The twins and Ben participated in soccerfest this weekend. Teams play multiple games with different teams. The games are only 30 minutes long. In the twin’s league, after three games the top teams play each other for medals.

We have been to this weekend many times before. This is Adam’s 4th year of coaching (twice for the twins and twice for Jack). For Jack’s teams, they finished 1st and 3rd. The first year Adam coached the twins, the season ended early due to Covid. Which means this is their first soccerfest.

Before we got the information on soccerfest, the twins received an invitation for a good friend’s birthday party. We assumed they would choose soccerfest. After all, their father is the coach and they constitute 1/5th of the team. Soon the RSVPs started coming in and it turns out all the other kids in the class chose the party over soccerfest.

After school one day I mentioned how many of the other kids chose the party over soccerfest. Aaron immediately piped in, mentioning how you can’t let you team down and we must do soccerfest. Sam was silent. So I asked him, “Sam, if you had a choice would you choose to go to the party?”

Sam replied, “Yeah, kind of.”

I asked him if he wanted me to talk to Adam about it. He said no. So, of course, I talked to Adam about it.

I wasn’t sure how Adam would handle it, and I didn’t give him any advice. I just told him that whatever he decided, it would be the right choice.

Left unspoken was the fact that the two games Sam missed the team was scored on 6 times, more than the entire season combined. We needed Sam on defense.

Adam seemed disappointed but said he would talk to Sam. That evening, when he brought it up, Sam told him stoically, “I would prefer to go to the party but I will go to soccerfest, I can’t let me team down.”

I’m not sure I would have had the maturity or self control that Sam has at this age, but I was so proud of him at this moment.

We promised to do something special with the birthday boy to make up for the missed party.

Our first game was quite a slug, but the twin’s team pulled off a 4-2 win, giving them 6 (out of a possible 7) points for the first game.

The second game was a shut out, the twin’s team won 3-0, giving them 7 points.

We started Sunday morning with the most points for any team in the league, with 13 points. Only one other team had managed to amass as many points as we had.

Oddly, we were slotted to play the team we lost to the weekend before soccer fest. It was also the other team with 13 points.

To make matters worse, we only had 7 of our 10 players, so no one could get hurt or not show up or we’d be short.

It was a really intense game, but in the end we tied 1-1.

Which means we were both still in first place. So guess who we played in the playoff? The SAME TEAM AGAIN!

While we were waiting around for the final game, I was chatting to the organizers in the main tent. I learned that, unlike previous soccerfests, they were only handing out medals for the first place winner. (When Jack played, first through fourth got medals.) I brought this information back to Coach Adam, which he quickly used as motivation for the final game.

Before the game Adam told them it was the last game of the season so to leave it all out there on the field. And to have fun!

In the end we scored once, the other team nil.

It was an amazing season, we were very lucky to have such a great team of players, not only good players but good boys. Oh, and the head coach was kind of hot.

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