by Steve Moore
I suffered from Foot-Eye Dweeb-Itis, but Coach K had noticed that I have good hand-eye coordination. Like when I accidentally grabbed the soccer ball like a loose basketball.
So Coach K moved me to the goalkeeper position, where grabbing the ball with your hands is pretty much the most important job. That made me and my bored hands very happy.
Liz Casey, who was playing goalkeeper, moved to my defender position. That made Liz happy. Very happy.
In the second half of the match, I hunkered down, knees bent, in front of the goal. I flexed my wrists and fingers. I felt more comfortable. And my feet and eyes reestablished communication.
My hands were free to grab the ball and my feet were free to move without having to stop, control, or kick the soccer ball.
Coach K. even gave me a pair of gloves to improve my grip and help soften the sting when I deflected a kick on goal.
I did feel some pressure, though, because I am an ace benchwarmer, but not a hotshot athlete. And goalkeeper is even more important than center midfielder because—big, drooly duh—if there is no goalkeeper, there is a big problem.
The first minutes of the second half, I stopped a couple of weak and useless kicks on goal, but I was starting to have fun—and I wasn’t even bored.
Our team no longer had a “weak link” (er, me) to attack, so the Pinecones were having a hard time moving the ball close to the goal.
Meanwhile, Joey did his quick-as-a-flea thing.
We didn’t score, but all the action was on the Pinecones’ end of the field. And I was feeling confident. Maybe a little too confident.
Joey actually predicted what was going to happen next, although none of us could hear exactly what he said because Joey is really soft-spoken.
About ten seconds later, while the ball was in play on the far end of the field, I got distracted by a rustling noise behind the goal.
A skunk had wandered out of nearby bushes.
Remember when I told you that I love animals? (If you already forgot, that would be really pathetic because it wasn’t very many pages ago.)
Well, I love animals but not all animals.
Skunks are near the top of the list of animals that don’t exactly fry my burger—right below deathstalker scorpions, pretty much the deadliest scorpion in the entire world.
If you know about skunks and their stanky “natural defense system,” then I’m pretty sure I don’t need to explain why they rank so high.
My dad taught me on camping trips to never challenge a skunk because they always win. So I backed off. WAY off . . .
. . . just as the Pinecones goalkeeper booted the ball from the far end of the field, right over Joey and Liz and Stephanie and every other Mighty Plumbers player.
The ball landed fifteen yards in front of our goal and rolled right into the back of the net.
Fighting Pinecones four, Mighty Plumbers three.
That was bad. But it got worse.
The ball startled the skunk, and it whipped its rear end around and blasted the soccer ball with its stanky natural defense system.
Unfortunately, I was standing within the blast zone.
Oh. My. Derp.
I was covered in stench. Hair. Face. Arms. Legs. Shorts. Jersey. Socks. Shoes.
The smell was so bad that I had to fight the dreaded “gag reflex”—that thing where it feels like you’re going to blow chunks, but all you do is gag air and bleat like a goat.
I didn’t run. I didn’t roll on the ground. I didn’t jump up and down like a lunatic. I just stood in front of the goal, frozen, as if the skunk spray had some kind of paralyzing effect.
Coach K and the referee ran toward the goal to see if I was injured or had been frozen by an alien’s laser or something, but they both slammed on the breaks as soon as they caught a whiff of the skunk’s stanky natural defense system.
I told them a gigantic whopper.
So the ref blew the whistle to continue the game.
The skunk attack had a strange effect on the outcome of the game.
The Pinecones players didn’t want to go anywhere near me and my stank, so they didn’t score again for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, my Mighty Plumbers teammates were so weirded out by the unprovoked skunk attack that they lost focus and also failed to score.
The Fighting Pinecones won the high-scoring match, four goals to three.
After the game, I wasn’t exactly welcomed into the traditional lineup where players from both teams file past each other and act all friendly and slap hands and say “good game” even if they don’t mean it.
CHAPTER 15
When the Mighty Plumbers JV team lost the match against the Fighting Pinecones, we entered the “consolation bracket.” Or, as Jimmy Jimerino called it, the “losers’ bracket.”
That’s where teams go that have zero hope of winning the tournament championship.
We had another game to play. If we won, we’d play a third game to decide the champion of the consolation/losers’ bracket. If we lost, we were done.
There were a few hours until our next match, so we all watched the Mighty Plumbers varsity team in their first-round match against Simplot Middle School, “Home of the Blazing Spuds.”
There was a big crowd watching the match because the Spiro varsity team was favored to reach the tournament final. The sidelines were lined with players from other teams, coaches, passersby, maybe a few international spies. And, of course, the players’ parents.
You probably already know this, but there is a strict social structure for spectators at matches. And soccer parent spectators pretty much rule the sidelines.
Quick Time-Out about Soccer Parents
Here’s what I have been told by fairly reliable soccer sources:
There are three types of soccer parents—the Hunky-Dories, the Howlers, and the Buttinskies.
(Maybe four types if you count the No-Shows—parents who would rather eat an entire bowl of live maggots than watch a single soccer match.)
