Winter Sports – Football!

For the past ten weeks for winter sports my friends and I have been playing football every Friday before lunch (unless it’s raining). We play our games behind the dog park on the field below the rugby club. It is nice being able to walk over from our school and feeling the fresh air in our lungs as we kick a ball together to the fields. Our teacher/coach is Ms Hamilton. She is pretty relaxed and lets us do most of the work. Did you know that the FIFA women’s world cup was won by Spain with England as the runners-up of the tournament?

We use different equipment at football matches. To play a game you need small, coloured cones as the outlines, four long, orange poles as the goal posts, and of course pumped up football. We each also have our own different school equipment like tracksuits and a nice t-shirt to wear. They are maroon and white and make the opponents feel intimidated. Reid our goalkeeper  also brings goalie gloves, boots, and protective shin guards.

Our most recent games were last Friday when we played against a Rawhiti team and South New Brighton team. We won both games. Our first game was 15-0 and our second game was 5-0. We were the best team in our division only losing once (when most of our players were on holiday including me). They beat us 2-1 but they lost three games in their season so we were still the best team.

We each have our favourite positions to play in and here they are…

• Tyson – striker, this means you are at the top of the pitch usually the one scoring the goals .

• Tristan – winger, the winger goes up and down the long pitch crossing the ball into the stickers to finish.

• Joseph – centre back, the centre back/s hold our defence together, by tackling the ball off the opposing team.

• Beau – centre back, again they are the ones who keep us together. Beau is quiet but he has a giant kick.

• Reid – goalkeeper, the goalkeeper is allowed to use their hands and needs to be very flexible.

• Nixon – striker, again this means you are the one to smash it between the posts.

• Sam – striker, Sam has been away but he is a key player when it comes to trying to score a goal.

• Xavier (me) I like being a midfielder, a midfielder is an all rounder who can do everything but be a goalkeeper they are also the most likely to set up a goal.

In football you have a halfway line to kick off. You kickoff after someone scored a goal, when the game starts or at half time. is a goalkeeper box which is a certain area that they are allowed to use their hands in. The pitch has out lines and if it goes off the pitch it will be a throw-in for the team that didn’t kick the ball out. A key thing in football is the passing. Passing is when you kick the ball to each other, but you need to be very accurate or it might go out for a throw-in. Once we have finished we will all be super wasted because we only have 1 sub on the bench (we swap the players at half time). You have to run very fast to catch up with the other players from other schools. We play in the eastern sports which are only maybe 5 different schools but some of them have multiple different teams, but we only have 1 team. That’s ok though because our team is awesome!

One of my favourite skills is the rainbow flick or the stepover. The rainbow flick is much harder because it requires perfect timing to get it just right but on the other hand the stepover is a good skill for beginners and is very effective especially with a body faint. I have used these skills on multiple occasions, but I try to use them when we are already up by a few goals. What skills do you know in football?

Overall I think it was an awesome choice to choose football over those other sports because I loved thrashing those other teams. I also liked being with my friends and I would love to have this experience again. 

What do Messi, Ronaldo and a magician have in common? Hat-tricks!

Why was the footballer upset on his birthday? He got a red card!

Why did the football quit the team? It was tired of being kicked around!