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Sadly, the Imagination soccer team has returned to its un-winning ways for the past two weeks. We lost 14-5 on Feb. 11 to INDY Team #8, and lost 9-3 Feb. 18 to Scissor Me Timbers. But what we lack in goal scoring, we’ve made up for in knowledge capture. Over the past two weeks, we’ve learned a variety of new soccer terms that we’re sure will put us on the path to more victories—or at least, less-embarrassing defeats.

Here are a few of the terms we’ve learned:

White Pants: This is the term Piotr used to warn us of an oncoming, particularly aggressive, member of INDY Team #8. This player, who wore white shorts, had a tendency to sneak up behind one of our players and steal the ball, prompting Piotr to yell, “Watch out! White pants, white pants!” Although this was sometimes effective, for much of the game, Ross though Piotr was yelling, “White fence! White fence!” Not understanding what this meant, Ross resorted to doing his best Karate-Kid “paint the fence” impression toward opposing players—which did confuse them greatly, just not enough to keep them from scoring on us.

Erin “The Steel” Dorr: Although INDY Team #8 did score on us 14 times, the final score would have been much worse if we hadn’t had Erin Dorr, our most-valuable goalie. The Dorr used a variety of techniques—full-body blocks, speedy kicks, steely-eyed glares—to keep the opponents’ ball out of our goal. Her talents were sorely missed the following week, which brings me to my next term….

Long Beached: When we faced Scissor Me Timbers, we were down not one, not two, but THREE of our toughest female players: Erin, Janet and Michelle. All three were at a “conference,” which just happened to be located hundreds of miles away from cold and snowy Chicago, and in warm and sunny Long Beach, California. We compensated their absence with a few ringers: Catherine, who started playing with us the previous week, along with her husband, Justin (See “Chris”); and Liz, who joined us for the first time on Feb. 18, and quite possibly got the biggest cheers as she tried so valiantly to kick the ball into the net during the final seconds of the game. She didn’t quite make it, but we’d love for her to continue trying and join us for our final two games.

Pre-Gamed: This refers to many of the activities that might take place before one of our games. For example, when we faced Scissor Me Timbers, Tad arrived to the gym early during another soccer match. One of those teams was down a player, so Tad kindly agreed to play with them. Unfortunately, this meant he was already tired out and a bit gimpy by the time we had our game. But being a good sport, he gave us his best anyway. Other examples of “pre-gamed” include Riley, who pre-gamed before our 10 p.m. game against INDY Team #8 on his couch, where he stayed throughout the game after accidentally falling asleep. To make up for snoozing through this game, he pre-gamed before our Feb. 18 match by “crushing muscle milks and shot-gunning Red Bulls.” This definitely helped him stay awake and alert for our game again Scissor Me Timers, but it also made him a bit feisty during the match (See “Playing Basketball”).

Chris: This is the name Tad uses to refer to the soccer-playing husbands of the female players on our team. This is great for me, because my husband’s name is Chris. It’s not so great for Catherine, as her husband’s name is Justin, and understandably, does not respond to Chris. But for the next two weeks, he’ll just have to get used to this new moniker.

Playing Basketball: As previously mentioned, Riley pre-gamed before our Feb. 18 game by consuming large amounts of Red Bull, making him a bit jumpy. Apparently, the ref did not appreciate this behavior, because he stopped the game to yell at Riley and a member of the other team for “playing basketball.” Actually, what he said was more akin to, “These two [expletives] are [expletive] around like they’re playing basketball.” I’m still not totally sure what that means, but I’m confident that we’ll refrain from “playing basketball” in the future.

The Ex-Girlfriend: We’re not sure how our ref “pre-gamed” on Feb. 18, but he was in a bit of a mood for that game. A little while after the “playing basketball” comment, he stopped the game again to give me a warning for fouling a player on the opposing team. He then turned to that player said, “And you! Quit complaining! You complain more than my ex-girlfriend.”

Although we had to learn some of these seven terms the hard way, we’re sure that they will help us during our final two games of the season. On Feb. 25, we take on My Face, and on March 4, we play Kick Bill. Through a combination of “pre-game” activities and not getting “Long Beached” again, Erin “The Steel” Dorr, all our “Chris’s” and the rest of our team hope to take on “White Pants,” “The Ex-Girlfriend,” and other assorted opposing players as we try to beat the other teams while not “playing basketball.” Wish us luck!