Its called FUTBOL…
It’s official. We are a soccer team, we have the jerseys, we were presented to the world by La Quinta Magazine last night. It was kind of a scary experience, I got to recieve the jerseys from in the front of a press conference in Coffee Cafe.
We have been practicing hard and I hope we are getting better. We were a little worried last week because we tried a couple of runs up and down the beach with the soccer ball and was more difficult than we expected it to be, but today was a good practice and we left feeling pretty comfortable about our soccer skills.
Team USA is made up of three Americans, one German, and four Mexicans. The four non-Mexicans are who really needs practice in this equation, the Mexicans are all “bien chavito”, about 18 years old, and all in very good shape. A couple of them play for Interplaya(the Playa semi-pro team), which might actually give us some chance of winning a few games, or at least not making complete fools out of ourselves.
It is really amazing to watch our guys play, the American faction of the team runs around and wastes a lot of energy trying to chase the ball, and the Mexican guys seem to always be standing exactly where the ball is going. This seems to be some sort of Tai-Chi that I just don’t have yet.
Our strategy will be very simple, get the ball to the Mexican kids. They all have repeatedly told us that we need to stop moving so much or we or not going to make it through the first game. Actually, at first they just said we weren’t going to make it through the first game, no qualification. Things have changed and they have a little bit more confidence now.
The tournament has four groups of four teams, all of which will play three games. The games will be two fifteen minute quarters with a five minute intermission in between. There will be an hour and a half break in between games. By game three I have a feeling we will be exhausted, but our coach Luis(also a player) seems to think that all of the teams will be exhausted by that time so it won’t be such a big deal. He is very optimistic.
The practices this week have been kind of fun. Yesterday was pretty tough, we practiced really hard and all of us ended up very sandy and very sore. Today was much better, though some of the players couldn’t show up because of other commitments, we just played two-on-two in the hot morning sun and then did some passing and ball-handling drills. The practices all end with a swim in the ocean, which makes me remember why I love living here.
Tomorrow we will be practicing at one of the municipal soccer fields, Luis wants us to take a day off of running on the beach to give our ankles a rest. I was quite pleased to hear that he thought that would be a good idea because I have been feeling a little hobbled the last couple of days. We will have another beach practice on Thursday and then take Friday off to rest before the big day.
I have never been really into soccer but this experience is really making me think that it might not be so bad. Some of the guys have talked about maybe continuing to play after the tournament is finished and there have been some inquiries on one of the Playa Del Carmen forums I post to about a continuing team. Not what I was expecting at all.
Real Life In Paradise is moving. Please click here to be redirected to the new address.
