Alumni Scrimmage

Last night was the alumni scrimmage for the NK soccer team. I was hopeful that not many alums would show up so I could play, but they were out in force. Apparently last year only 2 showed up. They were all college students and pretty decent.

As for the NK team, I was surprised by the lack of discipline on the bench. Maybe it was because it was just the alumni game (understandable -- they knew all of the opponents and many had played together), but it seemed deeper than that. Maybe it was because the entire team was dressed and played an almost-equal amount of time (and some of the starters played less than other players) -- that certainly had the starters unhappy -- but it was more than that. Some of the players were consistently badmouthing each other, especially one or two kids, and the level of insults were pretty bad.

The level of play was another thing, and I don't think I'll be too thorough on this here. Suffice it to say, the alumni team ran out of gas, and stopped coming back on defense, yet that wasn't enough. In fact, there was a 5-1 break that was stuffed, mainly because the 5 didn't have any shape at all and the one defender was able to cut off the route to the goal and seal off any passing route, as all of the offensive players were in a straight line.

It was frustrating, to say the least. On the good side, the goalkeeper had a really good game. A little rough, certainly unpolished, but a good game, nonetheless.