Victory

Growing up playing soccer, I got used to not winning. It's not that my teams weren't necessarily good, it's that you get used to there always being a better team than you somewhere out there. Then high school came along, and I always went into a game expecting to win. It's just something that you do when you play for BHS. Especially if you play for the BHS soccer team.

Now, this isn't to say that I always expect to be the best team out there (okay, to be honest, I usually expect this, and usually did in high school), but there's just something about my team (or perhaps my coach) that knew how to win when it came down to it. There were games when we would admit that we weren't the better team. But we won. We wouldn't always win the unimportant games (like pre-season), but when it came down to playoffs, we always managed to pull it off, even if pulling it off meant playing for a tie and knowing that our goalkeeper was better than theirs.

Now, in my adult league, we expect to always win - there just isn't the competition to make us doubt ourselves. But tournaments are a different story. We still go in expecting to win, but sometimes get a wake-up call. We'll become complacent about passes and going to the ball because we've become used to our usual competition. So it's fun and refreshing to have to play your heart out just to tie a team that is obviously better than you, and then beat them in a shoot-out. (As much as I think shoot-outs are a horrible way to decide a soccer game, I have to admit that they've usually gone in my favor). There's just something sweet about being able to say, "Yeah, you're probably better. But we beat you when it counted." (Even if you would prefer to both be better and beat the other team). And I got to say that this past weekend.