💾 Archived View for jiewawa.flounder.online › football › march2021 › index.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 15:44:51. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Frequent readers of my blog may remember that in my new year's goals post, I set a rather lofty target for myself. The day before I wrote that post, I had just played a very casual kickabout with the guys and had scored 7 goals, so I foolishly thought I would be able to score 100 goals in this calendar year.
March comes around and so does the opportunity to score more goals. In general, I ended up doing a lot more defending than I had in previous months, so it reflects quite poorly on my goal talley. Anyway, enough with the excuses, let's see how I got on.
This was a match in which I spent more time in our own half than in the opponents. Whenever I play football, I can tell within the first few minutes if I'm feeling leggy or if I'll be able to run about like a madman all game. This was one of the former days, and I barely had a sniff of the goal in the first half.
As time went on and other players caught up with my level of legginess, the game opened up. People started tracking back a lot less which gave me a great opportunity to loiter between the two opposition defenders.
Then when a well weighted through ball was slipped between the two of them, it was easy enough for me to hook onto it with the laces of my right boot with a powerful first time shot across the keeper.
The game was drawing to a close, and both teams were trying to get a final goal that they both felt their teams deserved on the night. With both teams pushing, it became counter attack after counter attack with very few defenders doing any actual defending of note.
A long ball over the top was latched onto by one of our better players and he lured the keeper towards him before passing the ball to me as I arrived in the box for a sweaty tap in.
Generally speaking, my preferred position is an upfront free roaming role with little defensive responsibilities. So when another player who runs even less than me ends up on my team, I need to adjust my game. This is what I have been doing quite a lot lately and is particulary evident in this match where I had a quiet night in front of goal.
An early goal was all I really had to offer in terms of an attacking output. I was waiting near the right wing and moved towards the edge of the box as the ball came to my feet. A quick right footed control and a left footed curled effort into the top left corner was enough to beat the keeper. But other than that it was a quiet game for me.
A quiet week was followed by an eventful Sunday, which saw me finish a healthy three goals.
I started the match in goal, and was playing well, but the rest of my team were struggling in the transitional phases. When it was time for me to come out of the net, I went and quickly scored a powerful shot from the edge of the box after a player on the right wing found me in space. It was perhaps my first touch as an outfield player.
My second goal of the night was one of my more impressive goals in recent memory. I was waiting on the right wing and the ball came to my feet. I feigned running down the line before cutting inside and beating the defender. Then I unleashed a powerful low shot across the keeper with the ball rustling the back of the net.
Finally, a goal came from an area that despite my height, I do not tend to excel in. Set pieces. In our six a side games, we opt for kick-ins over throw-ins and they normally don't lead to anything significant.
We had a kick-in from the left hand side and I made a wiley run between the two lines of defense. Then with the defetest of touches, I kicked the ball with the outside of my right boot and managed to capture everybody flat-footed. The ball ended up in the back of the net much to everybody's surprise and I wheeled away in adulation from my team mates.
March was the month that saw me earn my first points in my end of year table that I linked in my 2021 goals post. 14 goals from 7 games is not too shabby and I'm happy with my progress. I haven't decided to start playing more matches in a frantic panic to reach my target number of goals, but who knows if I will.