Game 1: 0-12
The inaugural Imagination indoor soccer team (motto: At Least We’re Better Looking) had its first game this week, an inauspicious 0-12 drubbing at the hands of a team called Mouseknuckles (motto: Even Our Women Are Men).
We’re obviously still working out some kinks.
A primary objective in soccer is to prevent the other team from scoring — we’d heard as much on “blogs” and in “rulebooks”, but throughout the game we remained skeptical and had therefore allowed 12 goals. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, that’s not the full story.
There was talk before the game that once the other team had scored twice all subsequent goals counted against their total. Other theory was based on undeniably powerful anecdotal evidence: when was the last time you saw a soccer game end in a 6-6 tie? We surmised this rule must be why so few professional soccer games ever end with one team scoring more than two goals. When we went into the halftime break trailing 0-7 we were comforted by the fact that we were technically winning 0-(-5).
Of course soccer has another objective: to score goals. Coming out of halftime we hadn’t yet turned our attention to scoring, but that was about to change.
Early in the second half we elected four team officials to hold five separate meetings on whether we needed to reorient our strategy towards scoring goals. For the whole first half of our existence as a team (total length of existence: one half) we had defined ourselves as the smart, innovative team that got by on tricking our opponents into scoring goals at their detriment. Now we were wondering if the soccer landscape was undergoing a fundamental shift right before our eyes. What if the key differentiator we needed to quite literally separate ourselves from our competition was goal scoring? And what consequences would scoring goals could have on our brand identity?
We were in the thick of it now. We needed leadership and sage advice.
Enter: Tad.
In the waning minutes of the game our trusted team captain, Tad, advised us against scoring goals ourselves, out of fear that doing so would be unsportsmanlike and reflect poorly on the company. At the time he seemed to have a point. We were winning 0-(-10). Another goal would be a crippling blow to the morale of the other team. We planned on drinking beers after the game. We didn’t want to be drinking in memory of our vanquished foes. So we opted against scoring and walked off the field with a comfortable 10-goal margin of victory. A successful first effort, we cheerfully told ourselves.
Yet when we looked across the basketball court-cum-soccer field pitch we saw not the sad faces of a team that moments before had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a team wearing orange (much how Estonia looks after facing the Netherlands) but rather the smiling faces, albeit ugly ones (relatively speaking, of course), of a team triumphant in victory. While we were undoubtedly impressed at our opponent’s ability to shrug off defeat we were confused over how exuberantly they were embracing the fact that they had just lost. Winning counts for something, right?
Our bruising enforcer, Michelle “Bow Wow” Bowles, asked the ref to explain the odd behaviour of our opponents. We knew soccer was a foreign game, originating in some country where they speak a funny language, and so we were willing to accept a degree of oddity. Hell, half the reason we were playing in first place was so that we could have a cultural experience. But still, our opponents were freaking us out. Not even the French are this happy after losing.
Turns out we were wrong about pretty much everything. Goals always count for your total and so scoring goals is an unqualified good. And allowing goals is always an unqualified bad. Minor details to some, perhaps, but these facts switched the outcome from a 0-(-10) win to a 0-12 loss.
So we stand 0-1 for the season. But we learned a few valuable lessons about the importance of knowing the rules before you play a game and we’re confident that, after a few more strategy sessions on our goals and objectives, in two weeks, when we play again, we’ll emerge victorious, this time for real.
For the record, modern soccer is usually believed to have started in England, where they speak English. In any case, one old saying in the sport is “Most goals are achieved by kicking the ball into the net.” Which I’m sure you will do often and with verve, while still being better looking than your opponents, next game. — MCC
Very well written, Joel. I think we all can learn something from this experience. Maybe it’s that nothing is so emasculating (or exciting!) as being plowed into by a woman in shin guards. Or the fact that in a way, we were all winners out there. In a more accurate way, they were the winners – but the point is no matter the score, I took away something from last night that Mooseknuckle or any other team named after one of my nightmares can not take away from me.
A sore femur and some dishwasher soap from the gym kitchen (running low in my apartment).
“Ow, my pride.” –Peter Griffin
I still don’t understand why I didn’t get credit when I scored on own our goal. I mean, a net’s a net, right?
I took the liberty of conducting a little post-game investigation. Turns out this team we played has quite the reputation for pulling hair, biting and all-around foul play amongst soccer circles around town. That said, I think our efforts are even more valiant that we’d previously thought. Well done, Team Orange! And well done, Sarah Stone Wunder, for that impressive goal, albeit the wrong goal…
The Queen’s English is damn funny.