ISIS

The Life of a Youth Soccer Coach (Tick Tick Boom)

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I know ISIS has beheaded two American journalists, and that these fundamentalist fucktards are now a serious threat to America and Europe. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is suffering from a mid-life crisis, which most guys deal with by purchasing a sports car or becoming familiar with a pretty, young Kremlin intern, but Putin scratches his fear of mortality by invading nations.

Obama has a lot to worry about, but I have my own shit to contend with today. I need to develop a practice plan for a Boys U-10 soccer team. U-10 translates into a bunch of easily bored eight- and nine-year-olds, who like to play tag and dodge ball more than they like to play soccer.

When I volunteered to “help out”, I never envisioned that I would have to do research on how to run a practice but soccer has become a tad more complicated than when I played at the same age. I was more concerned about getting the right number of oranges for a team snack than I was about developing a practice plan.

Being conscientious, I started watching videos demonstrating practice drills that had been rehearsed multiple times for our viewing pleasure by suburban white boys with tidy haircuts. And then I strayed into strategy and tactics, where I read posts describing the perfect formation for 6 v. 6 and this got the competitive juices flowing. I had decided on a 3-2 formation, because my team would be able to take advantage of 1 v. 1 match-ups offensively, My central defender would anchor the defense and the two fullbacks would move forward individually, when it was available, to provide support for crosses into the box. The sweet taste of victory hung in the air waiting for Luis Suarez to take a bite out of it.

Luis Suarez

At our first practice, Coach Dave quickly realized that any talk of strategy would have to be tabled. The drills I had researched were going to improve their skills, but none of the boys appeared to be all that jacked to practice two-touch passing or then move on to one-touch passing. Any drill with tag or freeze in its name was preferred to anything resembling a well-researched soccer drill.

Fortunately, I had done further research on “fun games” for the kids, which involved me running around after balls and narrowly avoiding the colossal pile of fresh dog excrement near one of our game targets. If I saw the motherfucker who didn’t pick up his dog’s hazmat pile of shit, I would have thrown it at him and his dog. I’ve always thought that if a person experienced an irate, crazy mofo, who picked up dog shit with his bare hands and threw a Russell Wilson shit spiral into their face, the asshole would never forget his or her doggie doo-doo bag again.

I’m hopping over dog shit. I’m sweating. I’m trying to keep an accurate record of the score. The kids are moving closer and closer to the targets to gain a competitive advantage over their opponents. I’m stressed out, because I have never coached soccer and I suck at the game. I have been a dismal failure at this game for my entire life, which includes being unceremoniously cut from my high school’s freshman soccer team, and now I am the Drew Carey of youth soccer. Come on down!

Ronda Rousey and an admiring Joe Rogan 

The kids then want to scrimmage, so I play for one of the sides who is short a player. A few minutes into the scrimmage, I clock a kid in the right eye with my left hand, as I make a strong Giorgio Chinaglia striker move in the box. The kid goes down like a Ronda Rousey UFC opponent, but I resist the opportunity to trash-talk his weak ass. (Actually, the kid went down briefly and then jumped up and got back into the fray.) As one of the kids said, “The coach hit him.”

Yep, the coach hit him. Maybe I should concentrate on passing the ball to my teammates and staying out of the penalty area with my Giorgio Chinaglia arsenal of offensive moves. My team lost, but I made the winning team run sprints to know the pain required of victory. Nah, I didn’t do that, but it’s not a bad thought for today’s practice.

Giorgio Chinaglia of the New York Cosmos 

Today’s practice is going to feel like playing soccer in a Hawaiian lava field with piles of dog shit scattered all about. I will run off a few pounds. Coach kids on a game that I lack any talent for, but when has talent ever stopped a committed American? I’ll make these boys into a winning juggernaut – not kidding about that – and life will get a little less stressful after tomorrow’s away match.

That’s if we win. If we lose, I’ll be at the computer seeking to find how I create a soccer juggernaut from the fragile minds and bodies of young boys. Uh … no coach was able to do anything with me on a soccer field, but I have a good feeling these boys are a lot more talented than a young, sunburnt Sheridan.

