Ice Cream and Heartbreak at the Rey Cup

Friday was a full and exciting day for Touchline as new reached the halfway point in the competition.
First, a comment about the weather.  We were prepared for every meteorological eventuality, and packed lots of warm clothing.  Today, again, we spent most of the day in shorts and tee shirts, and used a lot of sunscreen.  It was sunny and in the mid-sixties, and for the fifth day in a row there was no rain or cold.  We have been blessed.  We spent the morning watching soccer.  What a surprise. First, we walked past the lush botanical gardens to a lovely grass pitch to see Burlington, Mass. play. The other American team has had a great run so far, and at the end of today they are second in their group of six.  We watched them play Brottor, in a back and forth match that ended in a scoreless draw.  We then hiked a ways (by the way, the coaches are averaging 20,000 steps a day.  When you add the running from one or two games, you can get some really impressive totals.  Bring on the beep test) and watched Vestri, our afternoon opponent, play Bredoblik, the team we played yesterday.  Vestri was huge.  They were big across the front, bigger across the back, and had a superb, energetic central midfielder, a little blond guy who took every free kick and ran the show for his spot in front of his back four.  Vestri scored two goals and had control of the match, although Bredoblik fought back and managed their first goal of the tournament.  We knew we would have our hands full in the afternoon.  We stayed to watch the first half of the game played by our friends on the U14 team from Kenya, from the village of Got Agula on there shore of Lake Victoria.  It has taken a monumental effort for them to realize this dream trip.  The raised the funds for airfare and passports, and generous clubs in Iceland have provided hosting, uniforms, shoes, and so much more.  It is a huge undertaking.   The coaches got to hear some of this story at a meeting last night, and we are so full of admiration.
Many of the boys are 12 and small for their age, and in this game a skilled and speedy Grindavik team beat them handily.  By chance, we are sharing the same school building dormitory with them, and we have become friends.  Yesterday, several of our players hatched a plan to take them out for ice cream.  For most of them, this would be a first.  Their coaches, now our friends, agreed, and at 2:00 we met at the dorm and walked together to the local ice cream stand.  The conversation flowed easily.  Our guys discovered that one of the boys, Orson, had lived in Iceland since he was six, and is fluent in Icelandic.  That has certainly helped his team this week.  We agreed in advance that everyone would have a small cone, so the experience wouldn't be overwhelming.  Two nights ago, all of our guys had enjoyed flurries.  That would have been a bit much.  The boys sat and talked, finished their cones, and we walked back together.  Needles to say, this is what is making the Rey Cup a special experience.  Our guys have made friends with teams from Kenya, Chile, Norway, and certainly Iceland.  We already had an established relationship with the goalkeeper from Vestri, Jon, from standing with them in line for the parade at the Opening Ceremonies.

We then turned out focus to the game, and after changing we walked together to the Valbjarnvollur fields.  Say that three time fast.  We had a good disciplined warmup.  You never know how a team will react from game to game. Today, they were ready to play.  That said, Vestri was all over us territorially in the first half.  We had a hard time stringing passes together, and they did a nice job spreading us out and finding space to stack on the flanks.  Jack Maynes had to be at his best in goal, and he was, making several fine saves.  Thing was, we were bending but nor breaking, and we had ever reason to be confident as we entered the second half.  They were playing their second match of the day, and we had used several subs to keep our attackers fresh.  We had a stiff wind at our backs, and the sun as well. I'd say setting sun, but at 5:00 the sun still had six hours to set.  Things didn't go as planned.  Very early in the half a player broke free in the box, and as he reached the endline he was brought down.  The referee signaled for a penalty and he couldn't be faulted.  The little #10 put the ball in the upper right corner, well out of Maynes' reach, and we were down a goal.  The next 20 minutes saw our best soccer of the tournament. We slowly began to assert ourselves, and with ten minutes to play we created three golden, no, platinum scoring opportunities. Our hard work resulted in a corner kick, and Max Ritter hit a perfect ball into the box, driven out of the reach of the goalkeeper and to the back post.  Palmer Okai met it perfectly with his head, driving a ball that would have tucked just under the bar.  Jon, the Vestri goalie, made a fantastic leaping save, and tipped the ball over the bar.  Our subsequent corner was almost as good, and we had Vestri on their heels.  Pulling players forward in an attempt to score can cost a team, and we surrendered several counterattacks that forced Maynes to make several more great saves.  Tanks to him, we were still in the game, and we weren't done.  Isak Larusson played a great ball through to Eric Tysinger, and he sped past his defender and hit a shot that beat the goalkeeper but hit off the inside of the near post, took a crazy bounce, and went straight to the goalie.  Still not done.  Larussen took a lead pass from a throw-in and beat his defender, and his hard shot was saved by the now-heroic Vestri goalkeeper.  We are playing 25 minutes halves in this tournament, and there just wasn't any more time.  It was a hard loss to accept, but even in defeat the boys knew without needing to be reminded that they had played a brilliant game.  We are in a great group.  All of the teams (and we've seen them all, with two more to play tomorrow) are capable of beating each other.  All of the games have been close.  They boys owned the loss, blamed no one else, and licked their wounds, ready for tomorrow.  There is a dance/disco party tonight, and I'm waiting for reports.  I suspect I will hear about an early departure and an early bedtime, despite the fact that it stays light past midnight, especially on sunny days like this. But we have work to do. We play Haukar Saturday at Noon, and Grindavik at 6:00.  Stay tuned:
(first reports will come on Instagram:  CoachGrabill), and photos will follow on our Facebook site). I
feel so blessed to be working with 17 boys who have grown together as a team, pulling for each other, sacrificing, and taking full advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience. It's also hard to express how much Larus and Hulda have done for us,  opening their home, guiding us, preparing us, and supporting us in so many ways.  They are truly the heroes of this experience.  Goodnight!