State Farm intramural soccer team Fear the Mullet won its first game in regulation Monday evening, topping Running on Fumes thanks to some unusually coordinated play and an assist from non-star Joe McDonald.
Prior to the game, the multi-talented but oft-defeated Mullets held a twenty minute meeting on strategy and basic soccer fundamentals to generate some chemistry on a team featuring several new players. Player Kevin Byrd, who's coached children's soccer, gave a tutorial on striking and dribbling as well as defensive positioning.
"He's no Troy Young," said McDonald, "but he'll do in a pinch."
Most key was the decision to employ a 1-3-2 formation for the short field, discarding the "chickens-with-heads-cut-off" strategy that had yielded long stretches of scorelessness all year long. The improvement was instant and obvious. On multiple occasions FTM found itself in 2-on-1 and 3-on-1 fast breaks thanks to adequate spacing and crisp passing.
It was at the tail end of one of those 3-on-1 situations when the final goal was tallied. The forward struck at the goal from 20 yards away as two midfielders streaked toward the goal from the wings. When the goalie fumbled the ball, McDonald poked it through his legs to the brink of the goal line, from where a teammate booted it in.
McDonald was typically modest, and rightfully so. On one occasion he visibly flinched and whirled out of the way as the goalie charged the ball for a kick, no doubt subconsciously mindful of his "stop-ball-with-face" move from the prior match. Meanwhile, the 5-foot female defender on his own team ran boldly into frontal collisions with multiple 6-foot male opponents throughout the contest.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look after the game," he noted.
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