Summer Soccer

We are only a couple of weeks into the school summer break and the kids are driving me nuts already. For some reason they’ve gotten it into their head that this is some kind of soccer ‘off season’ which means they can lay in bed until after 7am when they should be out doing their daily conditioning run. I know it’s tough on them but recent events in South Africa have proven once-and-for-all that it is down to soccer parents like me to carve out a future for our national teams on the world stage. Lord knows that the so-called experts with their “Project 2010” thing haven’t exactly brought home the bacon have they? So move over you guys and accept that we soccer parents are the solution instead of the problem you have been making us out to be.

Summer afternoons are, of course, the perfect time for college showcase tournaments! I love to pull up my fancy lawn chair with the sunshade canopy, cold drinks holder, and battery powered fan, at the side of a soccer field where 22 desperate teenagers are ignoring all the ideals of team play as they sweat buckets to individually impress some pimply 20 year old assistant associate volunteer coach from a D6 school in The Edge of Oblivion, Idaho. However, there seems to be some problem for my kids with playing soccer in the hottest part of a 90-degree day. They never seem to show their best in these summer showcases. I wonder what the problem could be?

But like all kids they are smart enough to use the opportunity to get me to shell out on all the latest gear. My eldest daughter has even gone so far as to ask me to get her a sports bra. Apparently she thinks it will help her to “stop jiggling” when she runs with the ball. I told her she won’t get a second look from any of these college coaches with that kind of attitude.

Meanwhile my boy is glued to the TV watching the South African Vuvuzela Symphony Orchestra going through its paces at some obscure sporting event. It’s some crazy game where offside doesn’t matter and putting the ball into the net doesn’t seem to count. It kind of puts our problems in perspective.



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