The Poor Wayfarer

In the end we won, but we didn’t win “well”. You take a look at that and you think, “Well, it’s the result hat counts, isn’t it?” You may be right, however . . .

When we won the league last year – by going undefeated and steamrolling other teams – we had a lot of leeway to play our brand of soccer: quick movement, quick passes, a sudden through-ball and then we’re running at the goal. We stacked up goal after goal after goal. I believe we scored fifty-four goals that season. We finished at the top of our league and thus were promoted to the next league up: Classic III, where we only hoped to give a good, fighting account of ourselves. Our goal at the beginning of this season was to not lose too many games and get relegated back to Classic IV.

Perhaps at this point something needs to be said about the peculiar culture of soccer, where you have a variety of layers of league play and promotion and relegation are the reality. In soccer there is a top league – in our state it’s Classic I – and a bottom league, Classic V. Every new team starts off in Classic V and, by dint of hard work, in a similitude of the All-American Story, a team that finishes at the top of Classic V is promoted up to the next highest league; meanwhile, the team that finishes at the bottom of that next highest league is “relegated” down. Thus, all five layers are constantly in flux – you hope to win your way all the way up to Classic I, the Promised Land. On your way up you encounter teams that have been relegated down and are playing like hell to move back up again. Some teams go up and up and up; others slip into free fall. Then there are others that always stay in the “middle of the table”, not qualifying for promotion but not threatened by relegation. I think this is what the Catholics mean by Purgatory. Those teams at Classic I, however – they’ve achieved something great, winning each league and climbing the ladder.

Our club has been steadily climbing since it’s inception at the U (“under”) 13 era. At the end of our U13 season we were promoted to Classic IV where we stagnated at U13-U15 –until we began adding some key players. Suddenly we swept through the league in our last year at the U15 level and we made it to the very respectable Classic III, however – due to the age  of our boys – were now forced to move up an age bracket as well – thus, the U17 moniker. Suddenly we were playing older boys in a tougher league but it did not hold us back.

Or not much, I should say, because suddenly we weren’t dominating any more and now we could see exactly where the weaknesses on the team were. And as we move into Classic II next year – at the U19 level – we’ll have to clean up that business: better possession in front of the opponent’s goal to find seams in the defense; more quality and control in the midfield, and a better trend toward actually defending in the midfield. That was lacking.

I could go on and on but really, I think I’ve used up my Fifteen Minutes of Prescribed Writing and all is well.