All for the trophy

Today Will played in the first official soccer game of his life as member of “Team Chaos” a term that well describes the whole concept of soccer playing for 5-year-olds.

The kids played three-on-three with goals relatively closely spaced. At first Will stood around looking a bit dazed and when I met him for his first sideline water break, he smiled and said, “I didn’t realize we were playing the game. I thought we were just practicing.”

He warmed up to it a bit after that and wound up making four or five goals, only one of which was for the opposing team. Our team was generally a little lackluster and amateurish in comparison to our opponents who seemed to have less first-season players and ran the field with much more gusto. I’m pretty sure we must have lost but no one really kept score as far as I know and we didn’t discuss winning or losing at the end of the game.

Will said he had fun, but wondered when he would get a trophy. This is a continuation of a little trophy-obsession for Will, who I try to raise with relatively non-competitive play-for-the-love-of-the-game instincts, but whose preschool pals have managed to build real intrigue for him around the notion of acquiring soccer trophies..

The first time Owen accompanied Will to a soccer practice, Will told his younger brother, “This is where I play soccer. And this is where I’m going to get my trophy.”