After a short break for the holidays, the boys are back at it, playing five versus five soccer on a quarter-sized field. It’s such a different version of the game: with a smaller field, it’s much faster, and since there’s no off-sides, it changes the overall dynamic a bit. Plus, everyone plays offense and defense.

They played an academy team, which means a team that practices more frequently and travels for tournaments. The soccer version of travel volleyball. During the regular season, playing a travel team during our Saturday matches is a rarity, and if they do play, the academy/travel team usually has to play up an age group.

It’s not that way during the less formal five-versus-five season. They boys got taken apart by an academy team just before the Christmas break, and I worried it would happen today. It started that way: within a few short moments, we were down 0-2. It went 1-2 before the academy team scored again.

By the half, though, our boys had tied it at three apiece. Two of the boys had written a silly motivational speech, which they delivered to the team during halftime, and it must have worked.

Soon, the boys were up 4-3. Then it was 4-4. “We might end up tying this, or better!” I thought. It was the latter: our boys soon scored two unanswered goals, adding a third before the end of the match to win 7-4.