Well, we are in the Grand Final next weekend, but under the least desirable circumstances.
At the end of the regular season, the top four teams in the table compete in a round robin, and the top two from the round robin go on to the Grand final.
We ended up in third in the regular season (only lost three games, but drew 4 -- three of which we should have won.
Too many rain days through the season, so instead of a three game round robin we ended up with 2 games.
1st weekend, 1st played 4th and 2nd played 3rd.
We won our game and the team in 1st won their game, both 2 - 1.
So we go into the second leg of the RR this weekend, my team playing 1st place team and 2nd playing 4th. We've beat the 1st place team both other times we played them -- both games were very challenging, but we won.
They scored in the first 2 minutes (defensive lapse on our side, but we've come from behind against them before, so no drama). On our next attack their goalie kicked my top striker so hard in the right shin that the shin guard split in half, breaking his leg. This is an U12 competition, remember.
By the time the ambulance had finished with him (a clean break -- he'll be in plaster for a couple of months but will be able to play next year -- if he wants to) there was only 5 or so minutes left in the allotted time for the game (there were other RR games from other age/divisions that needed to be played on the same pitch).
We ended up losing 1 - 0, after playing, at most, 8 minutes of soccer. Fortunately for us (or I'd be really really pissed) the other game in our division ended up a draw. We'll meet the same team next weekend in the Grand Final...and it's going to be a hell of a game.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Carl Sagan
