Yes, you read that correctly. No, Bradley is not on a soccer team this fall (he's playing football), but yes, this weekend he played in a soccer tournament as a guest player for his old team.
The team is the team he played on the last two seasons. Their season record last year was 3 wins-7 losses and the year before was just a little better. They have never played well in tournaments, in fact, I don't even think they have ever made it into the final round of a tournament.
This season has had a lot of drama already. Last year's coach stepped down to coach a u11 team. (U11, that's like 3rd graders? 4th graders? WHO would want to do that when they have the opportunity to coach "real" soccer. But he likes it better and thinks the younger players are more respectful (they probably are) and are easier to coach because they haven't formed bad habits yet. The league wasn't going to have enough players for a straight u16 team this year, nor even enough for a combined u15/u16 team because there is a better soccer league in town and people have started defecting to in in mass numbers. Well, to tell the truth, we were going to have Bradley change to the other league, too. He did training with that team through the spring. That team had about 5 players from Hamilton City (small town 10 miles from here) about 5 players from Bradley's old team, a few new players and a few u15 players. 16 or 17 kids were showing up to informal practices. There was a coach. One of the moms talked him into taking the team to Butte United (the league we played for the past few years, the league Melanee played for, and the "premier" league of this town). That coach agreed to the switch (maybe he thought it would be good for his resume to coach for the "top" league or maybe he agreed with her argument that half the kids already had uniforms and were registered, but either way, the league affiliation changed. They had official tryouts (everyone who had been coming made the team) and began summer practices. That's about the time that Bradley decided not to play two sports (had football from 3-6, then soccer 6-8...that's 5 hours straight of practice time. Well, after Bradley left, I guess the coach had some intense ideas of who to scrimmage (teams 2 hours away during the week day hours), which tournament to join (he wanted to play teams "above" us to show the kids what soccer should be played like) and other things that the parents disagreed with. He quit. He wrote an e mail saying he felt like he wasn't getting parental support. The league assigned the team a new coach...he is also the girls u16 coach. Two years ago our coach coached the boys and girls teams of the same age and it didn't work out very well because of all the practice and game conflicts. Last year, also, the coach seemed to favor his other team (sent his assistant to our games when there was a conflict) (coached the other teams practice and just told our boys to go warm up). So, the team has been with this new coach for only about 3 weeks. They were able to sneak into a tournament at last minute by some string pulling and luck. So, Bradley only trained with them 3 times, but 9 of the players he has played with before and the other two he knew from elementary school, baseball, and basketball. So he fit right in. We also know the new coach because he has coached Melanee in indoor soccer and he's one of her friends. He's a SUPER nice guy. The players all like AND respect him (and that's a hard balance sometimes for coaches to achieve). We looked at the schedule and saw that the three teams we played in the preliminary rounds were teams we have played against in the past and have LOST to!!! There were two brackets. Also, in the state/nation/gotsoccer ranking system, our team was the lowest ranked team. It was also over 100 degrees all weekend and we only had 2 subs (the other teams all had practically a whole replacement team of subs). I hoped they would do well, but I wasn't super confident. The first game was against a team that beat us 4-0 and 1-0 last year. Guess what, Bradley's team played AMAZING. They passed well, they talked, they looked like a team, not a bunch of individuals. They didn't lose their composure, they were not the same team as last year. They won 1-0. The game winning goal was really pretty. The center midfielder had the ball, the defense covered the middle and left our wing open, the center midfielder found him with a beautiful pass on the left side of the field and he shot it to the bottom right corner of the net. The other team was really good, but missed all their chanced (maybe good defending and goalkeeping prevented any good chances, too). Bradley's team won. Surprising, yes! Fun to watch, yes...well, and no, it was really nerve wracking. They gained a LOT of confidence in that game. In between games we had a barbeque and potluck at the field and all the kids hung out and had fun, so did the parents! Good team bonding. Confidence, liking each other, could almost tell right then that this season is going to be different than the past!
Second game was a blow out. Bradley's team scored 2 minutes into the game and again 4 minutes into the game. To get to the finals/consolation rounds teams needed to earn a lot of points, but if a final score was more than a 6 point goal differential, two points would be taken off. With that other team from the first game being so good, we knew we couldn't afford the two point penalty, so the coach told them to just possess the ball and play keep away. The final score was 4-0.
The third game was tougher, but they won 2-0 and made it into the championship game. First time this team has ever been in a championship of anything since Bradley has played for them. Exciting!
They won the Championship 3-1. It was not the best game played, but they won. Two kids got hurt, players played different positions, and it was SUPER hot. But they WON! AMAZING, really!
So, I am not sure if losing the 5 who went to the other league, gaining the 3 who just joined, getting a new coach, (players almost all in different positions than in the past, or (this is probably a big reason) the experience more than half of them just got this past winter playing high school soccer...made this a whole new team. A good team. A skilled team. A mentally strong team. A team with friendships. Bradley had so much fun and I think he may even be questioning his football decision, but he cant turn back now. He was just a guest player and the team has already found two other kids to play in the league season. But he added A LOT to this team. It will be interesting to see if they continue to win and play so well even without him. He plays striker and is often covered and double covered, so it helps the teammates to have him out there. He's also fast, faster than the other forwards. I actually think they will be fine, though. He scored two goals, which were needed and nice looking goals. But two other players each scored 3 goals, so they have goal scorers this year!
I will post some pictures for you to enjoy. (Bradley is #15, black tights on first day, white tights on 2nd, no one else wore any, so you should be able to pick him out easily (over 100 degree days, why tights???)
I have some more pictures on another camera, but this is plentyyyyyyyy for now!
terrible field, so much dirt, sand, dust, dead grass, weeds
See at the bottom of this water fountain...that is a water bottle spout...it fills up water bottles FAST. Every sport field place, even schools, should have these!!!!
I had an umbrella for shade, you can see my knee there....these three kids, I don't even know them, they came and sat with me!
Yuba City's mascot is the Honker (Canadian goose). 
Bradley is #19, most of these pictures seem the same, his team just lined up ready for a play. He plays wide receiver, so you'll see him way out to the side in most of them. He also wears gold colored cleats, so he sticks out with those. 
This is during a time out. We sat on Yuba's side of the field at first, then moved after the first quarter. 
This one was passed to the player behind him, that's why he is looking back like that
He missed this catch, the ball wasn't really thrown to him, though. 
He didn't make this catch either, it was thrown way behind him. He did a great job of breaking up the play so that the Yuba guy couldn't make an interception.
I think this one WAS an interception.
Out of focus, but this was his second catch, a great one, an important one. This was on 4th down and 10, he got the 10 plus some, and got them close enough for a touchdown. He caught it going from left to right, then alluded his tackler, who had him kinda wrapped up, then ran back to the right, when he was creamed by 3 guys!
