Monday Morning Report: Feb 1

This was a blagh weekend for ACDC. So, to lighten the mood, I'll post two of my all-time favorite pictures for your laughter. I'm not as sensitive as Jeff about pictorial anonymity, but please don't re-post these pictures.

These were taken on Jeff's 27th birthday, at the beach in Delaware. On the left, you can see that I am asleep (uh hm) and the boys have decided to stack furniture and junk on top of me. In my right hand is a candle. On the right, you can see that the candle is lit. (Yikes!) Even asleep (uh hm), my operating hand is as steady as ever! :) One wonders how low the candle burnt before these bozos decided to blow it out! Fortunately, I did not wake up with scorch marks.

One must learn to laugh at oneself.

Onto the game report:

On a very snowy Saturday, ACDC was pitted against team "del Ray" at Fairfax Sportsplex. We have a history with this team. It was against them that we had two players ejected two years ago. But since that game, we have beaten them once in a championship game, and again in November '09.

The roads to Fairfax were awful on Saturday, and as I took the court to start the game, here are my minute-to-minute thoughts...an internal monologue:

Whistle.....Tweet.....

Minute 1: So, I guess we're starting this game one man short, with Robb, Hannah, Lindsay and Paul. Hmm. I hope the rest of the squad is safe, and no one has spun out on the highway....

Minute 2: Man, I can't believe they have a full squad. Do they have 5 subs already? We've only got 5 total! I wonder how long we can hold them with one man down?

Minute 3: Hey, we are actually playing pretty well. Maybe we can score on them soon.

Min 4: Boy, I am getting pooped. They are fast and physical. Score on them? Maybe. But, boy, I'm getting pooped chasing after their extra guy.

Min 5: Shite. My bad. We just let in a goal. Playing from behind is not our strength. Ok, let's get this one back. Where are our people?

Min 6: Thank god. We now have a full squad on the court, but still no guy subs. Man, I am getting pooped.

Min 7: Dammit. Let in another goal. Wonder when our subs will get here. If I have to chase after them like this, it's going to be a score-fest for them. I'd better take myself out for Nicole....

End of monologue

So, two goals we gifted them as we were organizing, hoping that no one has gotten into any accidents. Halfway into the first half, we finally have a full squad with subs. It was too late. Playing a decent team with an army of subs, chasing two goals, is never easy, and we never really got to play our usual game....get into our normal rhythm.

We can blame the snow and VA DOT for not plowing 395, but kudos to "del Ray" for having a full squad from the start. ACDC can't do that because y'all will get upset sharing minutes with 11 other players. In the end, we have to accept the defeat and breathe a sigh of relief that no one spun out on the highway.

The Sunday futsal game was cancelled.

(pause)

Say what?

Yes, cancelled....on a beautiful, sunny, lazy Sunday.....

I really wish it were the other way 'round...and they had cancelled on Saturday.

More fun n' games next week. Happy Hour on Friday unless major weather events intervene....again. Have a great week.

Monday Morning Report: January 25

This was a great weekend for AC D.C. The Fairfax crew played with a bunch of new men for the first time in the new session. The veterans from previous campaigns were moved to play Futsal in DC (more on this later). There were some initial jitters, but we settled in to play our brand of football and defeated our opponent comfortably 9-1. The lone goal was conceded when both of our defenders followed the attackers with the ball, and left a runner unmarked in the center. Other than that, our defense was solid and Peter was once again a scoring machine.

Futsal started at Cordozo H.S. in Columbia Hts on Sunday. We haven't played Futsal for 2 years since District Sports didn't run the league last year. Even with playing as much indoor ball as we have, it's hard to get used to the blistering pace of the Futsal game. Nevertheless, we played brilliantly. We got to every 50-50 ball first and shut down our opposing attackers effectively. In the end, we recorded our first indoor/futsal clean sheet that I can ever recall at 11-0. I was keeping goal and the post saved my ass twice...but hey, it's better to be lucky than good....any day.

So on aggregate, AC D.C. played our opponents this weekend to a score of 20-1. All in a weekend's work. Some of you will wonder whether we are in the right leagues, if the competition is so weak. In response, I'll make two points. First, we haven't won any championships this winter yet. As you recall, we were beaten in the championship game several week ago. Second, the only other indoor oppotunities we have are in Dulles and Rockville during week nights. The roster required for these leagues are pretty large and with as many doctors-in-training as we have, it would be logistically difficult to fill our rosters for these week-night leagues. Recruiting new players for them will pose other problems, as we'll need to play the new recruits in our outdoor leagues in the spring, and our roster for those squads are filled.

Several of you have pointed out that we haven't had a happy hour or party for a while. Rest assured that plans are underway for the third annual luge party. This will take place late winter/early spring at Jeff's place. We'll probably have a happy hour next Friday (2/5) but you'll hear more details when we get closer.

Have a great week.

Monday Morning Report: January 18

• new indoor session begins

In a twist of irony, the second session of indoor play at Fairfax began with a game against the current champions (see MMR 1/11 for details of championship game). Several of our new session players were out of town, but most significantly, our indoor captain was out of town, leaving me as keeper of the day.

Just like last week, we jumped out to a lead. Then, the game went back and forth and the score at halftime was 5-4 in their favor. Once again, our offense puttered in the second half, leaving the defense vulnerable. The final score was 7-5 but we avoided the embarrassment of letting in 9 goals in a half as we did last time.

