First Soccer Win!

March 2, 2009
I was hopped on the tram to get there quickly. I sat down and waited for my stop. The next stop a man got on and sat across from me. A little while into our trip, he tried to ask me something about my jacket (I had my JCU pullover on). I replied, “Mi dispiace, non parlo Italianno,” (I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian.) He laughed at the situation, he tried to speak slower and use his hands to explain. I understood a little bit of what he said, I think at least. He asked if we were playing tonight and that’s about the just of the conversation I got. He continued to speak then it sounded like he asked a question. I gave him a blank look and then said, “Non lo so,” (I don’t know.) He just laughed it off and we went back into our own little worlds. I said good-bye and smiled as I got off at my stop. I continued to make my way past the Tiber campus to the school. I got near Piazza Trilussa and saw a large bus. I assumed that it was ours but couldn’t see anyone on it so I called Jeanne as I continued to the piazza. She said she would be there soon and I found that no one was waiting so I just hung around. As I was in my own world I heard a voice say, “Are you coming?” It was Federica, I nodded and followed her to the bus. We got on and soon Alex, Jeanne, Abbe, and Rachel joined us. They said Chelsea wasn’t coming, which meant I was the only sub (not good). We talked about our game plan on the way there. We discussed shifting the defense, and staying off the offense, giving them space so we could better defend the goal. We finally got to the fields, it was out in the boondocks, we drove thru darkness for a good 5 minutes, which is a pretty big deal when you are talking about living in a big city. We got off the bus and met coach and he took us to our locker room and we got dressed and got all “pumped” up. Fed said that this team was pretty rough, that fights usually broke out. We went and warmed up, but never actually touched a soccer ball, it could be an interesting game. We walked to the center of the field, waved to the crowd and then they had the coin flip. They won and we went back and did our little circle pep talk. The players took their place on the field and the game began. It turned out to be a very exciting game. I didn’t play but I fully enjoyed standing and cheering as the game got extremely intense. The ref even gave out yellow cards. We got 2 and the other team got a couple as well. Italian teams get pretty angry when they lose. They started to fall apart as they began to slap and push our players. It got pretty physical and the ref soon saw that and also they began to talk crap to him and that didn’t help their cause any. It was really funny. I had so much fun being the cheerleader. Alex made some AMAZING saves, Fed scored 2 goals, Jeanne schooled the other team with her awesome footwork, and Abbe and Rachel played great defense. At the end of the game, the girls looked at each other as they walked off the field, they weren’t sure if they had won or not. Once they realized however we jumped and cheered and then went to thank the other team for a good game.