Clara’s First Soccer Season

Clara’s First Soccer Season

If you know me personally, you know that I’ve spent the better part of my life making fun of soccer, from the faking injuries to the crowd riots to the orange slices & Capri Suns.  So as fate would have it, Soccer is Clara’s first sport she took part in, just completing her first season in the 4-year-old’s Little Wizards team here in Windsor.  All kidding about soccer aside, they’ve done a great job in making the sport accessible for little kids. Gone are the days of 4-year-olds playing 11-on-11 on a regulation field, watching grass grow. Now the fields are smaller, they play 4-on-4, don’t have a dedicated goalie, with the goal of giving kids as many opportunities to touch the ball as possible.

Clara had a really great season! She is so enthusiastic and became a very good teammate, always cheering on her friends and showing so much hustle. I was really surprised just how much she grasped the game, I was expecting a lot more chaos.

Below are some pictures of Clara’s first season, both her first game and last game. I was so happy to have my 70-200mm lens fixed by the time soccer season started. It really enabled me to capture some great shots.

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Awesome Nike Ad (from a guy who hates Soccer)

If you’ve talked sports with me, you probably know that I hate soccer. However, this Nike commercial about the World Cup makes even soccer look cool.  It’s more of a "mini-movie" than a commercial, but pretty awesome nonetheless.

Apparently there were a lot of big soccer stars in this video, but all I could say was "Hey that’s Kobe Bryant & Homer Simpson!". Go check out this write up though to get all the details on this awesome video.

Update: Looks like Vimeo somehow took down the video, so I found the replacement on YouTube.

This isn’t helping in redeeming Soccer

I understand that people are trying to validate soccer as an up-and-coming sport in the US, but the New Mexico Lobos aren’t helping soccer’s case with this (hopefully this video isn’t taken down).

Maybe Elizabeth Lambert is trying to challenge Rodney Harrison as the “dirtiest player” (oh wait, Rodney’s retired, so now it’s Hines Ward).

Geez.