Tales of (Old Man) Football

While I tend to regularly post about Zach's coaching and the women's team achievements, I rarely give updates on his personal prowess on the pitch. 

Yes, Zach still plays the game. 

Though, by his own words, the current playing strategy is that the mind knows what to do, but the body lags....and the knees are a bit cranky. 

As with every semester, he plays competitively with the teachers team in the campus competition. However, before the opening game began this year, a rather serious discussion took place. In Zach's retelling of their initial huddle, a fellow teacher lamented that the student opponents remain the same age, but their ages increase. By a quick calculation, it was declared that the average age of the teachers team is 42. Zach said there was a collective round of 'ai-yahs' and groans, alongside a few shoulder shrugs. With that stated, they turned to walk onto the field. 

The grizzled grit of the aged ready to take on the bravado of the youth. 

Watching these games are always delightful in the way that amateur sports can be, especially in a culture where foundational skill building is disregarded in favor of acting akin to the professionals. Every player who steps on a pitch in China is a Messi or Ronaldo; though the drama and rolling around on the field is mimicked the best. This makes for extremely comedic viewing and ample bemusement opportunities for the teachers, who stand over the floppy, young whippersnappers shaking their heads.

This semester's campus competition coincided with the Shenzhen women's tournament, which ended up being fortuitous for Zach. In one of the earlier campus games, he took a few knocks. It was not an overly physical game. However, many guys like the opportunity to take on the foreigner, not realizing that Zach is quite fearless and has a bit more muscle than them. The goalie in this game realized that it would have been wiser to go after the ball instead of Zach when he was making a run on goal. Zach got all ball, the goalie got all Zach. It took the goalie a while to stand up. 

However, this was not the fall that resulted in a mandatory pause from active play. That came in the second half, when Zach was late in a challenge and the opposing player ended up on top of him. Zach was promptly shown a yellow card ("I earned it," he declared from the field.) Four days later, it was confirmed that he had severely cracked two ribs in that tackle. It was not a career-ending injury, but it has taken about seven weeks to heal to a point that any movement does not elicit ample groans. 

It also was not a season-ending injury, as the trend this semester was to draw out every single competition to an obnoxious length. The Shenzhen tournament that was scheduled to be three weeks became seven weeks. The campus competition was to be six weeks but became ten. We bantered that it was a good thing that China was not hosting the World Cup this year as the month-long competition would have become three under the current trend.

Zach was able to play the final match against the Management major boys. These guys know Zach well and he knows them well, so he was happy he was well enough to play with them. The management crew was aware of the rib injury, resulting in not many challenges towards Zach. However, late in the second half, during a corner kick, one boy's elbow inadvertently struck Zach's ribs. Zach doubled over and the boy panicked. Zach was fine after a few breaths, but it was rather endearing at how horrified the boy was about his errant elbow. Zach calmed him down and made sure that all knew that it was absolutely unintentional. 

Zach's football calendar has finished for the semester, so the footy bag has been aired, disinfected, and stored until next season. Now, his free time is consumed by enjoying his new birthday present and yelling at the professionals.