A Soccer Game Analysis

From Tim

Greetings!

Some of you have been waiting anxiously for the news on how the Poland vs. USA soccer game went here at camp. Wait no longer as I reveal the outcome of the match of colossal proportions.

The game took place on the hardtop court behind our camp house, which allowed for us to use a sound system for music and sports commentary. The Polish students were decked out in Polish jerseys and shirts to the point that we were drowned in a sea of red and white. After we made a dramatic entrance, both teams sang their national anthem and it began. Only six people per team were allowed on the field of play due to the court being smaller than a normal soccer field. Julie Wentworth was our all-time goal keeper while we rotated the rest of our numbers every eight minutes.

After about ten minutes of scoreless action and some amazing saves, Poland drew first blood. They followed up with three more points shortly afterwards and we began to think all of our taunting would come back to haunt us. It should be noted that their second goal came from an unfortunate deflection off of one of our own players. However…

We would not go down so easily and I had the honor of opening up the flood gates with the first American goal. (As a side note, this kept my scoring streak against Zielona Gora alive for a third year.) Dustin then followed up with a hat trick to tie the score. From there the game would remain tightly matched as the score on both sides climbed to 9-9 before regulation time ran out. The other Americans that contributed goals were Kate, Rachel, Josh and a fourth by Dustin. (I am missing one person.)

We went into a shootout of penalty kicks, with only one person from each side scoring to send us into a second shootout. Josh was the one who kept us alive. In the second shootout the Polish goal keeper shut us down while three balls managed to make it into our goal to lead the Polish team to a 13-10 victory. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in one of these matches and as an added bonus, Dan Hash was able to join us that day. We earned a lot of respect for putting up such an effort against the Polish team and had a lot of fun doing so. Even though we lost, it was a great game to play in and watch!