Not All Blowjobs in the Champagne Room

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The world keeps spinning along. We’ve got American bombs falling on ISIS forces in the political and secular quagmire called Iraq. Ebola is begging to make an appearance at your local emergency room. A 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip resumed with Israelis raining down a deluge of bombs on Hamas, and Hamas is searching for an unsuspecting Israeli soldier to snare as another prisoner of war. And the Boston Public Library has announced that it is going to winnow its book collection by 180,000 volumes to accommodate newer books and allow more space for book-free computer and study areas,

Just another lazy day in the summer. And who said the 21st century was going to be all blowjobs in the champagne room?

I’d prefer a little head from the now sexually ambiguous Bruce Jenner than getting anywhere near the Ebola virus, but the quasi-reclusive Bruce does not have to make an awkward public appearance in the champagne room.

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I listened to Dan Patrick’s interview with Lance Armstrong on The Dan Patrick Show, and I will confess to the fact that I still want to believe in the myth of Lance Armstrong and I’m not sure I care all too much that Armstrong doped and cheated. Within the sport of cycling and many other sports, cheating/the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs was common, widespread and acknowledged within the athletic community. Does anyone labor under the notion that the guys who finished behind Armstrong, in his seven Tour de France victories, were riding without any outside assistance?

Patrick allows Armstrong to speak.

I had to laugh when Armstrong reluctantly acknowledged Greg LeMond’s importance to American cycling, because the bad blood and hostility between these two cycling greats is never far from the surface. Armstrong hates LeMond. And LeMond clearly disdains Armstrong, which was captured in the ESPN 30 for 30: Slaying The Badger.

People will always have their opinions about Lance Armstrong, the Livestrong Foundation and his place in the American canon of sports, but will anyone be able to differentiate between the asshole who is Lance Armstrong and the amazing athlete who hypnotized a nation with his incredible exploits in seven Tour de France wins? The facts are the facts, but Armstrong’s particular skill at being an unadulterated asshole is half his battle at possibly restoring some of his once impeccable public image.

Armstrong was nearly solely responsible, for an American cycling boom, which found our backroads festooned with portly weekend warriors wearing the aerodynamic regalia of professional cyclists and sporting Livestrong bracelets on their wrists. Armstrong’s cycling success was a movement that impacted folks who had never heard of The Giro or The Vuelta. Personally, I find it hard to deny Armstrong’s impaxt on American society. And I desperately want to believe that Armstrong raced up the Pyrenees or Alps against rivals who were as dirty as him.

Isn’t that the nature of athletic competition? Marveling at what we could never do, unless Lance’s Italian doctor had made house calls to the States and I had been an entry in his appointment book.

Lance Armstrong

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A few days ago, American soccer icon, Landon Donovan, announced his retirement from the beautiful game at year’s end. Donovan is arguably the most accomplished player in the history of American soccer, and his departure will be a loss to Major League Soccer but not to the U.S. National Men’s Soccer team.

Men’s national coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, refused to carry Donovan on his 23-man roster for this past summer’s World Cup in Brazil. Could Donovan have helped the Americans in Brazil? Absolutely.

Klinsmann & Donovan 

The omission of Donovan from his fourth trip to the World Cup was personal on Klinsmann’s part and we can only wonder how this contributed to Donovan’s decision to hang it up. Soccer never seems to have an off-season, which is a factor in player burnout and injuries; but at the age of 32, Donovan is heading off to the Hollywood hills with his wife, the actress Bianca Kajilch.

I blame Klinsmann, especially after watching the U.S. struggle after Jozy Altidore’s hamstring injury that he suffered in the Americans’ first match versus Ghana. Donovan could have helped the U.S. but Klinsmann was looking ahead to Putin’s World Cup in 2018. Klinsmann never had any intention of flying to Brazil with Landon Donovan.

Donovan might have gotten a little satisfaction when the MLS All-Stars recently triumphed over Bayern Munich, 2-1, in Portland, Oregon.

Blutarsky

Being a proud American, I would have raised a Portland craft beer creation to salute Donovan’s game-winning strike. I then would have doused the Bayern Munich coaching staff with some shitty Beck’s after their disgraceful departure from the pitch. Neither John Belushi nor I can stand sore losin’,  punk ass Germans.