Scott's 3 (or 4) Goal Breakout Game

As you may recall, Scott scored a goal in his first U4 soccer game back on May 2. Since then, he hadn't scored again. He has followed the play closely and has had the chance to kick the ball quite a bit, but usually he just watched it after he kicked it once, rather than trying to take it all the way down the field. Also, he has often sat back and waited for other people to try kicking it, rather than horning in on their opportunity.

For the last few weeks we have been encouraging him to play more aggressively and pursue the ball more. In this week's game, when he was sitting on the sideline, we pointed out the play of another boy on the team (named Thomas) who seems to score at will. Thomas takes the ball the length of the field for the goal, beating everyone else to the ball every time. He actually doesn't have a lot of ability to change directions, but once he's headed the right way he usually scores. We pointed him out to Scott and said, "you should try to do it the way Thomas does it."

On his next shift Scott scored 2 goals, and then scored one more on the following shift. In fact, when I was editing the video clips together I thought I saw him score another one right after the first, which would bring the total to four. You watch it and you tell me if you think he scored it.



While you are at it, watch the video closely for his sweet move where he reverses the direction of the ball by putting his foot on top of it and pushing it back behind him. It's his trademark move and I heard the coach say, "Whoa!" when he saw Scott do it in the game. Scott is very strict about only kicking the ball in the direction of the other team's goal, so this is his solution. It's borne out of our basement games where he has to pull the ball out from under the piano or from behind the TV stand.

His games have always been fun to watch, but watching his victory dance after his first goal was extra-fun. Way to go Scotty!