126 - People who are too lazy to pick up the ball

Ever heard of soccer? The sport that the British call 'football'. I call it football because I haven't had a whole lot of experience playing American football, so there's no confusion to me.

But whatever. I went out with three of my friends today to kick a football around. I'm a goalkeeper at heart, although in the past few years, I haven't had much practice playing any role, goalie or otherwise. My frequency of practice is nothing compared to how much I used to practice five or six years ago. I think I'm going to try and do it more often.

Being a goalie has a lot of advantages, chiefly you don't need to run around all the time. Although this is the case, I try to lessen the physical burden of the people sprinting, turning and kicking on the field, and allow them to get a bit of rest by offering to pick the ball up instead, whenever it flies over, or to the side of, the goal (which happens around ninety percent of the time). I do nothing but stand there for the most part anyway, so might as well jog for the ball whenever I can, to get the exercise I intend to get from going to play football in the first place.

Plus, it speeds up the play, the quicker it is, the more fulfilling the session, the more fun we can have, the more kicks we can fit in in a given amount of time.

As the goalie, perhaps it's not in my right to say so, but I hate it when attackers, defenders, centers, the ones on the pitch, don't run for the ball and pick it up. I say it may not be in my right to say so because my role of goalkeeper never requires me to do much running.

The reason I don't really like running on the pitch is because my coordination sucks while I'm running with the ball. I'm the goalkeeper in hockey, netball and football, I prefer going for stationary three-pointers in basketball rather than doing layups, I'm no good at rugby or American football because the passing-while-running thing is just too much for me, and the sports I like tend to be ones in which you don't need to run with the ball, such as tennis, volleyball, and badminton. My favorite activities are those in which you don't run at all, like snooker, bowling and golf. Goalkeeping is the only position I can do okay in when playing football, I'm tallish, have big hands, sharp eyesight, and relatively fast reflexes, and I'm (usually...) not afraid of the ball coming at me.

But as I said, I try to go pick up the ball whenever it flies over my head, or to the side of the goalposts. It's just common courtesy as you're closest to the ball, and it's like... if you don't pick it up, who will?

It's slothful when a player falls to the ground and lies there moping just because his shot went way off, or whenever a person passes it to someone else but doesn't care to continue what he started and run with his teammates all the way 'til they reach nearer to the goal. What is the point in not running, honestly?

If your shot resulted in an utter miss, I mean, go run for the ball, man, you kicked it there. Even if it is in the goalie's convenience to go pick it up, at least, run for it sometimes, or offer to.

And don't say sorry. It's not like an apology makes picking up the ball any less taxing or unenjoyable. Someone has to go get it, and it might as well be you. Sorry doesn't solve anything.