Relative Something

I did it again. I pulled “a Hays” the other day. It had been a while since the dubious feat that was named in my honor had occurred in our morning Futsal matches. Luckily, just a few days later, another player did the same thing, allowing me to finally enjoy not being the only person to accomplish the act which very quickly became named for me.

Our morning soccer games are played indoors on a wood-floor gymnasium. We set up PUGG® pop up goals on each end of the court and we are ready to go. If enough players show up, our ideal is 5 players on each team. You never know who will be there, so the teams randomly form each morning.

We have found that the number 5 also works well for the number of goals needed to win. First team to 5 is the victor, the score resets to 0 – 0, and we keep on playing. That way, we get multiple games in each morning. If suffering a 5 – 0 drubbing, the quick reset gives a fresh start and opportunity to alter ones fortunes.

In regular 11 v 11 soccer matches on the full-sized pitch, goals come few and far between. One goal takes on greater significance. In our games, played three times a week, for more than a decade, there are a lot of goals scored. It isn’t all that surprising that on a rare occasion the ball might bounce off a player and careen into the very net he was trying to defend. Okay, sometimes a player might even kick a ball that takes an errant trajectory to land in his own goal.

The term, “own goal” has its own Wikipedia entry: An own goal occurs in goal-scoring games when a player scores a goal that is registered against his or her own team. It is usually accidental, and may be a result of an attempt at defensive play that failed or was spoiled by opponents. There are video compilations that celebrate the own goal phenomena. Thank goodness that I don’t find my name associated with such a thing on the bigger stage of soccer.

No, the grand accomplishment named after me is related to the fact that we play our games up to 5. We already had a name for the act of kicking an own goal, labeled for one lucky fellow who demonstrated a penchant for doing so in our games. Then one morning, with my team in the precarious position of having 4 goals against us, I inadvertently kicked the ball into my own net to give the other team their fifth goal, and the game victory.

Not a worry. We just reset to 0 – 0 and play another game. They’ll forget about my gaffe soon enough. Then I did it again. Twice in one morning. Two games lost because I kicked the ball into my own net. The art of losing a game by way of making an own goal on the fifth point is forever referred to as “a Hays” in our morning games.