2008

Yesterday's Soccer Game: A Contrast in Parental Motivation

My daughter does not play on a team that comes exclusively from the white bread section of town. Some of our families are a bit, how shall I say it, rough around the edges.

I love them.

Yesterday we played the preppy team. Down by two players for over half the game, we scrapped and fought to a 0-0 tie. I take photos during the game and this time, because of the angle of the sun, I had to shoot from the other team's sideline. Eventually, I just quit and came back to our sideline because I couldn't stand the treacle any more. Here's a comparison of the two teams' fans.

Them (after failing to beat a bedraggled and demoralized team they outmanned 11-9): "Oh, well played, girls! What a great game! Tiffany you were so close to scoring a goal! It wasn't very nice of them to play so rough.* Let's all go out for smoothies at Jamba Juice!"

Us: "¡Maria, si no jugar mejor, te voy a pegar ustede con un palo!"

* - We played a very clean game, if a bit physical.

Update: Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I was exaggerating for comic effect. No one is beating their daughters con un palo. We're just a bit more colorful than the other teams.

This has been my daughter's first year of club soccer and she's really enjoyed it. Her skills have gotten much better, but she sometimes plays timidly. With about 15 minutes left to go in the game, she became a ravening beast and was hip-checking her opponents all over the field. It was great. I found out later that the other team had been teasing our very short left midfielder because of her height. My daughter got angry and took it out on the other team.

Bad move, girls. You might want to use those smoothies as ice packs.

2 comments:

Foxfier said...

Whoot!

My spanish from high school is malo, but I got to use my IE8 translate-with-windows-live feature!

And GOOD ON 'EM!

(this is from the gal who first played soccer with Marines and Navy guys averaging twice her size-- and loved it)

K T Cat said...

Way to go, foxfier!