Soccer Season

Well, for us, it goes from August to July, so I'm not going to say it's over.

But this weekend was the last tournament of the regular season--and on the one hand, Squish is sorry to see it go, but on the other, we did notice that we left at the beginning of November and our part of the country noticed fall had arrived.

It seems to show itself in cold feet.

So we spent a couple of glorious--albeit cold--days on the soccer field, watching Squish look yearningly at her peers playing, because in spite of the fact that they didn't have a chance of winning any of their games almost from the get go, her coach didn't put her in.

Which was a shame. Because when he played her as defender, she didn't let anything through. Granted, she was only there for five minutes, but, well, she would have enjoyed the time seeing if she could keep up a streak.

It's frustrating, watching her improve, watching her be ignored. On the one hand I suppose I should be grateful-- Mate stepped down from coach this year so the new coach WOULDN'T split the teams into the "good one" and the "not so good one". And I think the new coach was surprised when the same girls who couldn't get their shit together on a plate for Mate were only a little better at it for new guy.

Well, new guy is young--everybody thinks they can do it better than the old guy at the beginning.

Mate was very classy--he'd talk about all the good things new guy was doing, and how they were hard to get to work--he's not big on trash talk, and I love him for it.

But still--the one thing Mate was usually pretty good at was putting every kid in for equal playing time.  After Chicken was cut from her team (a team she later played with for another five years after that asshole quit coaching) he didn't ever want another kid to feel left out.

Watching Squish feel left out is rough.

Which is why I didn't whine (too much) when Mate said he might be club president again next year. Our club is consolidating with three or four other clubs--the reason he was club president in the first year was to keep bad shit from happening to any of our kids as players.

It's a good reason. He's good at that job.

Maybe next year, Squish will get some more playing time.

Because I guess that's the way things work in a civilized society. At least I'd like to think so.