Two goals I didn't see

"He scored another one!"

As usual, I'm lost when watching a soccer game. Everytime I watch one(and I only watch those where either hubby or (now) H is playing), I manage to miss goals, especially those scored by hubby. Many a times I have to resort to having people turn to me exclaiming,

"Did you see that?"

And many a times I respond with,

"Who scored the goal?"

Duh.

That is how much I'm not in tune with soccer or any other sports (generally).

When a fellow parent exclaimed,

"Wow! He scored another one!" I first looked at him, and then scanned the field. I had seen H somewhere among the crowd of 6 and 7 year olds scrimmaging close to the goal post. As I peered closely, I realized that the parent was talking about my boy. H had scored another goal!

Of course, I missed his first one, but not totally my fault, because some mothers were blocking my view and I was not in the mood to tell them to move out of the way. Only when hubby came rushing to me exclaiming,

"Did you see that? Your son scored a goal!"

did the ladies bow out of the way because I responded in a torrent of exasperated Malay clearly containing the word "blocking".

I am not the kind of parent who jumps up and down at a goal, even if it's made by my heroes. Never have I done that, and some soccer fans might take that as just plain "square". So I didn't jump with joy when H scored those two goals, just as I didn't scream with excitement when hubby scored his goals in his games.

I did notice however that the coach made a big deal out of it. Later on H told me that after he had scored one of the goals, the coach came to him and said,

"Come on, man! DO something!"

because H didn't react with jumping jacks or whoops, but simply a one-sided dimpled grin.

"Top scorer, huh?" a parent hailed to us as we walked back to the van.

"You did great, H!" yelled a fellow team mate.

As my son sat on the sidelines with the rest of his teammates, I saw a boy talking to him. Of course, being this very nosy mother, I later asked him what the conversation was about.

"S said to me that if I weren't the forward, we wouldn't have scored those goals," he said.

"He also said to me many times that I did a good job."

Last week, one of their team mates scored a very BEAUTIFUL goal. Now, that one, I witnessed because it was so beautiful. Even hubby said the goal was excellent especially for a kid. Funny how I'm able to perfectly witness other people's goals but not my husband and son's.

H has been appointed forward so many times in the games that I gave up at his ever being a goalie. After he scored those two goals however, coach appointed him defense, and we could see that he wasn't that good at defending because the other team scored a goal. Hubby said he had been coaching H to score and not defend. H later said,

"Defense is boowwing. I like midfield."

"Why?"

"Because I can carry the ball to both sides of the field."

That was last weekend. H has another game this Saturday and it's his last one for this season. October 24 or 25, insyaallah, we will register him for the basketball league which will start in January.

Go Ravens! (coming from a soccer-ignorant mother) I wonder what team he'll be in for basketball.