Spring soccer is over, so we go to the movies
This is the first weekend in quite a while that Emily and I haven’t had soccer committments. Her spring soccer team played at the Davis World Cup last weekend to wrap up their season. The team got knocked out in the elimination round in a very close match that was settled in a penalty shootout to break the 0-0 tie. Even the shootout was close, it went to 1-1 on the 5 kicks for each side, which brought the game to sudden death. Eventually it went to 10 kicks for each side (and U10 plays 9 on a side) before the winning goal for the other side (which went forward to the end of the tournament).
So this weekend has felt a little different, with no practice and no game. This afternoon we went to see Gracie, a soccer-themed movie which Emily saw a trailer for this spring. It’s about a teenaged girl who wants to try out for the boy’s soccer team after her brother (also a soccer player) dies in a car accident.
We enjoyed the soccer-related parts of the movie, but kind of wished there was a little less personal drama. There are two different movies that could have been made with the material here, one mostly about being a girl trying to play soccer in 1978 (before the rise of women’s sports programs), and one mostly about being a girl trying to deal with her family and find her way through high school after losing a sibling. Both fine topics, but today Emily and I were looking for the movie about a girl playing soccer and we could have used less of the teen drama. (Emily says that some of the drama parts are not quite appropriate for her age group (10ish), and I generally agree.)
In another couple of years perhaps she’ll be more interested in the non-soccer parts of the movie. As her dad, though, today I’m thankful that she’s mostly worried about not getting another chance at the Davis Arsenal.
Tags: ayso, soccer, parenting, kids, sports, family, movies
June 4th, 2007 at 8:48 am
How about Bend It Like Beckham?
But really it sounds like you were in the mood for Shaolin Soccer!
June 4th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Shaolin Soccer was awesome, and we liked Bend It Like Beckham too. The Big Green was OK as a kids soccer movie, too.