Rob Lasso: Episode Six

“Our goal is to go out like Willie Nelson — on a high!” -- Ted Lasso

This is the point in our story where we've done some character development and established the broadcontours of our plot. As is customary at this juncture in most serials, this episode is a montage that builds to our final act. Buckle your seatbelts, 'cause we're covering five games with my customary brevity and economy of words. Succinctly, quickly, if you will. Rapid fire. No flowery language or meandering on the way to the point. Not here. Not now.

When we left our kids, they'd won three straight and started to believe in themselves. Bumps appeared in the road. We played a tough opponent, skilled and physical, and they hit us in the metaphorical face. We were down a goal quickly, and should've been down three in the first ten minutes, but righted the ship and looked to make it to halftime down one. Until we gave up a breakaway in the final minute of the first half.

"Make 'em feel you", we once again implored our nice, polite girls. And sure enough, they fought back. Roo battled, won a ball, fed Kenz on the win, and she blasted a ball past the other team's exceptional keeper...off the post. But the ball bounced in our favor, and Little Ab contorted her body to convert an acrobatic volley for our first goal.

Ellie made a couple of sloppy mistakes that took the wind out of our sails, which bracketed a scrappy goal by Kenny, and we wound up losing a 4-2 game that couldashoulda been a draw.

In the second half, Roo went up for a 50/50 ball with an opposing players, and their heads cracked together. The other player left the game, and we found out the next day that Roo had concussion symptoms. She came to practice dying to play regardless. The trainer told her she could run two laps and nothing else, so I drew the duty of keeping her from doing an extra lap. We might need to strap her down, 'cause that kid's like the offspring of the Energizer Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil.

We lost the next game, 3-0, to the undefeated district leaders. The kids got overrun early, and it looked like a long night was in the offing. But we upped the ante physically and held them scoreless in the second half. Kenz, who's a slight freshman, was excellent, and the boys' team (who had their game cancelled and showed up to support us) hyped her loudly.

After the game, Sid's mom sought me out to share how much she appreciates how I'm working with her kid, which was humbling and really kind. 

Our school system eliminated the requirement that coaches wear masks, which led to a funny moment before our final home game of the season. Mac said, "Coach, did you get a haircut? You look different."

"Mac", I said, "You've never seen my face before."

Breezy, who was listening in, said "Coach is a babyface!"

Better than a heel, for sure.

The rest of the evening wasn't that fun. We left the field on the wrong end of an inexplicably bad 2-0 loss on Senior Night. They're a decent team, with one very good player, but we were lost for long stretches in the first half - we didn't record a single shot. Another scoreless second, so some modest progress, but we need to figure something out.

After the game, we announced the roster for our first and only JV game of the year, a mix of kids that don't get much varsity time and a couple of freshmen who do. At the time we made the list, we thought we had 13 players. Then Roo and another kid got hurt, leaving us with 11. Until an hour before gametime when another kid (who we aren't gonna name, for reasons that will become obvious) informed us that she had a doctor's appointment and couldn't make the game.

Difficult, that.

So I made my high school head coaching debut playing down a woman against a team with a full complement. We were by far the better team, outshooting our opponent by something on the order of 20-6. We hit posts, missed open nets, and did our damnedest to find creative ways not to score. They blooped one over our keeper, took advantage of our center back slipping and falling in the middle of the field, scored off a ball that bounced off our player's back on a clearance, and hit us on the counter late in the game after I went to three in the back to try to score. 

Lost, 4-0. Weirdest dame game I've seen in a while.

Lily, who's a junior who doesn't play much on Varsity but was effective in this game, came off the field pissed like I didn't know she had in her. Little did she know that the kid who had the "doctor's appointment" posted pictures on her social media from a track meet that she attended instead of showing up for her team.

When I learned that, I asked myself, What Would Ted Lasso Do? And what he'd do, which is what I'm doing, is not let that player get on the field again until she makes amends to the teammates she let down. 

A little sour note in what's been a really excellent experience to date, and we washed it away with our final regular season game.

We traveled for our finale to face a team that beat us, 2-0, in a game we controlled earlier in the season. Our kids were really good. Despite missing three starters who were out of town for a travel tournament, we were by far the better side. Dutch moved into midfield because of the lineup change, and dominated on both offense and defense. Jennie was denied by a spectacular save. Lily, who was still pissed from the JV game, played her best Varsity minutes to date. Ellie didn't have to do a ton, but made the smart plays and kept a clean sheet. And Mac, who plays a defensive-minded center back and was competing in the final regular season game of her career, scored her first-ever high school on a free kick from 30 yards out. That's all we needed, and that's all we got.

The 1-0 win gave us fourth place in our district, which means we host a home game tonight against a team we've played twice already. They beat us, 4-1, in our season opener and we repaid them the favor a few weeks later when Breezy shut down their star striker and we tallied a pair to win, 2-0. A win gets us another crack at the regular season champions.

By this time tomorrow, we'll know if today's the last day of my first season as a professional coach. I hope it's not. But either way, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.