Sunday Soccer Game

Sunday morning and the weather was perfect! I decided to get a table outside and as I’m taking a seat Linda approached me. I’ve only been to that coffee shop twice, and both times Linda has made me feel welcome. Every time I see her I can’t help but smile, she’s a beautiful lady, I barely know her but every time I talk to her it’s like we’ve known each other for years. There’s a park across the street from the coffee shop, and as I look over I noticed a bunch of little kids playing soccer. One of them caught my eye; he looked to be only about 4 years old and was the cutest thing ever.

The other kids look older than him, and as they’re running across the field it’s obvious he couldn’t keep up. You’d think that after running back and forth across the field about five times he would’ve given up, but instead he kept trying to get to them, trying to kick the ball and be part of the game. As one of the older kids calls time out, I noticed that Pablito (the 4-year old boy) runs up to this other boy (Pedro). I’m assuming Pedro is Pablitos older brother because there is an obvious resemblance; Pedro kneeled down and told Pablito something, by his facial expressions it looked as if it was something important. Pedro then stood up and hugged Pablito, Pablito then runs towards the tree were all the other boys were sitting and took a sip of water. Finally all the kids stood up and started to walk towards the field, as the game goes on I noticed that Pablito was still struggling to keep up!

The other team (blue team) then scores their first goal; I noticed that as the blue team celebrates their goal Pablito looked down and shook his head in frustration. Pedro then yells, “Pablito, ya ponte listo! Vamos a ganar eh!” Pablito looked at his brother and just smiled. As the game played out, I could tell that Pedro was trying really hard to involve Pablito, but it was clear that he couldn’t keep up; his size was a disadvantage. After a few times of running back and forth across the field one of Pedro’s teammates scored their first goal. The whole team went crazy, their excitement was unbelievable! The game was now tied! I’m not sure about the rules, plays, or exactly what it is called but I’m assuming that they did penalties of five kicks as a tiebreaker.

The blue team gets to go first, as they scored their first goal I noticed that Pablito got upset. Pedro’s teammate is up, he looks focused and ready to kick the ball but unfortunately he missed. Its 1-0 in favor of the blue team; blue team is up, they missed. Its Pedro’s turn to kick; he looked over to Pablito and with his right hand pointed at him and smiled as if he was dedicating that kick to him. Pedro scored! He then runs and carries Pablito on his shoulders; its 1-1, and each team has three kicks left. Both teams missed their next kicks. It’s still 1-1 with two kicks left, as the blue team is up to kick I noticed that Pedro goes up to Pablito. As the blue team scores, Pablito then starts to jump up and down with excitement. He then heads to the field; I was surprised to see that he was going to kick a penalty since throughout the entire game I hadn’t seen him touch the ball once. His expression was priceless; he looked over to his brother and did the same thing Pedro did. With his right hand he pointed at him as if he was dedicating that kick to him. Pablito scored!! The whole team runs up to him and starts cheering!

I got all excited too, I honestly didn’t expect him to score. It is 2-2 with only one kick left for each team... blue team is up, at this point I was nervous, and I wanted Pablitos team to win! Thankfully the blue team missed, now it was up to Pablitos teammate to make this kick. Pablitos teammate scored!! They won the game!!  I think I was just as excited as they were that they had won; I guess that in a sense size was a disadvantage throughout the game but when it was time for Pablito to come through for his team, he did!