First soccer games

Yesterday Ben, Alex, and Chris all had their first soccer games. They were pretty excited to be able to get into their uniforms and head to the park where their games were.

The boys in their uniforms before we went to the games:


Ben and his friend Kyle who is on his team:


Alex's game started at 11:30. We looked at the map from last spring for the field layouts for where each game would be, but weren't sure that it would be the same as it was then, so we left a little bit earlier than we normally would, just to make sure we knew where we should go. When we got there, we found that the field layout was pretty similar to what it was in the spring, so we found his field pretty quickly.

I got to watch Alex's game for a couple of minutes, but then I had to walk with Ben over to his field for his game that started at 12:00. It took Alex a minute to get into the game, but he did really well and even scored a goal for his team. At his age, they don't keep track of the score, but Bryce said it seemed to be a pretty close game.

Alex warming up for his game:

The kick off at Alex's game:

Ben's game was not a close game. The team they played had been playing together for a couple of years, and you could tell. And they were all a head taller than most of the boys on Ben's team. So yes, they lost badly. The score ended up being something like 21-1. With the rules the way they have them, when a team gets behind 5-0, they get to add another player. When it's 10-0, they add a second. Ben's team had their whole team out there and were still getting trounced on. Ben said it was fun to play still though.

Ben warming up for his game:


Ben's game in action:


There was a bit more of a break between Ben's and Chris's game, so we were able to take the other boys home and give them some lunch before I went back to Chris's game. I will say right now that watching 3 year-olds playing soccer can be quite entertaining. There were a couple who would get into it and actually play and try to score, but there were more who would get a bit distracted by the goal posts, the other team's cheering section, or the grass. Chris was definitely one of the latter. He tended to not pay attention to where the ball was or what anyone else was doing. He did pay attention when the other team's coach had them kind of huddled on the field and was talking to them, for he went up and started talking to their coach. He did do his job to try to get the ball and jumped on it so no one else could get it. With the under 4 teams, they tend to be a little lenient when they hit the ball with their hands, but do draw the line at the kids picking up the ball and running down the field. That happened more than once. Chris's team did end up scoring about as many goals as their opposing team (again, score isn't kept for this age), mostly thanks to a kid on his team named Colin. One other kid on Chris's team scored and Colin scored about 10 goals.

The pep talk before Chris's game:

Chris getting ready to play:

Chris's game in action:


So all in all, it was a pretty fun day of soccer. It will be fun to see what next week's games bring.