My son scored against the four year old on steroids!

This morning we had the last Saturday soccer game for my son's team. Each week we've watched the Dolphins play against teams that had little Pele's in the making. Seriously look at this kid running in the pic with the wild hair....appropriately named, Soccer Hair! He stole the ball each time and dribbled it to score at least ten times before half time. We, parents, lost count after ten.

The only thing we did take note of is how his father, who was coaching his team, encouraged his bad sportsmanship. This little wild-haired kid was a great player, there's no doubt about it. But if he didn't get to score, he threw a temper tantrum on the field. I've never seen that so far in this season. If a goal was scored by our team (we actually had some this game...yeah!), this little soccer dude would run to our goal and cry in anger. His dad, the coach, should have sat his little butt out of the game for red card behavior, so he could watch all the other kids on the field playing nice. Instead, his father rewarded his bad behavior by letting him stay in to make sure they scored.

The highlight of the game was my son, who kicked and scored against this kid. As he was driving it in, it was taken from him for a second, before he got it back. You could almost see his little brain in action...saying...Uh, NO you just didn't!

Those kids on the field kick it too far instead of dribbling it close...they don't know the difference yet. So when the girl that had it stolen it from him kicked it too far, my son turned on a dime and got possession of it again.

Little Wild Haired Pele came after my little boy to steal it away, so my son took off dribbling as fast as he could. When he didn't think he could outrun little Pele any longer, he kicked hard enough to send it sailing straight into his goal! YEAH! That's my boy!

I was so proud of him. I made sure we had a talk in the car about sportsmanship and teamwork. I asked him if he thought the other little player on the team, the one with wild hair, was a good player. Of course, he responded with a YES!

I told him, "Baby even if you hadn't scored a goal today, you'd still be a better player than him!"
He didn't understand, so I proceeded to tell him that the little boy who scored all those goals wasn't a good or nice player. He stole the ball from his own team-mates. He whined when he didn't get to play how he wanted. He was a brat on the field and his dad didn't teach him differently. He wasn't respectful or a thoughtful player.

I told him that there's nothing wrong with aggressively going for the ball as long as you play fair. He smiled from the back seat, and said, "Yeah, like me!" I said, "Exactly...like you !"