Last Soccer Game and Possible Evil Genius

 Case had his last soccer game for the season.  He's improved this year.  He can follow the ball better and occasionally gets in there and kicks the ball.  We love his coaches - they coached him last year too. They teach the kids basic skills, but are low-pressure.  I think at this age, kids can play competitively, but there's no need to be high-pressure and intense.  One reason why we've had such a good experience of playing soccer for two years.

Right before a game, you can size up the opposing team by watching them warm-up.  This just translates into seeing how big the kids are compared to our kids (our team has a lot of 4-year-olds so if we play a team full of 5-year-olds, it's obvious).  In terms of skills, it seems like most teams are equally matched and it comes down to how old the kids are.  Five-year-olds tend to be more coordinated and able to listen and hold their attention longer than four-year-olds.  Obviously.

But today we met a whole other type of opposing team.
I realized right away when their head coach started calling out drills for the kids to do.

And they actually did it.

Nobody was hunched over on the ground watching a bug.
Nobody was pointing to the sky yelling, "I see a plane!"

All you heard was, "The dragon is on the other side - Go!"
Then all you saw was this little army of 4-and-5-year-olds run and jump and do some fancy soccer manueaver.

The assistant coach had a notebook, and he was writing in it.  Not sure what kinds of notes you would make during a warm-up at a kid soccer game, but he looked serious.

I looked over at my mom, and we laughed.  We knew we were in trouble.

Then the game started, and we heard commands like, "Tigers, line up over here!" and "Tigers, set and go!"  Their ringer was some star athlete that was probably recruited.  He jumped over the soccer ball during a play, twirled around mid-air, and then kicked the ball the other way.  

Yep, pretty sure we were going to lose.

The good news?  Our Sharks didn't mind.  They had fun playing soccer!

Here's C with some soccer teammates.

  

I'm just glad that Tiger coach isn't some evil genius.  She probably could take over the world with an army of 4-and-5-year-olds.