Saturday, February 21, 2009

He's over there.

"Are you Jimmy?"

The burly fullback on the South Arlington team had strode into the center circle and asked this of the skinny centerforward as the suburban house soccer team was about to kick off.

"No, that's Jimmy over there," said the centerforward, pointing to the right wing.

The fullback ran over to stand in front of the wing. The referee blew his whistle to start the second half and the fullback grabbed the wing and held him, preventing him from getting off the line. Meanwhile the centerforward tapped the ball to a teammate and received it back in full stride.

The South Arlington team knew the suburban team had one excellent athletic player who usually pitched a shutout in goal the first half and then came into the field in the second half to try to score. The suburban team had won a few 1-0 games with this very fast player named Jimmy scoring all of his team's goals so far.

While the fullback wrestled with the wing on the pitch behind him, the centerforward swiftly took the ball through the midfielders with long dribbles. He streaked into the box, getting past the sweeper with a scintillating fake. The sweeper received no help from the fullback, who was occupied with the wing thirty yards behind the play.

The centerforward was ten yards from the goal now in open space, moving rapidly with short dribbles. Suddenly his right foot flashed forward and he shot the ball past the flat-footed goalie, scoring the only goal in the game like he'd done a few other times that season.

Happy Belated Birthday, Jimmy. I witnessed this classic escapade.

5 comments:

Sunshine said...

Wishing you a good year, Jimmy .. and a good one for your Dad.

DawnB said...

One day by chance he might just see this post.

Kelly said...

He's lucky to have you as a father, even if he doesn't know it yet.

ShirleyPerly said...

Hoping one day you'll be able to share his birthday together.

Dori said...

Someday he'll come around.

How is your toe?