Winning

Today I played in one of the most fun soccer games of my life. I play on a team filled with people that I love, but last year we did not win a single game. This afternoon we played in our first game of the season and won 2-1 against a team that killed us in our first game last year.

Victory is very sweet for many reasons, but the game was great in other ways, too. There was a little boy who watched almost our entire game from behind the fence. Every now and then he would ask the score or smile shyly at one of the players. Another bystander was an older Asian woman who stopped to listen to a peptalk our coach gave. There were two men (I believe to be Ukrainian) who sat on a bench and commented on the game throughout. And at the end of the game there were a group of men who had barbecued steak for their team, and gave us leftovers for free.

Alan always compares our team to the Bad News Bears (and the similarities are astounding: losing streak, terrible field with divets and broken glass, etc.) and today was like the film-victory we always wanted: a tie game for all but the last five minutes, random bystanders following the game, and wild jumping and cheering when the final whistle sounded. I think winning could be one of my new favorite things.