The Greatest U-8 AYSO Soccer Game Ever Played

This past Saturday I had the privilege of being a fan at one of the greatest sporting events in Oregon history.  It didn't involve the TrailBlazers, Timbers, Winterhawks, Beavers, Ducks, or any other team with players who get paid to play (see what I did there?).  It involved the Dark Knights of AYSO Region 870 squaring off against the Renegades. 

Major League Baseball likes to promote its annual All-Star Game with the tag line "this one means something," a reference to the winning league of the game securing home field advantage for its participant in the World Series that year (go Angels!).  As is the case with just about every meaningful "greatest" game played, something has to be at stake, be it a championship, rivalry, comeback story, "David vs. Goliath," matchup, whatever.  There has to be a backstory. 

The story of why this random soccer game between a bunch of first and second graders from Albany was so great begins about a year ago.  My wonderful wife Rachel had volunteered to coach Jonah's AYSO team, and as a result would have to go through mandatory "coach orientation" prior to beginning the season.  Nobody enjoys these things, but when the instructor launches into a lecture about teaching "the five principles of offensive play" to the coaches of a bunch of elementary schoolers, it gets even more unbearable.  Rachel came home from that meeting with a very negative view of AYSO in general, thinking the whole organization could stand to take it down a notch on the self-importancy scale.

Fast forward a few months to the final game of the season.  U-6 soccer games are just 3-on-3 scrimmages with no goalies and no score kept.....the idea behind this is to encourage having fun on the field over winning and losing I'd assume.  Before the last quarter, Rachel and the opposing coach got together and agreed to let all five kids on their rosters play together for the final five minutes - because who really wants to sit on the sidelines and watch the last few minutes of their season?  Who could see a problem with this?  The answer to that question:  Mr. Five Principles of Offensive Play, that's who.  He saw this occurring from another field, made his way over to Rachel, and - while the game is still in play - proceeds to tell Rachel that she "can't do this" and that "the league will hear about this."  Rachel is not exactly the kind of person you tell that she can't do something, and it'd didn't sit well with her.  If he made good on his threat to narc on her to the league I can't say, because it certainly never came back to Rachel.

When this season started, Rachel noticed a familiar name on the coaching roster - yep, you guessed it.  The showdown was set for the fourth game of the season.  When Rachel saw that game on the schedule, she said "I don't care if we lose every other game, we will not lose that one."  Keep in mind that score isn't officially kept for U-8 games either.  No matter, Rachel does not like to lose.  For reference, here is her reaction after losing a dance battle to her six year old son in Just Dance 2014 on the Wii:



 The first few games of the season were a struggle for the Dark Knights.  After dropping the first game 2-0 on a pair of own-goals, the team was completely overwhelmed in the second game, losing 6-1.  Again, no official score keeping is kept, but we don't pay attention to that in this household.  Coach Rachel was starting to doubt her abilities as a coach.  From my sideline seat, I got the impression that the team was having a little trouble adjusting to the larger size of the U-8 field (it's probably twice as big as the U-6 version) and weren't really translating the skills and concepts they executed in practice to the games.  I think there were more than a few times that Rachel and I discussed that she had a team of really good kids that just probably needed a few more games to really understand what was going on.  By the third game, they'd figured it out.  Rachel had asked Jonah to kind of be more vocal on the field.  Our son has become a legitimate soccer nut over the past year - playing FIFA games on the iPad, watching Premier League games with me on Sunday mornings, begging Rachel and I to kick the ball around with him in the backyard during every free moment.  As a result, he's starting to have a more advanced understanding of what needs to happen on the field.  He took Rachel's suggestion to heart, even organizing the team into a wall in front of the goal during corner kicks without being instructed to.  The Dark Knights prevailed 3-0 that day, setting the stage for Saturday's showdown.

Rachel was gradually getting more anxious throughout the week.  On Thursday, she made sure to stress to the parents that they needed to have the kids there by 8:30 (our team has a tendency to show up just prior to kick.) On Friday, Jonah told me he couldn't wait to play soccer tomorrow, because he was so excited to "beat mommy's nemesis."   By Saturday morning, Rachel was in a full frenzy .  Her alarm went off at 5 am, so she could get her workout in and be home in time for me to go on my usual weekend 3 mile jog by 6:30.  By the time I rolled out of bed at 6:45, Rachel was already back and showered.  She says to me "You were supposed to be out jogging 15 minutes ago.  Stick to the schedule!"  Yes, ma'am.  When I got back from my jog around 7:30, Jonah was already in his uniform and he and Rachel were having a rematch in Just Dance on the Wii, in which Rachel redeemed herself by crushing Jonah.  "I didn't have that bad controller today" she said triumphantly. 

