Reflecting back on my soccer skills over the years I was never one of those showboating skill players. I was more rough around the edges with a work hard, kick a lot, and run as fast as you can mentality. This story is about a time when I randomly found myself teaming with a skillful group of beach soccer players.
We have to head on back to my college days for this one. While attending college in Los Angeles I had an amazing girlfriend and while she was the school’s soccer icon, I was much more the average Joe on the men’s soccer team. We both had friends on our respective teams which included one other couple that we met with often. I was roommates with the guy, Bryce, and my girlfriend was close friends with his girlfriend. Bryce was one of those skill players who was so passionate about soccer I always feared getting caught up in conversation and revealing my lack of soccer knowledge. Watching him play was always a treat as he was skilled with the ball at his foot and you could noticeably see the abundance of time he put into his training.
This story takes place one sunny afternoon when my girl friend and I were randomly invited to spectate a beach soccer tournament over in Santa Monica. Apparently Bryce had participated in some beach soccer tournaments in the past and some of his connections had hit him up about a tournament that would take place near the Santa Monica pier. Bryce invited his girlfriend to come watch and that came with an invite to my girlfriend to tag along which meant I’d end up in tow. Again, I played soccer yeah, but I wasn’t one to go watch soccer on my free time or practice on my own. My girlfriend on the other hand lived for soccer and could talk the talk with the best of them.
Anyhow, dressed in our typical beach attire, we made our way to Santa Monica pier for the day. I honestly had no idea what to expect as I’ve never watched beach soccer, let alone played it. The tournament actually turned out to be a HUGE deal and they’d taken up a large portion of the beach right next to the pier. There was a sea of tents housing vendors giving out free stuff and even players signing autographs and showing off some of their skills. I was a bit taken back by it all but was looking forward to hanging out at the beach with my girlfriend for the day. Bryce finally located his team and as it turns out he had somehow made his way onto the official tournament sponsored team which included two professional Brazilian players and a US national beach soccer player. I was quite shocked by everything transpiring and was actually getting a little hyped to watch now.
As the tournament was nearing kickoff, it turned out Bryce’s team had some people call out last second leaving them with only 1 sub. The pros who were quite experienced with the fatigue associated with beach soccer expressed their desires to get another sub or even 2. While the team was stacked I think they’d passed up getting many subs to allow the stars plenty of spotlight. Somehow my girlfriend overheard them discussing their concerns and had the bright idea to inform them that I happen to play soccer and suggest I help out. Suiting up in beach soccer just means taking off your sandals and putting on the team jersey and shorts. At this point you could slowly see the embarrassment creep over Bryce’s face at the thought of my potential performance. He quickly tried to overrule the suggestion to the best of his abilities, but much to his dismay, they decided they had no other options and added me to the roster. I had gone from expecting a relaxing day at the beach to now being apart of this professional-ish beach soccer team that was currently favorites to win the tournament.
The tournament kicked off and as expected, I started on the bench and was quick to learn why some of the players wear sleeves/special socks on their feet – the sand was scorching hot! To my surprise, I actually got some play time during the early games while being in absolute awe of the professional players juggling and volleying the ball all over the court.
Beach soccer itself is very different from soccer and is probably almost more relatable to beach volleyball. Essentially the keeper gets the ball and launches it to a forward to a target player. That target will either juggle the ball and try to volley a shot without it touching the ground or simply pop it up for a teammate running up to volley the shot themselves. There’s very little actual ‘dribbling’ as the ball is pretty unpredictable in the sand. I found myself on defense most of the time which was nice since I didn’t actually have to do much fancy stuff with the ball. I’d just be fighting against a posted up forward and trying to block shots more or less. I did kick the crap out of the sand a few times in an attempt to do a traditional soccer pass which lead to some laughs and snickers from the girlfriends.
The tournament continued on and we were actually doing pretty well, we were getting wins, although not dominating as much as I’d expected. Between games the pro Brazilians would do some juggling tricks and sign autographs for kids. As it turns out the US national player had a game against Mexico coming up and wasn’t even supposed to be playing so he was trying to keep a bit more of a low profile. Unexpectedly my minutes were actually pretty good, I think mostly because no one else wanted to play defense.
Finally we arrived to the semifinals of the tournament and our opponent was a pretty random, but apparently skilled team. Their ‘post up forward’ was this massive 6’7 or so football-looking guy that had apparently just been manhandling players all day. We were deciding on the starting lineup and somehow I’d managed to get myself onto the starting lineup for the match which meant it would be the US national player, the 2 Brazilian national players, and myself on the pitch. Bryce had a most confused look on his face by the decision and seemed just as shocked as I was as to how this all came to fruition. I think someone had even said let’s start “xxx” and one of the Brazilians straight supported me and said “No, I want to start with Arthur in” (yes they even remembered my name!).
Still unable to even soak up how this day had transpired to this, the game kicked off. Within the first few minutes there was a header 50/50 ball which ended with our US national player colliding heads with one of the opposing defenders. Instant blood, and I’m pretty sure a concussion, was to follow as the opposing player hit the ground with our player grasping his bleeding head cussing about a dirty tackle and how much trouble he’d get in for obtaining an injury. Our player stormed off the pitch bringing on a different sub and meaning Bryce was the only sub left on the bench. The game eventually continued on and consisted of me trying to battle pound for pound against a guy almost a foot taller than me and about 100 pounds heavier than me. In the end we lost the game which I attribute to the fact that the Brazilians seemed to care more about putting on a show and being fancy than actually winning.
All in all my girlfriend was pretty proud of me and I think Bryce was a bit bitter that he’d actually trained for beach soccer, been invited, and I somehow had sucked up a large portion of the playing time. The highlight of the day though was being able to purchase a handful of 20 professional photos of me playing beach soccer which remain up on the wall in my room.
