Pain in the Rain: Defense Springs a Leak

First of all, I clearly jinxed us with my rhapsodic comments about the Reykjavik weather, which had been splendid up until the moment I hit "send" on yesterday's post.  Within minutes, ominous clouds began rolling out of the East (What's with weather moving East to West, btw?) and within the hour the rain began.  It rained overnight, and rained during the morning (the boys slept in, more or less)  and rained on us during our game with Haukar.  Rain wouldn't be a problem during the match, though.  Upper Valley players know how to deal with the rain.  Nevertheless, we did not start well.  Three minutes into the match, a Haukar player penetrated on the left and got a good shot off that was well saved any Jack Maynes. Touchline was slow to the rebound and Haukar was not, and the easy tap-in gave them a 1-0 lead.  It could have been 2-0 very quickly were it not for a wonderful defensive play by James Kirkpatrick, clearing a shot off the line.  Three minutes later we conceded a corner and conceded an uncontested shot from the near corner of the six, and we were indeed down 2-0.  Suddenly, under sodden skies, the cavalry came riding out of the distance.  The lads from Kenya turned out in force to watch us.  In fact, they flooded our bench, and the sidelines, and began cheering hard.  Before long, we had complete control of the match.  We earned a corner, and the Eric Tysinger hit a shot that missed the right post.  We were in business.  Max Ritter, a workhorse at midfield all week, hit a sweet ball to Isak Larussen on the right flank.  Isak beat his defender and closed hard on the goal, lashing a shot past the keeper and pulling back a vital goal.  As the rain continued to come down, we drew even on a spectacular long-range shot by Jack Ross, no doubt inspired by the arrival that morning of his family, here to spend a week of vacation.  We kept possession well, and snuffed out their one scoring opportunity when Gabe Jacobs wen t sliding across the goal mouth to block another shot labeled for the back of the net.  Coming out for the second half, we were very confident.  Unfortunately, the rain did indeed play a part in deciding the match.  A seemingly harmless back pass to goalie Jack Maynes stopped dead in a puddle, and a Haukar striker pounced on the ball and took back the lead.  Undaunted, Touchline put on the pressure, creating several good chances, and two great ones by Oscar Miller, who had two shots saved by their keeper, spotting a vintage Gabe Jacobs Mohawk 'do.  These 25 minute halves seem to go pretty quickly when you're trailing, and we were forced to accept a tough 3-2 loss.  We dragged ourselves to the Hilton in time to wait a good bit for the last servings of pizza, although there was plenty to go around.  The logistics of this tournament have been amazingly good. One exception, though:  Many of the coaches have been frustrated by the officiating, which ranges from casual to laissez-faire to lazy.  The outcome of our match was not affected, but it was disappointing to see the referee camped a midfield in our match, sipping a cup of coffee.  C'mon, honor the game.  We have missed out on some of the horror shows that have occurred, with unpunished rough play spiraling out of control.

Our focus for the afternoon was getting our soggy uniforms cleaned and dried, and again we give great thanks for Larus and Hulda, who managed to clean an entire set of uniforms in time for our six o'clock game.  We were playing Grindavik, who we had earlier watched beating Haukar.  What could have been a close match turned out to be a disappointment, as we conceded a penalty in the first minute, and another soft goal 10 minutes later.  We fought back hard, but didn't not have the juice of the luck to dent the scoreboard.  A few of our players had selfish fouls that helped convince the officials that we didn't deserve any close calls, and a second-half Grindavik goal on a long throw-in made the final score 3-0.  There were a few highlights.  Gabe Jacobs saved another goal by biking a high shot off the goal line.  Simi Obomsawin, who has been battling a hamstring injury, saw his fort action and came close to getting a header on goal.  Jack McGrath showed a lot of ability and a good work rate.  Jackson Fisher did some great work at midfield.

We have finished fourth in our group of six, and will play the fourth-place team from the other bracket Sunday morning.  We hope to watch the Rey Cup title game in the national stadium, and then watch a top-level club game tomorrow night.  As if there could be too much soccer.  We're hoping that lessons learned and one more good shot of energy will allow us to finish on a high note.  And I won't comment on the weather, which has cleared at least for tonight.  Oops, I mentioned the weather.  Perhaps it's my excitement about having dorm duty the next two nights.  I hope to read Harry Potter to the boys, using voices, of course.  Goodnight!