{"id":7149,"date":"2008-09-29T22:20:45","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T22:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/29\/sweeper\/"},"modified":"2008-09-29T22:20:45","modified_gmt":"2008-09-29T22:20:45","slug":"sweeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/29\/sweeper\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweeper"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

Earlier tonight I stood out in the damp cold and watched Ph.’s eighth match
\nof the season, a 1-0 win over Central Square. This is his senior season,
\nand they’re struggling, although struggling well<\/i>, since tonight was their
\nsecond win in a row to move them to 3-5-1. On an injured\/short-handed\/overmatched team? Struggle well<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’ve been withholding a lot of frustrations about the program, about the
\ncoach, about the ways Ph. has developed as a varsity soccer athlete for three years now,
\nand I won’t air out all (any?) of those frustrations here. Suffice it to say that
\nhe is the head captain, and they are getting better. He is also the starting
\nsweeper, shoring up the defense, and playing a position he has never<\/i>
\nplayed before. All of us in the M-H household scratched our heads about
\nthat decision when it came up a few weeks ago. Ph. has always played
\nforward or wing, even center mid on a few occasions, usually to give the regular
\nCM a rest. But sweeper?<\/p>\n

It was clear early on that Ph. was initially unhappy with the assignment, struggling with the
\nvocalism, timing, and attitude required to play the position well. Sweepers are
\ngritty and mean. They direct traffic. They anticipate runs. His athleticism and
\nsoccer smarts helped him cover what would be considered mistakes for most
\nsweepers: getting out of position, not talking out the matchups on a restart,
\nmis-judging a ball. Of course, tonight I saw something completely
\ndifferent. I frankly wasn’t sure that it would happen (much less happen
\nthis quickly), but he has developed, in two or three weeks, an impressive
\nfacility for the position. He covered through balls, stepped up when the
\nstopper was compromised, talked to his outside defenders and keeper, encouraged
\nhis teammates, and played an all around great game in the back. He’s
\nadapted to it, and I mention it largely because it is a credit to him more than
\nanyone else.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that’s all. No venting of frustrations (yet!). Just saying
\nthat Ph. had a great game tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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I’ve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[607,283,2063],"class_list":["post-7149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport","tag-defense","tag-soccer","tag-sweeper"],"yoast_head":"\nSweeper - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/29\/sweeper\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sweeper - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 2 minsEarlier tonight I stood out in the damp cold and watched Ph.’s eighth match of the season, a 1-0 win over Central Square. 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His sports schedule has gone wild--a track match yesterday, an indoor soccer meet this evening. Wait, what? What's this? Two soccer matches tonight? Yes, in fact, without any advance notice, Ph.'s indoor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sport"","block_context":{"text":"Sport","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/sport\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6630,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/01\/no-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":7149,"position":1},"title":"No. 20","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been helping Ph. set up a Flickr account for photos I take at his soccer matches. Can't say that I've taken many good ones this season in the three matches I've attended so far. Maybe Tuesday. 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