The Hunky-Dories are passive parents. They politely clap and cheer, even for the other team.
They sit placidly in their folding chairs in blazing hot or bitterly cold weather. Hunky-Dories believe that soccer is a fun game that will teach their kids the value of teamwork.
The Howlers are aggressive parents who rush in and plant their folding chairs in the prime spots on the sideline at midfield.
Then they scream their lungs out and criticize referees, coaches, players, Hunky-Dories—pretty much anyone who irritates them.
The Buttinskies are the worst spectators. They are control-freak parents who don’t even bother to bring folding chairs to the soccer match because they never sit down. Instead, they roam up and down the sideline and yell instructions to players—especially their own kids.
Among the sideline spectators at the Mighty Plumbers–Blazing Spuds match was Jimmy Jimerino’s dad.
He had made the four-hour drive to the Laurensville tournament, without stopping for a restroom break, to watch his hotshot son dominate the other weak and useless soccer players.
Jimmy could have bolted from Spiro to play for an elite soccer club team, but his dad wanted him to play for a team where Jimmy would be the dominant player.
I watched the Spuds-Plumbers match on a hill overlooking the end of the soccer field. Joey and Carlos were trying to be all cool and loyal like Benchkateers, but they wisely chose to sit at a safe distance.
There was no way to get my clothing de-skunked and I didn’t have spare gear, so I was surrounded by an invisible cloud of stank.
I had a good view of the game and everything that was happening on the sidelines. It was obvious right away that Mr. Jimerino was a combination of two soccer parent types.
He was a Howler and a Buttinsky.
Mr. Jimerino brought a folding chair that he firmly planted on the sideline right at the prime midfield mark. But he never even sat in the chair.
Jimmy’s dad roamed the sideline and screamed his lungs out an
d criticized anyone who irritated him. And he yelled instructions to the Spiro players as if he was the coach.
Mr. Jimerino was especially hard on his son.
For the first time since I met Jimmy in first grade, when he purposely tripped me in the cafeteria when I was carrying a tray with a plate full of spaghetti, I actually felt kind of sorry for him.
Every time Jimmy got the ball, or was anywhere near the ball, his dad would shout at him.
I was beginning to understand why Jimmy Jimerino had become a hotshot BJOC who rules over a posse of kiss-ups at Spiro T. Agnew Middle School.
CHAPTER 16
In the first half of the match, the Mighty Plumbers jumped out to a huge lead over the Blazing Spuds, one goal to zip.
I knew Jimmy Jimerino and his posse of kiss-ups were great soccer players. And I knew Becky O’Callahan was a great soccer player. But I was surprised that Ricky Schnauzer—Ricky Schnauzer—was a great soccer player.
On the bus ride to the tournament, Ricky wore a neatly pressed shirt, sport coat, and tie. And he saved a seat for Becky!
He didn’t look like a hotshot soccer player, but I guess you should never judge a book by its cover, as Billionaire Bill always says, because it turned out that Ricky actually had skills as a goalkeeper.
In the match against the Blazing Spuds, Ricky stopped every shot on goal. And I’m not even making that up.
Becky, meanwhile, was scoring goals practically every time she got a foot on the ball. That did not make Jimmy Jimerino happy—or his Howler-Buttinsky dad—because Jimmy considers himself the “go-to guy” in every sport.
But Jimmy had something else on his mind.
Thunderfoot.
The legendary player from Brazil was on the sideline watching the game between the Mighty Plumbers and the Blazing Spuds. He probably showed up to scout the two teams in case his Nike Prep team had to play one of them in the championship game.
When the ball rolled out of bounds in front of Thunderfoot, he picked it up and handed it to a Spiro player—the girl with Nature’s Near-Perfect Smile.
I think Becky and Thunderfoot made eye contact for a little too long, though, because Jimmy ran over to the sideline and grabbed the ball out of her hands.
Jimmy tossed the ball back inbounds. Then he turned to Thunderfoot and gave him the major stink eye. But Thunderfoot just smiled.
“Good day, sunshine!”
The Mighty Plumbers varsity team slaughtered the Blazing Spuds, two goals to zip, and moved on to the next round just as everyone expected.
One more win and they would be in the championship game.
CHAPTER 17
The JV team’s next match was against K. L. Enron Middle School, “Home of the Screaming Bulls.” Their players all must have had bad colds with stuffed-up noses because my skunk smell did not have a deterrent effect like it did in the Blazing Spuds game.
The Screaming Bulls wasted no time moving the ball downfield and taking a shot on our goal.
But in spite of the skunk fiasco, I had gained confidence in the previous match. (Although I kept glancing behind me toward the nearby brush, just in case.)
The Screaming Bulls took three shots on goal and I blocked all three. I even got to do one of those hotshot goalkeeper blocks where the body goes airborne and stretches out from fingers to toes.
Meanwhile, Joey and Stephanie Jennison took turns attacking the Screaming Bulls goal. Joey would steal the ball and dart, quick as a flea, between the opponents’ legs and run downfield.
Then he’d kick the ball into the net before the poor goalkeeper even realized that Joey had the ball.
