Dear Barbarians:
Two weeks ago today our U19M team finished second in the USFF National Futsal Tournament in Long Beach, California. This tournament will be remembered by each of us who attended for our continued evolution and growth of the Barbarian FC. The team was understaffed traveling with only six players and even though the obvious the players served us proudly as they never once showed an inkling of quit and were determined throughout the weekend to show the doubters what Barbarian Futsal is all about.
I guess determination is descriptive enough when the team turned in one of their most memorable games of their careers by coming from behind (1-3) with under four minutes remaining in their opening match against their rivals from San Jose, AMWAY to give them their only loss in the tournament. It was an even greater daunting task since the first goal for us, the icebreaker if you will had been scored by Cameron Krause, who was playing in his first ever match for the club but it was just enough to rally everyone else and what followed surely shocked our opponent as well as the crowd but I assure you at no time did our players lose their confidence. Steve Sieber’s tally drew us within one and then Jeremy Thomas scored two in succession with only 48 seconds remaining in the match that seemingly deflated our opponent and gave the team a (4-3) advantage that was not relinquished.
There were many other highlights from this National weekend and it seems that in every match some sort of drama unfolded and in the end it is always about the basics. Several of our players did not rotate out as often as you might if you have more than one sub and the tell-tale signs of having tired players is that the first thing that is exposed is the lack of continuity that team dynamics always enables. Being forced to overcompensate is what hurt us more than anything in this tournament. I mean that players take it upon themselves to do more individually rather than collectively even though this was a very cohesive group and truly determined there is a tendency for tired players to over compensate for one another only to be exposed somewhere else and exploited in the end. Your mind says one thing and your body says something all together different. The team truly pushed its limits and no one can find fault in anyone for that!
It is all too easy to always search and look to lay blame but that is probably what I admire most after having been involved with so many Barbarian teams and in particular this team of players. At the end of the day they stand tall for the fact of how they played the game with one another and with only their opponents as rivals. As a group, Ben Gallina, Jeffrey Kelly, Brendon Kopko, Steven Sieber, Jeremy Thomas and their newest crony Cameron Krause amazed their onlookers and never once lost their focus of what it means to be Barbarians. I would wish the same for each of you who might call yourselves so. Not many will ever be able to measure up to what they have done and realize that there are still unfinished tasks at hand.
As usual, I will see you on the pitch
dws