When we arrived at the field 35 minutes prior to the 9am kick-off, I assumed we'd be the first people to the field.  However, the opposing coach had beaten us there.  As we set up the field, Jonah loudly asked "hey mom, which one is the coach you don't like?"  Thankfully, nobody heard that, and Rachel calmly explained to Jonah that it wasn't that he was a bad guy, he just did things a different way than mommy did, and that she wanted to win to prove that his way wasn't the only way to get positive results.  Then, the coach comes over to ask Rachel which sideline she preferred to be on.  Up until this point of the season, the teams and the spectators had all been on the same side of the field for every game.  He was adamant, however, that the teams and the fans be on OPPOSITE sides of the field.  This guy is 100% by the book.  Then, he comes over to Rachel with the referee to make sure that Rachel is OK with them instituting the "mercy rule" in the event that "the game gets out of hand."  Rachel calmly says "That's fine, but my team's not going to need it."  (Author's note:  I LOVE MY WIFE.)

The game starts, and for the next forty minutes, I saw a bunch of six and seven year olds play one of the best games ever.  The kids were hustling all over the field, plays were being made, and the crowd LOVED IT.  I don't think I'm overstating the fact that Rachel's determination was felt by every single person there.  The referee kept lauding the players' effort during the game, saying "this is one of the best games I've ever refereed" at one point.  My dad, who is a life-long soccer hater, said "if every soccer game was like this one, I'd have no problem with it." 

The game ended in a 1-1 tie, and nobody went home disappointed.  I literally ran across the field after the game to give my wife a hug because I was so proud of the performance of her team.  Also, I was pretty relieved for her.  "I can live with that," she said, smiling after the game.  We all could.  I think she had a new level of appreciation for her nemesis too, as he turned out to be a pretty good coach who was positive and fair with his team throughout, despite the fact that we all had the impression that this was the first game they hadn't absolutely blitzed the competition.  My mom said at the end of the game she noticed that our team's entire cheering section immediately stood up and cheered loudly, while the other team's fans kind of just stood up and started ambling towards the field to greet their kids, as if they weren't used to what they had just seen. 

I didn't notice, I was too busy running to congratulate my wife and son, who both made me pretty proud.

I know that hardly anyone's going to be interested in actually watching the game, but I posted the whole game on YouTube because it really was a game that I think our whole family will be talking about for years.  If you do watch it, I apologize for the poor camera work.  I take my duties as a dad far more seriously than my duties as a videographer.  As a result, there's many times when I'll forget to move the camera with the action and you get a lovely shot of an empty field.  Also, the battery died with about 3 minutes left in the game.  Thankfully, nothing of consequence happened in those last three minutes.  Anyways, here's the game, broken up by quarter:

Bachelor in Paradise Finale: The Fantasy Suite is Sacred No More

Remember the good ol' days?  When what happened in the fantasy suite stayed in the fantasy suite?  Yeah, I hated those days too.  The new Bachelor norm is to make like Salt n' Pepa and talk about sex all the time.  But that was the end of the episode.  Let's start at the beginning.

I know I missed recapping last week's episode, but it could basically be summed up by saying that the producers realized that people were paired up quicker than maybe they expected, so they had to make up a bunch of drama to fill time in order to make it to the end of the season.  This is why we get multiple women pretending to be infatuated with this guy:








Sarah was so fake-infatuated that she felt the need to break up with a guy who had been nothing but respectful and nice to her from the get-go (or at least once he was rejected by Lacy).  Of course, he has conveniently planned a romantic time for them on the beach just as Sarah has decided to break up with him, and she abandons her plans and gleefully runs back into his arms.  Jackie wasn't quite so Brooks smitten, but still marveled at the fact he spoke Spanish and laughed at his horrible dinner jokes.  In the end, Brooks and his constant jokey chatter went home, and everyone was happier for it.

So now we're down to an even dozen, and Chris Harrison has proclaimed that the "game" is about to change.  Of course they all act like he's just volunteered them all as Tributes for the next Hunger Games, because Chris Harrison is pretty much their deity - or maybe their dictator.  I'm not sure.  Anyways, God Harrison proclaims that the couples need to decide to break-up or commit to a long term relationship.  Because there is no other option.  Those who break up must leave the island immediately.  Those that choose to make a go of it get to stay for a few hours more.  That's pretty much it.  The whole thing seemed like a really anticlimactic way to end the season. 

But then Michelle, designated house mother/St. Bernard nanny from Peter Pan of the group, decides that she's tired of AshLee using her mind control boobs to poison Graham's mind, and let's him know that she's not right for him and he needs to break up with her.  Graham's body language response is basically "OH THANK GOD SOMEONE GAVE ME A WAY OUT."  Graham offers no counterpoint to Michelle's line of reasoning, and practically skips his way over to AshLee's hut to break up with her.  Then, with no explanation of why, he tells her that "he doesn't think what they have will last once they go home."  Even more curiously, AshLee never asks for one.  She just kind of accepts it by coldly saying "I knew it.  I knew this was too good to be true."  This was probably the biggest letdown in Bachelor history - that AshLee didn't beat an explanation out of Graham with a coconut, then turn her wrath on Michelle for wrecking her dream of being a Stepford Wife. 

