~Not Food Related~

I had a rather silly run in with some sore losers this weekend.

I've been playing on an indoor soccer team for about 2.5 years now. We played at the beginner level this whole time because we're there to have fun and frankly, we're not that great of players. My "professional" soccer career started when a couple of coworkers threw the idea around and I jumped at the idea. I've currently got some friends and strangers from craigslist mixed in and our skills may have improved, but not enough to advance to the intermediate level.

This last Friday we played a team that's historically kicked our butts every time we play them. They all know each other really well and they communicate while they're playing, which is a problem for us. Jeff complains that they kick a little too hard at him in the goal but for the most part, they belong on another level. This particular game we picked up an additional player that happened to be really good. He's the kind of player who's there to play and doesn't show off. He just has fun.

I was subbing out the last 8 minutes of the game and sitting on the bench to catch my breath. I heard a commotion and stood up, fearing a shoving match or worse; an incident like the header that happened the week before that resulted in 13 stitches. The entire team that we were playing was walking off the field! I asked one of my players what happened and he told me they were fed up with us being too advanced. Now, I would understand if we were ahead by more than 7 points or so, but the score when they left? 6-3. This team has definitely won over us by much larger gaps. I really don't think they're used to losing and I don't believe their actions were fair. The ref was laughing at them and a female player on their team came over and apologized for how her teammates were acting. I told her that this was a first for us and while we picked up an advanced player, we were definitely not as good as they were making us out to be.

Seriously. You can't win them all.