Call me Messi.

Since I am in South America, one of my main goals is to get good at soccer. I've played in 3 games since being here, and I can say one thing for sure: Chileans are the gods of soccer. The first two games were no where near as serious as the game I played in yesterday. It was McKenzie (USA, plays soccer for a team), Sven (Germany, good at soccer), 12 Chileans (basically all Messi), and me ("what's soccer?"). We played for 2 hours with 3 teams of 5. Every time a team scored a goal, the other team had to change with the team on the bench. The team with the most goals at the end of 2 hours won. Sven and McKenzie were put together on a team with 3 Chileans. I happened to be paired with 4 Chileans who spoke almost no English. To say it was rough, would be a massive understatement. I started the game playing defense, but it became clear that players could easily out maneuver me with 1 move. For some strange reason, they moved me to goal keeper. Lesson of the day: I can't play goal keeper either. During the second hour, I played forward. Turns out I can out run almost every Chilean. I can't necessarily keep the ball, but I am easily able to slip past the defense. I moved to the lead forward when the score was 6 (my team)-6-4. While I was at Forward, my team yelled at me a lot about where I was supposed to be, but I understood none of it. They don't teach you Chilean soccer slang in a university. I just kind of did what I thought they were doing, but most of the time I was wrong. I scored my first goal during this game! It was kind of weak, but it was a goal. I managed to kick it off one of their defenders foot and it slowly rolled in. Once the score was 8-6-5, I started to really get the hang of the Forward position. I was taking a lot more shots on goal. I scored a badass second goal. Tim Howard couldn't have even blocked it. One of my teammates sent me a cross and I nailed it into the corner of the net without a single tap. My team freaked out. Most likely not about the goal, but the fact that I did it. The Messi inside of me came out and I ran and jumped on my teammates. The final score was 10-6-6. We kicked some major ass. I scored 2 goals which is 20% of our total goals. There were 5 players so each person is expected to score 2 goals, so I guess that means I am as important as the 4 Chileans (not). While I wasn't very good, I absolutely loved playing. It is a very hard sport when you are new to it and playing with people who have played every week for their entire life, but the passion in soccer hypnotizes me. It is something you don't see in other sports. My performance earned me entrance to their Facebook group so hopefully I will get to play more ofter. I have been running every other day to try and get in better shape. My goal is to join some type of league when I return to the states. Soccer is a sport that some day I might actually be decent in! I'll let you guys know when Barcelona and I finish our contract negotiations. Ciao amigos!