Recap: The number of guys fluctuated today, starting with twelve but soon swelled to the dreaded twenty-four, which meant two simultaneous games (four teams, six-a-side) with no subs. It topped out at twenty-eight (one sub per team) but that didn’t last that long.

Health Report: Good. Ankles held up well but the big problem today was sheer exhaustion. I actually stopped playing after 90 minutes because I was too pooped to continue and I was afraid I would injure myself.

Performance: Quite good. Lots of hard running and the guys playing were on the younger and fitter side, but that meant for good passing too. As time wore on the elastic in my legs wore out, meaning I lost some snap to my passes and I stumbled quite a bit. Balance is something I have a new appreciation for, as it goes quickly once the legs start to fatigue. But I pinged the ball pretty damn well before that.

Rating: — I’m being generous with the four-star rating here, but my drop in skill towards the end had everything to do with fatigue. I had a few zipping passes that warped the space-time continuum, two deliberate nutmeg passes, a number of decent goals, and my favorite—squeezing a few passes through a crowd of players that hits the feet of the striker on my team in front of goal with pace and accuracy that they’re not expecting it. (It’s actually quite funny when this happens: the guy runs to goal, calls for the ball, then lets up because he doesn’t think it’s coming. Then zip, the ball smacks him on the instep, and everyone razzes him for blowing a sitter. It’s much less funny when it happens to you of course, and it happens to almost everyone sooner or later.)

No wundergols today, though I did hit two beauties that each smacked the foot of the post, one a volley from distance, another from a tight angle. Until next week…