While watching the ladies World Cup game this evening, I was getting all pumped up and reminiscing from high school soccer. I played stopper for three years on varsity.  I was amazed at the skill level of the women's team and believe if any of their players was on my team they would have dominated it.

The only thing my team was good at was we were very physical. We would slide tackle all the time whether touching the ball or not. Probably not fun for our opponents though. Then our coach didn't want us to slide tackle anymore because he said it would be like being a man down. Needless to say we ignored him.

We also played a lot of "boot and run," where we would just send the ball as deep and far down the field as we can and run after it. I feel like I could usually beat one man but then would try and get rid of the ball as soon as possible after that. LOL. We also always ran an offsides trap. It was our bread and butter. The sweeper would call for everyone to pull up and we would catch teams offsides all the time. So between that and slide tackles we were able to keep it close.

I feel like some of the players on both teams would act like they were shot or something when someone bumped into them, tripped or held them. I wonder why I never added this embellishment to my repertoire. I could have drawn a lot of yellow cards and direct, and indirect kicks.

My only goal was against Bexley on a penalty kick. The German lady missed low and to the left. I always hit it in the lower left corner on the ground like she attempted.  I feel like if you hit it right, even if the goalie guesses correctly, they are unable to get to it. 

Anyways, just thinking back to my glory days, and wondering if anyone else played soccer growing up, and had any good memories to share. I can't wait until Sunday for us to bring home the World Cup championship!