So Graham and AshLee are the first to leave.  In true bachelor fashion, once you're of no use to the show, you're immediately discarded, unable to say goodbye to the people you've spent the last few weeks hanging out with.  After that, the domino's start to fall:  Christy and Tasos, who have known each other for all of 42 minutes of screen time, wisely decide that there isn't enough to commit to a long term relationship, though I thought it was interesting given how into Tasos Christy seemed she immediately agreed that they should just end any courtship whatsoever and just hook up in the bathroom hang out at Bachelor functions in the future.  Likewise, Jackie and Zack exit stage left, because Zack is an emotionless robot and Jackie is still the attractive/boring person she always was.  This leaves us with three couples who have chosen to stick it out long enough to stick it in each other in a fantasy suite:

• Cody and Michelle
• Sarah and Robert
• Marcus and Lacy

Michelle, who spent last week perpetually changing her mind about whether or not Cody was an obsessive stalker or the man of her dreams, still can't decide.  So she decides to ask an expert:  Her nine year old daughter who has never met Cody.  This is a terrible plan on so many levels.  TV and movies always display single parent/child relationships as more of friendships, where the child is inevitably much too mature for their age.  Michelle seems to have picked up on this, though it seems like those extra emotional years her daughter has picked up were transmitted from Michelle to her through the phone, to the point that they both sound like eighteen year olds.  Michelle says "so I need your advice about a super-cute boy named Cody," as if this one sentence gives her daughter all the information she needs to make an informed decision.  The best part of the conversation was Michelle saying "I just don't know if I want to bring him home, remember how hard it was when Matt left?"  If her emotional baggage were actual luggage, then she just left four suitcases at the feet of a 9 year old bellhop and said "carry this, bitch."  Her daughter responds with the lesson she's learned from watching "She's all That" and every other teen rom-com on DVD with her mom:  "it doesn't matter what he looks like, it just matters that you like each other and like to do the same things."  Michelle acts like her daughter is some sort of relationship oracle that just showed her the path of enlightenment.  "She's such an old soul" she says, her voice full of pride.  Sadly, the only reason she's like that is because you turned her from a child into your bestie and forced her to deal with things like one-night stands and adulterous relationships with NBA players because you weren't equipped to handle these things on your own, Ms. Money.

Fantasy Suite dates go great - or so we're led to believe.  There's lots of making out, Sarah hopes that Robert gets to know her "in every way possible - I hope he digs deep."  Michelle ruminates on what Cody's junk look likes saying "maybe it's very muscular....like the Hulk." which sounds absolutely terrifying.  Lacy and Marcus just continue to make out and let their skin soak in an astoundingly unhealthy amount of UV rays....how tan can those  two get?  Anyways, Lacy in particular looks almost creepy she's so tannish. 

The next morning, Michelle announces she is sore, and then proclaims that Cody's *beep* is amazing and we *beeped* in every *beep* of that place. Your nine year old daughter must be so proud. Cody can't stop smiling and dreamily tells the cameras "she broke the code!" which really confused me for a while as I tried to figure out what secret message Michelle cracked, but then I finally realized that Cody was just referring to himself by his own moronic nickname "Code."  This is the equivalent of me saying something like "She really devoured The Snacks," which is super gross and I'd never say that in a million years.    Marcus is sporting a hickey.  Sarah is pissed.  Apparently Robert did not explore her cave of wonders the way she was hoping.  He slept in his jeans and there "was no neck sucking" she reports glumly.  At this point she proclaims that if a guy won't "dig deep" and suck your neck in a fantasy suite, he never will.  Seems a bit extreme, but she can't sit idly by and let two other couples have sex while she's not.  So it's splitsville for the two of them, which, to be honest, was inevitable.  Sarah is so self conscious that she's not even willing to wait to see what could happen with a guy who has been respectful towards her.  She's already convinced herself that he sees her as flawed and therefore will never really love her.  Yikes. 

All this leads up to Chris Harrison trotting out pretty much the only success stories this entire franchise has ever produced:  Jason and Molly, Sean and Catherine, and Des and Chris (who probably shouldn't count since they're not even married yet).  Of course they're treated like King Richard returning from the Crusades, and the two remaining couples hope to soak up all the knowledge of how to turn TV trysts into lasting relationships.  Unfortunately, such advice is super boring, so instead they discuss what body parts are their favorite on their significant others and what sports they played in high school.  Ugh.

Finally, it's time to give out roses.  Perhaps my least favorite part of Bachelor in Paradise was the weird rose ceremonies where people decided they needed to exchange vows when they hand out the roses.  Cody gives a heartfelt "I'm ready to be a father to your daughter" speech, and then Michelle starts hers by saying "Cody Code:  you came into my life exactly when I needed you."  Cody Code!  Nothing says sincerity like referring to the dude by a silly nickname. 

Marcus and Lacy are next, and Marcus is so choked up he needs to step outside.  "I just wanted to spend a few moments alone" he says, as multiple cameras follow them, and the Bachelor Illuminati rush to the balcony to continue watching them.  In the end, Marcus just wanted some soft sand on which to kneel so he could propose to is super tan bride-to-be.  Hooray! 

In all, this show was a success, even if they didn't really map out an appropriate ending to such a crazy show.  Thankfully, they'll get another chance to improve on this year's surprisingly entertaining season:  Bachelor in Paradise was renewed for next summer, after being the most watched new show amongst adults 18-49.