LillyWorld: "Mom, the person that invented soccer was a genius!"

Hello Everyone! I had to share with you this quote exactly as it was said to me after the soccer game today. Lilly said, "Mom, the person that invented soccer was a genius!" I think she is genius.

Please enjoy the pictures from the game today along with a healthy dose of my rambling.

Final Score: White Shark 3, Tigers 0. Lilly did great at the game. She got a little tired toward the end and hung back. I can't blame her, she had practice on Thursday night, 1 hour of gymnastic class and 3 hours of free play at the gym on Friday and went to bed at 10pm. She was tired. Lilly scored one amazing goal. Seriously folks I wish you had seen it! She threw the ball in, it hit a girl in the face, (on accident and the girl was fine) then it somehow bounced back to Lilly who kicked it high toward the goal and it arched right into the goal. Amazing to see! The crowd (the parents) went crazy! Sonia and Elia also scored today. Practicing our defense on Thursday helped a lot!

You also might notice in some of the pictures that the tape that is usually over Lilly's piercing earrings during games is gone. We knew the day might come when a ref might have issues with the tape, even though I was told by many other coaches that tape over piercing earrrings shouldn't be an issue at this age. Today was the day. At half-time Lilly had to make the choice of taking out the earrings and playing the rest of the game or forfitting. At the time we only had 5 players as Emma wasn't there today and Abby had to leave at 1/2 time. She chose to have me remove the earrings and play. I didn't push, I told her the options and told her it was her choice. I am very proud of her. I have to tell you that it was an emotional decision as she had to have her ears pierced for the second time recently because she had let the original holes close up by not wearing earrings for quite a while after she took them out. Luckily they came out really smoothly. (Piercing earring have that extra stable post and you really have to grip and pull straight to get them to release the post from the backing.)

We also learned a lot about how to play fair and be a good sport. The other team was pretty pushy and kept grabbing Julia. She came out crying twice. The second time we all had something to say about it. Julia was a trooper and got back in the game. The girl from the other team said "that's the way we always play" and Coach Paul didn't like that at all. The other coach across the fieild knew of our displeasure about the situation. The game continued with no other incident until the end when the other team cheered for themselves at the end without giving us as cheer as is appropriate. The girls didn't want to cheer for them, but Paul and I encouraged them to be good sports and we gave them a 2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate...It's unfortunate that the girls on the other team aren't learning or encouraged to be good sports.

On a side note, I almost had to remove Scott from the game as he wanted to get up by the touchline to cheer and the like. I told him he couldn't until he had a red shirt. hehehe. It's good to be a coach. Good Game White Sharks!