Sunday morning amateur football

Yep, at the age of 38, that is where my skills stretch. But, I still love to play the game as much as when I was just a 6 year old kid.
Fact is, every morning when I need to go to work, I have it hard to hear my alarm clock, but on sunday mornings I wake up before my alarm even has rung. Amazing, especially at my age. Boys will be boys, I guess.

This morning, we played our first official game of the season. We are in the first league of a local competition with three tiers. Our skills are quite limited, but we have a real team. Some very good technical players with a history in higher leagues, and some fiercefull defenders with, well, a history in the current league. :-) But our real strength is team spirit, and the fact that we all fight for each other on the pitch, and love to drink beers together when the game is over. I have played in higher leagues when I was younger, and before I tore my posterior cruciate ligament in my left knee. But never have I had the kind of team spirit like I have encountered it the last few years.

Player/Coach

Last year, I got "promoted" to player/coach, which sometimes has the side effect, that I have to put myself on the bench for the benefit of the team and team spirit. That just comes with the job, but I have no problem with that, all for the team. But, this morning, due to some players being unavailable for today, I had the positive selection problem, that I had only eleven players, myself included. Which makes it quite easy, no disappointed players, and I could place myself in my favourite position: target man in front.

And then the magic happens, after our central midfielder already had taken advantage of a mistake in the defense of the opposing team and scored 0-1, a perfect corner was taken and I could hammer the ball with a perfect header in upper right corner, 0-2!. I scored, and still, after so many goals in my "very moderate" carreer, the feeling is something very hard to describe. Pride, joy, adrenaline, endorfine, pure happiness... That's the closest I get to describe it. In the second half, my nephew that also plays with us, dropped the ball in the box, I control it with my left, pass the defender and ram it with my left foot in the left corner, 0-3! Again the feeling jumps up in my body. I scored twice, the feeling is even more intense now!

Eventually, the game ended in 1-4, we won and are top of the league right now, how about that!

Sincerely,

Pele23