When we woke up in the morning to get ready for the day, I knew straight on it was going to be a difficult day. This week, Del’s team skipped training because of the incessant rains. A message was sent during the week that they only had to come for the game on Saturday 8th June 2019. During the course of the week, Del didn’t even had a chance to kick a ball, as it was mostly raining anytime during the day, with gusts of wind. So this type of weather was not exceptional come match day.
As usual, we had our pep talk on the way to Waiuku Massey Park. On arrival, Del was quick to hop out of the car, and run to his team mates whilst, I got his sister out. As it was such a windy day, she was quiet overdressed, so getting her in and out of her car seat was quiet a mission on its own.
I was quiet eager to at least get Del on video this time. So on arrival at the playing field, me and Rin positioned ourselves away from all the parents, hoping I would get a good view of him in action. On start of the match, I clearly could see that Del was already struggling with the gusty wind. The other team was a bit better and organized as they were playing positional football, and thus managed to get goals quickly before Del’s team knew what had hit them.
Del’s play was also a bit scrappy, as he ended up resorting to slide tackling, of which he made two dangerous tackles which I called him out on. The Blue Whales had relatively bigger kids in comparison to the Red Robbins, and most of the kids could at least direct the ball in the right direction. That made it so hard for Del, as preety much of the time, it seems he was virtually playing against everyone, and that tired him quiet a lot. Adding the fact of the wind didn’t help much, although during this part of the early play, the wind was actually in their favor. They just couldn’t capitalise. I clearly lost count of the goals, the Blue Whales scored as I had to finally move towards the touch line and started to get Del to pick up his game.
As can be relied own, he managed to pick up a lose ball from the centre, and dribbled passed two players, who run in pursuit, and I kept shouting at him, to place the ball into the net, which he did with much gust.What a relief it was, and they immediately went to half time.
The tall order continued after the break, alas in this case they were now against the wind. They managed to at least hold the other team from marauding them, as surprisingly some of Del’s team, where at least managing to intercept the ball as they could and thus prevent an avalanche of goals. Of course moments of failure, were more common as usual, but this time they were at least far fetched. I had to summon Del to come out, as clearly I could see that he was really running short of breath. To buy himself strength, as he later explained to me, he resorted to being the one who would take the goal kick, and try to pump the ball forward. I kept on encouraging him to kick the ball forward and follow it. In all instances he would have at least 3 or 4 players from the Blue Whales surrounding him. Even his deft touches didn’t work that much. It was truly a tall order.
So the match ended in earnest, thanks to Del’s one single goal, against probably 10 scored by the Blue Whales. The Red Robbins have to start playing more like a team otherwise chances are they will always be the whipping boys. It may still be good for Del, that at least he will get the opportunity to go beyond his capability, and in reality there is a limit to which one can do.After the whistle, we couldn’t wait but just ran to the car, to get away from the gusty wind.