I’ve been coaching youth soccer in Marin County for the past 10 years. At the recreational level, in San Rafael; at the competitive level, for Central Marin. Currently, I coach a U11 boy’s competitive team and I manage a U15 boy’s Marin FC team. This past weekend, the U15 boy’s team traveled to Rio Linda for the CYSA – North, State Cup.

We arrived, Saturday, April 4th at 11 a.m. The Cherry Island facility in Rio Linda is pretty amazing. There are 8 immaculately groomed fields, a large parking area and various concessions. This tournament hosts 60 teams in 15 divisions from all across the North State. Our division consisted of Marin FC, Clovis Odyssey (ranked #5 in the state), Ballistic United and Delta Elite. Odyssey had beaten us 7 – 0 in the US Club Regional tournament last year. Our first game was against Odyssey.

The Good: It’s amazing, the resilient spirit of sport and that on any given day good things can happen. The boys played Odyssey (Clovis) tough, were down only 1 – 0 with 5 minutes to go. Unfortunately, the game ended 2 – 0 for them. Our boys could hold their heads high in that they seemed to have closed the gap. Their coach remarked that this game thoroughly tested their technical and tactical abilities. A great compliment from a high caliber team.

The Bad: Game #1 on Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Okay, resiliency flexes both ways. Here we are playing a good team but a team we can beat. Ballistic draws from the Tri-Valley area of Pleasanton, San Ramon and Dublin. Yes, a soccer hot bed yet we’ve always played them competitively and beaten them on occasion. But, not this occasion. A hard fought matched ended in a 0 – 0 draw. Not so bad but a win would’ve been nice.

The Ugly: Game #2 on Sunday, 1:45 p.m. Delta Elite hails from Antioch and they showed up with just 11 players (we had 15). They were ahead 2 – 0 at the end of the first half. A fairly well contested game turned into an ugly, frightening match when their boys incessantly fouled and taunted our players. One of our boys was red carded for retaliation. So, we’re down to 10 with less than a half to go. While the opposing coach threw gas on the flames by allowing his players to persistently foul, our boys continued to play hard. Marin FC scored 3 goals in the second half. Yes, we won. A deserved win? Again, yes. But it was an ugly match that did not have to be so. In youth sports, we are always talking about honoring the spirit of the game. Unfortunately, there was no honor on the opposing sideline.

Let’s put the “HONOR” back into our game and teach our kids that trying to “win at any cost,” is just not worth it!

After the match, we drove home and celebrated my wife’s birthday at Napoli Pizza and Pasta in San Rafael. We can talk about that another time!

Posted By: Mark Machado