Last year I did a series of posts leading-up to Bakersfield and then fell off the blog wagon. This year’s an opportunity for redemption.
Last Friday I pack up the Audi, pick the boys up after Jacob’s soccer tryouts, and drive two-and-a-half hours to where Southern California’s rec soccer youth’s dreams go to live and die— Bakersfield. Or Bako as the cool kids call it.
You may recall that sometime during the pandemic, Nate told me his dream was to play in Bakersfield. Then I took him twice and he told me it was terrible. What, you don’t like Oildale?
Now his dreams are even bigger. Recently Nate calculated whether Mbappe will retire before he can play with him. Love that growth mindset.
So this past weekend was with the FBI. If you’ve skipped the tutorial, this is our season team made-up of some boys who are brand new to soccer and some boys who are deeply offended if you don’t immediately recite Mbappe, Neymar, and Messi as the starting forwards for PSG. Extra credit if you name drop Ekitike. And pronounce it right. So it’s a mix of skill levels and there is a lot of opportunity for dramatic up’s and down’s based on our substitution plans. 5 games over 2 days. Most kids haven’t played much since the season ended the first weekend in December.
Our first game is against Agoura Hills/Westlake. So… L.A. We’re up 5:2 at halftime and run away with it by the end, winning 11:4.
Next game is Quartz Hills. So… L.A. It’s tied 3:3 at halftime and the opposing coach is pretty confident. But we pull ahead and the quartzie crumbles. One of their players disappears behind the goal and doesn’t want to come back. Their coach yelled at him. He’s kind of losing it. He pulls his goalie out of goal, which Nate and Rogelio (pronounced Ro-hell-ee-o) just can’t resist. The coach starts yelling snide remarks at us from across the field. He’s under some mistaken belief that we’ll lose points for every goal we score over 7. Read the rules, Bruv. This is Bako. We move our front line to the back and still win 11:3. After the game, the 6’2″ coach accuses our littlest player of staring him down and hitting him during the high-five walk. The one where you walk in a line and purposely hit each others’ hands. He makes a big scene and I usher the boys back to our camp for Uno and sandwiches.
We show up to our third game against South Oxnard, yeah… L.A., and these poor kids are already done. They’re not built for 3 games in a day. We win 9:1. Nate has 5 assists, which is something we’re working on. Sadly, our team also suffers some tears and a concussion and we’re down to two subs.
The next morning we’re back out in the freezing cold at 7:15am. That extra 15 minutes is pure luxury. Our first game is against one of the two Cutler-Orosi’s.
What’s that? What are you saying?
I asked the same thing last year when Coach Ben said these words to me. I thought maybe it was a coach’s hyphenated last name. Or a brand of multi-level marketing for kitchen knives. Turns out it’s two towns in Tulare County… combined population 18,180. They eat, sleep, and breathe soccer. They come to Bakersfield and expect to win it.
Last year we lost to them in semi-final penalty kicks and the Raptors took fourth place. We returned two weekends later with the All Star Legends and wouldn’t you know it… our final game was against, you guessed it… Cutler-Orosi. They are our nemesis.
So on Sunday morning we face-off against one of the Cutler teams. They have 2 in the final 4. Of course they do. Twice the nemesis.
There are several big guys– #12 with blue hair is definitely a threat.
We’re winning.
They come back and tie it up.
Nate fouls a kid in the box.
They’re awarded a penalty.
Blue hair misses!
We’re down 2:3 at halftime.
Cutler comes up with a new fast break plan where little #6 slips past our defense over and over.
4 times to be exact.
Calvin has 6 big saves in goal.
We lose the game 5:7.
Our team’s in tears.
We feed them sandwiches.
They’re happy again.
A couple hours later we play Santa Ynez for third and win 7:2. The final is Cutler versus Cutler. The team we lost to takes first place. They were the underdog of the Cutlers so they’re ecstatic. While we’re playing Santa Ynez, their parents start watching our game. They notice the passing and scoring happening between Nate and Roge and it really is fun to watch. I hear one dad say, “Man… that’s next level.” For posterity: Over the course of the weekend, Nate had 17 goals/16 assists and Roge had 22 goals/7 assists. Bradley and Genoah also scored twice each. FBI played as a team and it showed. We were so proud. And next weekend the All Stars have one more chance at Bakersfield redemption.
I’ll never forget when we won the All Stars final last year with the Legends. Against Cutler-Orosi. It was close, but we beat them. And I remember the Cutler moms passing out the championship celebration cake they’d brought. The kids were half-heartedly eating that cake. It didn’t taste good. You could just tell.
Because nothing tastes better than victory.