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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.
This match took place just a few hours before the EURO 2020 final between England and Italy. This also means that it took place just a few hours before I drank copious amounts of alcohol and forgot most of the goals that I scored.
The main takeaways from the match were that I remember it being a particularly rainy day and nobody wanting to run around and injure themselves right before the big game. Because of this it meant that this game was right in my ball park. Not much running and the ball being unpredictable because of the weather.
My second goal of the night was the pick of the bunch. That is to say that it was the only goal that I can remember when I sat down to write this account at the end of the month. It was the sort of goal that is not often seen in these posts, or at my Sunday matches in general. That's because it was a goal that was scored from a corner.
I start near the back post, but make a run along the line of the D and to the centre of the edge of the box. A low, hard drilled cross is pumped into the box with power, and it manages to evade all of the opposition defenders (and our own attackers). There was just enought pace on the ball that when I meet it with my right foot, I just need to aim it goalwards and the goalkeeper could do nothing to stop it smashing the back of the net.
As I mentioned, we played on the night of the EURO 2020 final, and following that result I decided to take a bit of a detox from football and consequently forgot my first and third goals of the evening. I seem to remember them being world class strikes though, so it's a shame that you'll never be able to read about them.
This was a really interesting game for me. I started off playing really well. My touch was great and my passing was better than it normally was too. In fact my only goal of the night should have a special place in my collection.
There were two key moments which combined to make this beautiful goal. The first was a dummy that left the defender flatfooted on the halfway line. My teammate passed the ball from left back position to me in the midfield with pace and I noticed the only defender between me and the goal getting tight to me as the ball came to my feet. The pace on the ball demanded a good first touch especially with the oppostion breathing down my neck. However, instead of making that touch, I feigned going left and around the outside of the defender and actually just let the ball roll past me and him and ran onto it as quickly as I could.
The second key step was the finish. I was running at goal with only the keeper to beat, but with two defenders trying to catch up with me. On many previous weeks, I had been in similar situations and hadn't kept my cool which makes the finish even better. I looked the keeper in the eyes as I was still running towards goal and using my eyes I convinced him that I was going to put it in the bottom corner. You can imagine the look on his face then when I slotted the ball between his legs as he stood motionless between the sticks.
Unfortunately, this was where my good luck came to an end. As for some reason, perhaps it was the food that I ate before the match, or a lack of a proper warm up, I ended up essentially running out of steam as soon as this goal went in and found myself barely able to run until I injured myself not long later and had to go home early.
Despite injuring my toe, I mananged to keep to a pretty decent return of two goals per game. I'm not sure when I'm going to be back, but I have a feeling that it's not going to be until September at the very earliest.
At the start of the year, I set a goal for myself to score 100 goals in 2021. However at the start of July, in my update post, I decided that 100 goals was a little unatainable, so I decided to reduce the target to 50 goals.
I only need 14 more goals before the end of the year to get there, and I'm quietly hopefully that I do that. Anyway, I doubt that I'll play football in August so I'll post here again in two months time and I hope to see you then.