Bruised and Battered

After playing my second Sunday league football game (it's soccer) yesterday, I realized how different football in this continent is compared to soccer in the U.S. On Sunday my team played the beavers, a team composed entirely of third and fourth years who were all German. They were also big, strong, and intimidating. Still, we felt pretty confident we could win, and I felt pretty good about playing. The only problem was that in Sunday league, the referee doesn't always show up, which was the case yesterday. It ended up that a substitute player from their team reffed, which proved to be a huge disadvantage for us. We ended up losing the game 6-3, although I did get "man of the match" for giving all three assists. What was frustrating was the physical pounding our team, especially me took. The first header I went up for was uncontested, but after I jumped and was on my way down I was completely blindside by this guy who basically spear tackled me straight into my ribs. My entire right rib cage was extremely sore when I got up this morning. With a inept referee you can probably imagine how thins escalated, and by the end of the game it felt more like I was playing American football. My right ankle is swollen and I have plenty of cleat marks all over my legs, along with a pretty nasty bruise on my left foot. It was still loads of fun to play though, see as I got to return the favor to many of their players. Next Sunday should be fun.