Defend the Bacon

Today, Ethan participated in a 3v3 soccer tournament in Beaumont, TX.  It was a fun, friendly tournament where no score was kept and each team was responsible for coming up with a fun name, costumes, and a team cheer.

Since our soccer club is called the Flying Pigs, all the teams have related names, such as the Bacon Bits for the U6 team, Team Bacon for the 3v3 teams, and the Ball Hogs for the adult teams.

Ethan has never played 3v3 before so it was a new experience for him.  He played well though, even assisting in one of the most awesome goals I have ever seen his team make.  He kicked the ball to a team mate from the sideline on the right side of the goal, and then his teammate, Daniel, head butted it right into the goal, even with defenders all around.

We registered two teams for this tournament and the two teams played a total of four games.  We were scheduled for three more games, but our coaches pulled the teams from competition early.

Two of the team we played were really nasty and were cheating.  They were pulling older players in to put on the field and making really mean cheers up to chant at our players.

There were no officials for this tournament and coaches were to remain quiet on the sidelines and let the kids play the game on their own. These teams had no coaches, but a dad running both teams.  At one point, we were playing both teams at the same time on side-by-side fields.  He would run out onto the fields and ask players what the score was and even brought on to one team a U12 player who was not registered with the team to run up the score. Our teams were U11 and Ethan's team was U10, meaning all kids on the team are that age or younger.

Our coaches got really annoyed, especially since our STEEL team had played his team at a previous tournament in Beaumont.  They were getting mad that our team was beating them and began substituting players to the team from another team from their club, either their U12 or U14 team.  Our little team still beat them and they were so angry.

So after their behavior on the field that morning, our coaches decided to pull our team from the afternoon games, especially since we were scheduled to play both of these teams again.  We went to Chili's for lunch with Ethan's friend, Maddy, and her family and then headed home.

We had fun anyway, except for maybe Ethan, for a moment, who had an allergy attack, most likely to the grass.  He was sneezing so badly and it did not calm down until we left the fields and headed back to Lake Charles.  Poor kid!!

There is a chance that Ethan can compete in 3v3 again this summer if it does not conflict with summer swim too much.  He loves soccer and has fun every time he plays.