The autumn soccer season has started and all the kids have moved up a year. Our team was unexpectedly successful these last two years, apparently too successful, as the local professional team stole another of our players and our own club has promoted no less than four of them up to the next level a year early.
That means I’ve lost all ten kids that made up our tournament team, plus two kids who weren’t good enough to make it, and out of 24 kids I’ve got more that have never kicked a ball (5) than have seen a tournament before (3). I have no idea how I’m going to instill in them the sort of discipline and diehard competitiveness their predecessors had, and to be honest, I don’t even know if that would be possible.
But it was great to see last year’s squad when they showed up for practice just as the little ones were leaving the field. The boys aren’t too cool to look pleased to see their old coach yet, and they were beaming as they informed me, en masse, that last Saturday they’d beaten our club’s onetime nemesis, Blue, for what is now the third year in a row. At this rate, they’re going to give those future professionals a serious inferiority complex.
It was strange, but I really didn’t want to leave the field and walk away while they were still playing out there. It seems time passes us all by in the end.