Most of you know that there are few things in life that I love like playing soccer!
I have the awesome opportunity this month to play with in a tournament with a real team – the Glam Girls. Xenacoj is having a town-wide tournament over the next two months. I connected with a local school principal who is also a soccer coach and referee. He helped place me on the team.
Playing 5 vs. 5 soccer on a basketball court is not really a new experience for me. I played many a game in the gym at college, but last Saturday was new.
No one on my team speaks English – not the coach, not the manager, not the players. I listened attentively to a pre-game talk entirely in Spanish and finally discovered that I would be playing forward.
Out I went, underneath the lights of the court with a brand-new jersey at least one size too small and a crowd of people watching.
I was desperately hoping that there weren't any strange rules that I needed to know. I wasn't comforted by the fact that the kick-off set-up looked a little strange. It was comforting to hear the shrill whistle to signal the beginning of a real game.
I haven't had so much fun in a long time, but it was hard. I haven't played 60 full minutes of soccer in over a year. Regardless, I learned to communicate with my team and I think I gathered how to say a few things in Spanish: "shoot," "pass," "cover," and "man on."
Of course, my team won! I scored and had one assist. The next game is this weekend, so we'll see what happens.
