One of the worst elements of my favorite sport, soccer, is the penalty kick. There's nothing really good about the kick except for maybe some sort of spaghetti western duel aspect that hypes up an easily tangible, simple, and ultimately suspenseful moment. But that aspect is really only good for those watching, and I don't even like watching PKs. Basically, the shooter is expected to score by all means. This means the goalie is basically fucked unless he pulls off a brilliant stop, but even then that outcome will make the shooter feel like shit because he was supposed to score. Either way, someone's going to feel crappy.
Our team, the Fury - my opus magnum of my career as a soccer player, spanning five years with sometimes two seasons a year in fall and spring through tournaments, trials, and tribulations, the loss of friends, the growing pressure to travel further, to win more, to become better conditioned, better skilled, better mechanized cogs in a monstrosity of a division-climbing machine that inevitably drove itself into the ground winning only one game in its last two seasons finishing off any last urge within me to satisfy some sort of athletic achievment in life - needed a designated penalty kick taker. I was far from the first choice. Being a defender with very little experience touching the ball in the attacking half let alone the 18 yd. box, I held myself back from volunteering or even being noticed during the scan over the team by the coach in his selection. I think we actually had some sort of mini-tournament of PKs to decide who was going to be the one to take the kicks in game. This process, although efficient, logical, and excruciatingly simple on the outside didn't really make sense in the long run when concerning PKs, because the nature of the kick was so variable on the immediate state of mind that even the kid that scored cleanly 50/50 kicks was bound to trip up in game depending on the various outside forces and internal pressures, and that botched kick will be in the most important game of them all.
Either way, I don't think I placed first or second in the mini-tournament of PKs, but I also wasn't that far off from the top, leaving only a couple games where the top few missed kicks, and the coach's gaze inevitably fell on me. And in the first few times I came to kick in game (which happened pretty damn soon after I was picked not to my liking), I got the goals and tried not to think twice about it. These were also some of my first ever goals in my stint on the Fury so it took a lot of effort to downplay these shots, because I knew the second that I thought I had a PK gift, or even thought about it at all for that matter, it would be all over.
It was a home game, which in our warped division meant traveling 40 minutes away instead an hour and 20 minutes + away. Our home field was right beside the man-made pond area of a freshly carved suburban development characteristic of Loudoun's burgeoning wealth. The field itself, because of position depressed into the land, surrounded by a sloping hill on the other three sides opposite the reservoir. This gave us a finely chewed and over-saturated mud plain to play on. The ball skipped and stopped on a dime as it chose, and inevitably someone just ran straight into someone else, the whistle blew, the card was pulled, and the kick was set. I was pulled up from the back for what was to be a momentous kick, not for what it meant to the game, to the shaking parents atop the hill or my fellow teammates and coach sunk in the mud behind me. I approached the ball, trying not to look left or right, showing a little right but knowing I was to pull left, and then I hooked it, hard to the left. I hooked it so far to the left that it wasn't even a question for the baffled goalie, seeing my shot stumble over the ground more than maybe five or ten feet to the left of the goal post. I wasn't even close.
I anticipated the approaching disappointment, shame, and weight of a potentially game-losing miss, the shot hopes of those behind me along with their pitying words and pats on the back. I waited for all the shit to hit me and make me feel like it. But I didn't. I felt nothing of the sort. I think I may have even looked forward to going to McDonald's or some crap food after the game, trying to make the most of what was left of the weekend. I realized I just didn't care. None of it mattered. Perhaps I was years later in this realization than most kids, but then again, I was also years ahead of those that continued on after me into high school, college, adult leagues, coaching their own kids, and preaching sports to be the ultimate life lesson mechanism ever on and on. Fuck that. Sports are fun. You forget that and you're not playing anything.
This was deep and almost transcendent in my current state of mind. You say you made this realization late in life (but perhaps not too late?), but I will disagree, since this is farther than I've ever made it in life. I hope to be there one day.
ReplyDeleteThis was the only time you went outside the goalposts on a PK? A) I didn't know you even were a PK kicker--why was this not shared wtih me before?! B) I would've fucked this up so much worse than you. Nerves were always my fatal weakness and you know it (see: Greg's Graptacular of Tricky #1, my entire life).
Ugh, I'm having a hard time thinking of firsts. I promise I will get back to this blog one day. You always find a way to turn normal experience stories into something deeper becuase of the way you express the basic insecurities of life. I'm always impressed by your ability to remember your states of mind in these stories of the past so well (the same goes for the other writers who were talking about their pasts). I usually don't write about a lot of this stuff, because I don't even remember the details that well, much less am able to accurately depict my thoughts and feelings.
It was hard for me to give up competitive running, considering it was the only sport I was any good at. It still vaguely depresses me whenever I look back on my glory days, just because it reminds me of a more innocent time. I'm kinda glad we spent our high school years as not-getting-laid dorks because it made it seem better to look back on for whatever reason. Before the hell/oblivion/ridiculousness of college.
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