The explanation for this is two-fold. The most obvious to anyone is that the legendary world cup is about to start. The biggest sports tournament the planet has ever seen kicks off (no pun intended) on the ninth of June, and runs for a month over in Germany and pits the top soccer playing countries against each other. Every four years, the hearts of countrymen swell with pride as the cheer on their team on the greatest field of competition the world has ever seen. What is sad to me is that most people here in America are pretty indifferent to the tournament and really couldn't give a shit.
The summer before my senior year of high school I got into watching the tournament, and rooted for our boys to do somewhat well. For a good portion of the last 100 years, USA has been the joke team to play, an easy win on a teams path, but that year was the year it all changed. Not only did the US make it out of its bracket, our team made an incredible showing and was only stopped at the end by the German team of juggernauts. This year we are actually fifth the FIFA standings going into the tournament, with a lot of depth at every position and one of the strongest goalies in the entire cup. Personally, I can't fucking wait.
The other reason that soccer has been weighing heavily on my mind is because the Audubon traveling season will be starting soon. Obviously I don't play anymore, but my brothers do, and as you may or may not remember I was assistant coach last year. It was my first experience coaching at any level, and my first time back to the game of soccer since the end of my senior season in '03. Essentially, I was in charge of re-vamping the team structure, giving us a solid strategy to win, and preparing the kids with different skill drills and instruction of the game. I'd like to think that I was somewhat responsible for our 1 loss season, and our final four appearance in the Thanksgiving tournament. For as long as I could remember, I had always tried to teach my brothers the ins and outs of the game and give them as big an advantage as possible, but last year was my first time passing the knowledge to other kids.
So as you can probably tell, even just catching the faintest scent of a new season is making my mouth water. Registration for the team is already over, and while it currently looks like our team may have a smaller roster, some of the . . . how should I put this . . . "dead weight" that we had on the team didn't bother to sign up. Personally, I'd rather have a solid and well balanced team with only two or three subs over a team with 4-5 mediocre subs. I think the kids finished out the year much stronger than they started it, and us coaches got a good feel for what we need to do to give us the best chance to win and learn about the game. I'm actually much more excited about south Jersey kid soccer than I am about the World Cup. For a few weeks now my brain has been working overtime on pre-season practices, team strategy and direction, roster strength, etc (I think a 3-4-2-1 may find it's way into the works).
Viva el futbol puntas!
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