Well, that didn’t go too badly except for the brief period of time that I got left alone to defend the whole midfield. My legs held up fine and my speed was more than adequate. Predictably, I was easily winded, but I still managed to play about forty minutes of a sixty minute game, and without wanting to die afterwards.
Thirty-one years is a long time to go between competitive soccer matches, but it’s still the same game, and I even understand it a lot better than I did as a teenager so decision-making comes more naturally.
I really should have had two goals and I would have if my muscle memory hadn’t betrayed me. Most of the time, the ball went where I wanted with the pace I wanted, but not on my two scoring opportunities. I think by next week, those same plays will result in a ball in the back of the net, but I may have to take some time midweek to just shoot the ball on some empty soccer field somewhere.
It’s a weird thing to observe your own body and see what it remembers to do and what it doesn’t. You don’t really have any idea which commands it will easily obey and which ones it will have no idea how to execute until you try it out. It had no problem weighting a ball perfectly between two defenders to meet an onrushing teammate, but wasn’t able to time a blasted kick off a slow-rolling ball.
I was most happy about my legs and muscles, which didn’t give me any discomfort, but I’m going to need to hit the treadmill if I want to have the conditioning I need to play a full half hour in the midfield.
Most importantly, I met a good group of people and we had a lot of fun.