Up In My Face

Good times, good times. Tuesdays recently have been. For one, I'm inching closer to being able to play in the WPBT WSOP satellite. Man, would that be awesome or what.

Tuesdays are usually an easy day at work, followed by some poker slackness at home, then on to soccer in the evening, followed by pizza and pitchers of porter with the homies at Lamppost Pizza in Irvine. I'm over the whole drinking-then-driving thing, so I ride my bike to soccer, then Lamppost. Yes, I am aware that riding your bike under the influence is technically illegal, but I'm willing to take that small chance. And besides, 12 round trip miles on your bike after 60 minutes of soccer burns about the small amount of calories I consume post-game. Good times.

We played the same team we played back on March 3. Back then, I pissed the ref off with my physical play, and he refused to call fouls against me for the last 10 minutes of the game. The other team picked up on this, and fouled me mercilessly for the last ten minutes of the game, culminating in the old fat guy on their team tackling me and falling on my wrist. I left the field refusing to shake anyone's hand. I'm not going to be hacked for 10 minutes and then shake your hand. Piss off. That evening, I turned to pharmaceuticals and wine to assuage my pain. Good move, as I apparently play decent poker when I'm numb and happy.

With that backstory understood, I had an interesting game.

I'm not much of a goal-scorer. On the pitch, my strengths lie in shutting down the other team defensively, and passing to my offensively talented teammates. I grew up a sweeper, and only scored goals when there was a penalty kick to be taken. (Yes, each year we had a PK contest at the start of the season, and seven years in a row, I won. Me. The sweeper. I had a poor shot comparatively, but I had ice water in my veins at the tender age of 9.)

So against the guys I really wanted to beat, I scored the first goal of the game. Me. The former sweeper. Oh, and the shot was with my left foot. My off-foot, from about 15 yards out, on a 4-foot wide goal. Say my name!! (You'll have to imagine me spanking the air at this point, like it's been naughty.)

The half ended with us up comfortably, against a dirty team (they couldn't go a five minute stretch without fouling us) who had beaten us soundly the previous season. I think we had a 4-1 margin.

Very late in the first half, I made a tackle at midfield. Nothing odd about it, really. I clock in at 5-11, 170 mostly-muscular pounds. I've seen the inside of a gym, but I'm not bouncer material by any means. But if I tackle you on a soccer field, and you're not prepared for it, you're gonna feel it. Opponent Shorty didn't expect me to be where I was. He felt my tackle was unusually aggressive. The ref, however, whistled him for the foul, and Shorty got up in my face.

I don't back down. I don't care if you're 6-9, 300 pounds. I stand my ground. Ok, fine, until you throw the first punch. On the soccer field, I show no weakness. None. If you're a 5-7, 180 pound Egyptian, you can bump my chest. That's not going to intimidate me, bitch.

That didn't satisfy my opponent. Perhaps he expected me to back down in the face of his post-foul aggression. No sir. He responded by attempting to shove my face. It wasn't really a punch, it definitely wasn't a slap. He tried to shove my face with both hands. He succeeded in poking me in the eye and getting himself a red card (out for the match, suspended for the next game, and his team had to play a man short for the rest of the game). He had some choice profanity for me. In not so many words, he called me a coward (ok, not exactly the phrase he used, but you get the point). Which I really don't understand... I stood up to him, I didn't yield one inch. After the face-shove, I walked away, instead of throwing the left-jab, right-cross combo I thought would work really well.

We ended up with a satisfying 5-2 result, even if our captain got fouled repeatedly by the fat old guy that fell on my wrist the previous season.

The referee congratulated me at half time and the end of the game for not escalating the conflict by throwing a punch at my attacker.

It's nice to be the gentleman.. but I think it would've been way more satisfying to pound him into ground chuck with my fists.