Yours truly had a GREAT time playing keeper, and made more saves than I let in. I am reasonably happy with my own performance, having not played between the posts routinely since 2004. One particular goal did stand out in my mind, however. The shot came from point-blank-range at high velocity. I got my hand on the ball, which simply laughed at my attempt to stop its progress. It deflected my hand violently backwards and went into the net at the upper right corner, leaving my wrist limp....well, even until now.

Many have asked me whether this puts my career in danger and whether I had "hand specific" disability insurance. My attitude has always been that crossing the street puts my safety at risk, and being friends with some of you puts my sanity at risk....and I still do it. Playing keeper helps the team, and is very stimulating for me. And since I have the chance only sporadically, I see no need for excessive concern. Lord willing, as long as I can still fly around diving, and jump and do splits, even as this scrapes my knee and bruises my elbows, I will still enjoy keeping goal.

The indoor season for AC D.C. kicks into high gear starting next week as Sunday Futsal in DC restarts after a one-year hiatus. We'll have games on Saturdays and Sundays again, just like in the fall and spring. Let's hope for fun and successful seasons for both squads. The Farifax squad has been promoted to the newly created "upper division." Having already lost one game, we'll have to pick up the quality starting next week.

Monday Morning Report: January 11

• Championship game
• Tale of two halves

I arrived at the Pairs airport in June of 2005 in a red-and-black soccer t-shirt. As I stepped off the plane, the pilot pointed his index finger at the logo on my chest and said "catastroph!" Ordinarily, I would be taken aback when a professional says something so openly derogatory at me. But I immediately agreed with him.

What he was referring to was AC Milan's monumental collapse at the Champions' Leauge Final one month before. They were 3-nil ahead of Liverpool going into the break. They had the game won with genius plays by Kaka and Shevchenko. But Steven "Captain Fantastic" Gerrard came out of the locker room, scored almost immediately, and motivated his team to the spectacular come-back. In the end, Liverpool won in a shoot-out and the "catastroph" was complete.

A similar collapse unfolded for AC D.C. at the Fairfax Sportsplex on Saturday. The only difference was that half the world wasn't watching our game and no Air France pilot would know about it. Playing against an undefeated opponent in the indoor championship game, our first half was brilliant. We played with poise and patience, and we defended tenaciously as a team. We climbed to a 5-nil lead without doing anything unusual....just played our game.

Our monumental collapse started early in the second half. Reasons for it are still unclear to me. Very likely, we felt that we have already won the championship, so we "switched off." As if our team collectively had a stroke and became demented, we simply forgot how to play team defense. Good-to-brilliant all season, our defensive positioning was atrocious. It was like no one wanted to defend the 5-nil lead with 20" to go. Was everyone looking out for their own glory in scoring a goal in the championship game?

We tried to make some defensive switches at 5-3 and that didn't work. The game was balanced at 5-5 for about 4-5 minutes, as we finally regained some defensive composure. Then it was back-and-forth a bit but we played poorly again at the end. The story is told with a play when the score was 8-7. Our opponent attacked with one striker. He shot the ball and it rebounded off the base wall. One would have thought that with only 2" to go, we would defend with all we've got. But yet, the shooter got his own rebound, and put it in our net. And the final score was 9-7.

Although it's easy to blame our defenders for this collapse and for letting in 9 goals in 25", defending is really a team effort. We can only win if we realize that. We also need to understand that the game is however long the clock says, and if we switch off, we can lose, whatever the score may be at halftime. Letting in 3 goals when we were leading by 5 is not the end of the world. We have to be mentally tenacious and keep playing the game!

Football is >50% mental. Our players who stepped on the field in the second half are identical to those in the first, with the same skills, same strength and same knowledge of the game. Fatigue was not a factor. Our performance in the second half was clearly a mental issue, not a physical one. We'll have to work on that aspect of our team in the future.

There may well be a silver lining, however. After the "Catastroph of 2005," AC Milan faced Liverpool again in the CL Final two years later. This time, they won. Let's hope the same storyline unfolds for AC D.C. as we enter the second session of the winter indoor season.

Monday Morning Report: January 4

Happy New Year...

....from the people who bring you your AC D.C. evites every week.

The picture shows us misbehaving on NYE. heh, heh....

2009 was a pretty good year for AC D.C. We won another indoor championship at Fairfax, and for the first time won a tournament! While I was sunning myself in Italia, the stalwarts of the team triumphed in the Columbia Tournament. What a great achievement!

We also organized our first 5-a-side tournament, and played well in both our co-ed and men's leagues.

Along the way, we've had several babies and weddings. Injuries were kept to a pretty minimal count.....what else can a manager ask for? A dry pitch for Cherry Blossom?

I want to thank everyone who helped me with running the team in 2009. In addition to the bozos you see in the picture, there's Carlos for dealing with all uniform and party issues, and Mumbs for being asst captain. Thank you all for being part of this great team last year and sharing your skills, talent and time with everybody.

2010 has already seen our first victory! We beat our opponent 12-4 on Saturday at Fairfax. Kudos to Peter, who was a scoring machine and Nicole and Hannah for playing without subs. They were incredible. With that win, we are assured a place in the championship game next week. We have stayed undefeated and untied this session, so hopefully, we'll continue to dominate next weekend. I'll let you know the time for the match and hope that some of you will come out to cheer the squad onto victory.

Until then.....Happy New Year!