Bryan Coe: Digital Marketing, SEO, Analytics, Soccer, Tech & German
Hmm.. I’ve been slacking with my blog lately….
Anyway, today is the final for Lan/Berks/York Counties. We’ll be playing at our home field which is also our opponent’s (Evergreen) home field too. This is the same scenario as last year. Hopefully the ending will have the same scenario as well. 😉 A Berks United win!
A team picture from after last years final.Yesterday, we (Berks United) played Lancaster United in the semis. We won 5-0. Lancaster ended up with 2 red cards and a bunch of yellows. We had a red and a yellow. Playing Lancaster is always like that. They hack all the time and complain even more. One of our guys made a really stupid slide tackle (he has a habit of it) and got a red towards the end of the game. We were already up 3 or 4 to 0. Well, he won’t get to play in the finals now.
There was a second game yesterday, Manheim Township (the old Ephrata team), Played Evergreen. Surprisingly Evergreen pulled the upset! I think the final score was 4-1. It’s a bit of a shock. We all expected to see Manheim in the final. But, it looks like we’ll have a repeat of last year. A Berks United/Evergreen final!
The finals are next week at 2pm against Evergreen We use their field as our home field so the game will be at the Evergreen German country club fields.
Saturday we played Germania again. The way the schedule worked this year we play some of the teams twice, and because of this it turns out we ended up playing Germania two weeks in a row.
Germania isn’t very good. They didn’t have a team for the last couple of years so they are all basically new. They haven’t won a game and I don’t know if they have scored a goal yet. The first time we played them it was 5 or more to 0(I lost count). On Saturday we were pretty much destroying them 8-0 when things turned crazy…
The guy running the team is from Morocco and he has a friend Hakim who I think is also from there. He played with us last year and he managed to get at least a yellow card every game. He’s like a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. You never know when it will happen, but you can be certain he will explode. I mean he is so bad that even in pick up he always has something to say. He’s always arguing and complaining, and has a habit of yelling at his teammates. So, we were short players the last couple of games so the guy running the team called him up and asked him to play. The first game I think he got a yellow card. Plus, we had a free kick that I was going to take and he stepped in front of me and took kicked it right before I was going to. Then he said something rude to me. All I could do is shake my head.
This Saturday he was in rare form. In the first half he walked off the field because he thought no one was passing him the ball. Someone convinced him to stay and continue to play. I don’t know why.. So, then the second half he gets into it with one of the other players and elbows him in the face. He gets a yellow card and then continues to complain to the ref. One of our guys is injured so he was taking care of the subs. I kept telling him to sub Hakim. He then told me that he was hoping he would get a red so we won’t have to worry about him for the next game, since it is a big game.
Well, in the end he did. Something happened and Hakim was in front of the goal and got kicked. Next thing you know he and another guy are wrestling on the ground. I’m pretty sure Hakim grabbed him and pulled him down. Then apparently someone kicked him or elbowed him when he was on the ground. I was on the bench and my first instinct was to run out and break it up. Not sure why. I was thinking more about the team than Hakim, because I don’t even like the guy, but he is lucky I did run out because he would have gotten his butt kicked had I not. Anyway, the two get pulled apart and Hakim punches one of the other players in the head and blood splatters. I grab him and basically bear hug him (around both arms) and pick him up and carry him off to the side of the field. Meanwhile the other team is screaming at him. The ref gave him a red card and terminated the game. Then I pretty much pushed him to the other side of the field to the benches. The bloody idiot kept trying to turn around and go back. Plus, guys from the other team were running up screaming. So in order to not let anything else happen… not to protect Hakim. I was pushing them away. Then this one guy that was a real idiot during both games, number 8. He’s really a cheap dirty player. Starts yelling at me because I pushed him. He wanted to “square off” with me. I just shook my head at him.
Afterwards I was shaking hands with some of the guys on the other team and apologizing for the mess and I went to shake this guys hand and he said something and stepped way with his hands in the air. I just shook my head at him and turned away. Then he pushed me from behind and yelled “round two!”. I mean, come on… grow up…
The whole things was really a huge disgrace. After all, it’s only over 30 amateur soccer. Not the world cup. I do this as a stress relief, not for this… Last game the guy organizing the team started an argument at half-time within our team. If this keeps up, I might be looking for a new team pretty soon…
So, I played last night for the first time since the Keystone Games. I think my knee is doing ok. It was a little bit stiff around my knee this morning, but I don’t think it is anything major. I’ll just have to try and strengthen it again and not go for any hard tackles for the next few weeks. I think it should be ok then.
The game last night was good too. We won 5-1 and totally controlled the game. That was a nice change after the K-Games. One of the older guys on my team gave me a great compliment too. I’ve been playing sweeper most of the time and the guy said he thought I was doing a great job. He also said he thinks I play the purest sweeper he’s seen in a long time. 🙂
Last Saturday some guys and I put a team together and played in the Keystone Games over mens 30’s tournament. Unfortunately we have really never all played together before. So, it was very difficult to play teams that have been playing together for years. We didn’t do that great, but we did end up with another bronze medal.
It wasn’t really the best day for me personally. I lost the ring I have been wearing for something like the last 12 years. I have been thinking about getting a new one, though. So, I guess it just made up my mind for me.
That’s not so bad compared to what else happened. I injured my knee. It actually started the previous Sunday in the Lititz league. It’s over 30 as well. It’s not very competitive, but ever since I started playing over 30 I have been worried I would get hurt… This league especially, and not because of hard play. The problem is: I’m on the younger end still, and there are a lot of guys that are older than they think, 20% slower than they used to be and over weight. They are often not in total control. Now, how did I get injured. I was playing sweeper when I cleared the ball and a guy came lunging in to block it… you guessed it he wasn’t as quick as he thought. He first knocked me off balance, which was a good thing because I was already falling over when his foot connected with the inside of my right calf. Let me tell you it hurt. Fortunately, I thought it was going to be worse than it was. Since I was already falling my foot wasn’t totally planted. He could have broken my leg or blown out my knee or ankle right there. Turns out it was sore down the outside of my leg from the ankle to the knee. I stayed off it for a few days to try and let it heal. Then I had the tournament. It was still a bit tender, but I thought ok. Then in the 3rd game (BTW 15 min halves), I had a really hard tackle. I stoned the guy of course. 🙂 But he really wailed on the ball. I took the ball and then a few steps, my knee felt pretty weird. I’ve never had knee trouble before though. So, later I went to the doctors that were there for the tournament and the guy said it might be a light tear in the ACL or MCL. Not sure which is which. He guessed that my patella jumped out of track when I had the hard tackle and then back in. Probably because it was week from the first injury. So, now I am taking some time off to let it heal. I really don’t want to have knee trouble or an operation or something like that.
Something else that has been bothering my knees recently is my stupid desk. I have this cheap thing from IKEA that has a shelve right about my shines. So, I have to sit with my feet under the chair, hunched over or my feet on the shelf. Not very comfortable at all. But, my sis Gen has designed me a desk to go in my office. woohoo! Now I just have to build it. 🙁 Maybe this weekend. I still need to finish my Biergarten too. Hmm… Priorities.