And Stephanie was a master of foot-eye coordination. She controlled a soccer ball with the feet just like a point guard controls a basketball with the hands.
Backward and forward.
Side to side.
Behind her back.
When Stephanie kicked, the ball shot like a line drive. Or she’d put a spin on the ball and it would curve around defenders. Or she’d fake them out and chip-shot the ball over their head to a teammate.
Just before the half, the Screaming Bulls center midfielder took the ball away from Liz Casey and dribbled straight for our goal. Joey easily caught up to him and slid like a baseball player and knocked the ball away.
The ball rolled toward our goal and into the penalty area, which meant that I could sprint out and intercept the ball with my hands just like a defensive back in football. But the Screaming Bulls player recovered from Joey’s deflection and raced toward the ball.
I had a split second to decide: Do I stay back and try to block a kick, or do I run out and try to grab the ball before the opponent can make a kick?
You already know that I have quick feet. No brag. It’s just a fact.
So I sprinted out, leaving the goal unprotected, and fell on top of the ball. The Screaming Bulls player had to slam on the brakes and dive over the top of me to avoid a foul.
It was a risky move, but I saved a goal.
The referee blew the whistle for the half. The score was tied.
We jogged off the field to suck on orange segments. My teammates shouted, at a safe distance from my skunk odor, “Nice save!”
And Coach K gave me what most sports experts consider the ultimate compliment from a coach.
It’s hard to admit, but I started to think that maybe I was wrong about the game of soccer.
Soccer wasn’t boring. Even though there wasn’t a lot scoring like in basketball (except in matches where Thunderfoot was on the field), there was a lot of action—especially for a goalkeeper like me.
And it’s true that soccer players run up and down the field with very few breaks unless you keel over from a broken leg or some other ailment, but I realized that’s part of the excitement. At any given moment, there was a one-on-one matchup where one player was trying to move the ball and a defender was trying to stop him.
(But probably not with a bulldozer.)
Oh, and those yellow or red cards the ref pulls out when there is a foul? Well, I still wished they would just signal with their hands like in basketball or football.
CHAPTER 18
We lost the match with the Screaming Bulls.
In the second half, they repeatedly moved the ball into scoring position. But each time, the kick was stopped by me or a teammate.
My confidence continued to soar. I even started to believe that I might have a future as a goalkeeper in the most popular game in the universe.
There were about five seconds left in the match, when something extraordinary happened.
The ball landed in front of our goal. Joey and Stephanie were there to control the ball. One of them easily could have moved in and kicked the ball out of scoring range. But the two best players on our team made a critical error.
They hesitated.
A Screaming Bulls player did not hesitate and charged in. I didn’t stand a chance. She slammed the ball past my outreached hands and into the corner of the goal.
Game over.
Joey and Stephanie stood frozen in place staring at each other.
The Mighty Plumbers JV team was done.
Meanwhile, the varsity team smeared A. E. Neuman Middle School (“Home of the Madmen”) in the semifinal match, one goal to zip.
The game was tied until the final seconds. The Spiro players were moving the ball according to Coach Earwax’s designed plays, but they never got it into the goal.
The whole time, Mr. Jimerino was screaming his lungs out telling Jimmy to ignore the designed play and do it on his own.
Jimmy stuck with Coach Earwax’s plan until he could no longer ignore his dad’s screaming.
He dribbled the ball the length of the field, without passing off even once, and he scored the winning goal, which made Mr. Jimerino very happy.
Becky and Ricky and Jimmy and his kiss-up posse were headed into the tournament championship game.
They would be playing Thunderfoot and Nike Prep. The Fighting Plat
ypuses had pretty much annihilated the highly ranked Steaming Omelets of Les Bois Middle School, a hundred to zip.
When I got back to the hotel, I stripped out of my stanky soccer gear and tossed the jersey, shorts, socks—even my underwear—into the garbage chute at the end of the hallway.
I climbed into the shower and drenched myself for about two hours. And I’m not even exaggerating.
But after all of the hot water and soap and scrubbing, my body still smelled like skunk. I think it was stuck deep down in the pores of my skin.
That night, Carlos got to sleep comfortably in the bed instead of on the couch because I was banished from the room.
CHAPTER 19
The next morning at the delicious Laurensville Garden Hotel buffet breakfast, Thunderfoot and Becky O’Callahan were sitting at the same table. They both had plates piled high with waffles, bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, and biscuits.
I was thinking maybe they were doing some kind of research in advance of the Big Game. Like maybe the hotshot Spiro player and the hotshot Nike Prep player were checking each other out, searching for some kind of mental weakness in their opponent.
Or maybe they were just sharing a table and eating a delicious buffet breakfast.
Jimmy Jimerino was sitting two tables away. He did not approve of Becky socializing with a player from the team that Spiro would face in the championship game. He and his posse kept staring over at Thunderfoot and whispering among themselves.
At one point, Thunderfoot looked over at Jimmy and his kiss-up posse and smiled.
Jimmy and his posse were flabbergasted. They were not expecting Thunderfoot’s purely friendly greeting.