Journal #4 Saturday, June 23, 2007
Today we were to have our first game indoors. We woke up at the
usual time and ate
breakfast with all of our team. Breakfast it's the same everyday, eggs, fresh
fruit, cake,
cake and breads. Today the eggs were a little different, we as a group decided
that
someone in the kitchen had dropped a salt container into the eggs and didn't really
do anything to try and fix it. After, we drove to the court that we were supposed
to play our game on with everyone on our regular bus. The court was
even nicer there than the ones we had played on previously. We played the
same team that we had beaten 4-2 on the out door court which they weren't
very good at. Futsal is very different tactically and technically than outdoor
and it
showed today. I couldn't play because of the concussion I suffered earlier in
week
so I got to do a lot of watching. The Futsal team we played was made up of a
bunch of 15-17 year olds that had been playing futsal their whole lives. Because
I couldn't play and was really the only goalie, we asked these two 18 year old
Australians to play with us. They had been playing with Malwee for two months
in
Brazil so they knew what they were doing. The game looked like a fun one, expect
for the fact that as a group we weren't the best at futsal. In the end we didn't
really
have a lot of possession and we lost 8-4. We started off well with the scores
level at
half but they slowly pulled away and we conceded 4 goals in the last 2 minutes.
After we lost that game we gave the other team a ride in our bus back to their
training facility and it was a very interesting experience. Some of them spoke
English but
not really so we communicated through body language and broken Spanish. We then
went
straight to lunch and ate at the usual place. We went back to the hotel and showered
quickly because we had to go to the girls game soon after. Some napped and some
showered,
but we had to get out and on the bus. The girls played at the place we usually
train at and
they played the U21 Malwee female team. The game didn't get started for a while
because
nothing ever is on time. The game was semi comical because girl's soccer out side
of the US isn't really the same as boy's futsal. Not to sound sexists, but there
when one looks even at the international level for women's soccer, the US always
does well or the best. In any case, the girls did very well and had to borrow
a goal keeper from the other team. I think it is safe to say that we had at least
90% of the possession but were not able to score in the first half. Whenever our
girls got near the goal they would hit it right at the Brazilian keeper, and the
two chances the Brazilians got, they scored. So at half we were down by two and
the girls changed their style of play. With the time winding down, our girls scored
4 goals in the last 2 minutes and won the game. After this we went to see one
of Malwee's games. There were no real league games tonight but there was an exhibition
game at a gym 2 hours away. So naturally we went to the game and watched Malwee
dominate with a 9-1 score line. The game was pretty low key and there weren't
that many people watching but it was still a good time. After the game we went
down and took pictures with the famous people. To celebrate the win we went out
to dinner to a pizza place and stayed there until midnight having a good time.