On Saturday morning, I called an urgent meeting. Some kids from the next suburb wanted to play a game of soccer against us. The game would be played in TC Park. We had to train. Marcy said she would be captain. I thought I should be captain, but I kept it quiet. I didn’t want to upset Marcy. She’s nearly as good at soccer as I am. Eddie was in a hurry. He wanted to get some lunch, so he agreed to play any position. Noel was nervous. He was such a worrywart. Simon and Dog just stared blankly. We called our team Legends. We called the other team Try Hards. They would never beat us but they would try hard. Kick off was at 10 o’clock the next Saturday morning. All we needed was a coach.

Old Tom said he would coach us. Everyday after school, Old Tom was waiting for us. Eddie hated training. He said he never had time to eat. Marcy told him to stop grumbling and start running. She loved training. She was really pumped. “I’m going to squash you like lemons,” she yelled. I was glad it was them and not me. I trained hard up and down TC Park. Spike was getting faster too. Simon had all the right moves and even Noel’s game was getting better. Old Tom was a tough coach, but it was working. I was sure the rest of the team would soon be soccer superstars just like me. Old Tom had other ideas though. Go to Legends Training Go to Game Day

Back Go to Game Day Eddie wanted to eat food at soccer training all the time. Marcy was a bit bossy at soccer training. Noel was always nervous at soccer training because he might stuff up. Old Tom was always bossy because he is the coach and he can tell anyone to do anything. At training we learnt to pass the ball instead of just running ahead and not letting anybody have a turn. We play miniature games against each other and the coach said if you didn’t let anybody have the ball you would have to run around the oval 3 times. Marcy didn’t let anybody have the ball because she is bossy and doesn’t want anyone else to have a turn so she had to run 3 laps around the oval. This was our last training session for the season. The game was tomorrow so we had to train hard and if we won we would win a big trophy.

Game Day Our supporters were the first to arrive at TC park. Spike’s mum had a banner for us to run through. Simon’s Dad handed us team shirts and Eddie’s dad gave us a big basket of food for after the game. Marcy’s sister was the referee. Mum was the crowd controller. She was good at that. The Try Hards arrived, looking very confident. I heard one of them laugh at us. “Fancy having a dog on your team!” They seemed much stronger and taller than us. We were all a little nervous. After a quick talk from Old Tom about the three P’s of soccer – power, pressure and pace, Marcy led us onto the field. The first half fly by. It was fast paced, up and down, up and down the field. Both teams defended well. We had two strikes at goal but didn’t find the back of the net. They also had a couple of strikes but by the end of the half, neither team had scored.

Second Half Marcy Breaks Her Arm The Try Hards almost win At half time we all felt pretty good about our playing against the Try Hards. We had some oranges and some water and the half time was over. The second half started pretty bad because we were all tired from the first half. Marcy was so close to scoring a goal but the other team blocked it and booted it to our defending half. Our defenders were good because they were right near the goal and blocked it wouldn’t go in the goals. Eddie was really good at stepping the players and passing the ball to the other players. Half way through the second half we started scoring some goals because the other team were getting tired from running around too much.

Marcy scored three goals. They were really hard because one was a corner shot and the last two were from half way. Eddie scored five goals because no one was in the goal box because the goal keeper kept running out to try and get the ball. Some of Eddie’s goals were pretty easy and some of them were pretty hard because everyone was in the way of the goal box. My favourite goal scored by Eddie was when the goalie wasn’t in the goal because he ran out to get the ball and he did not get to the ball in time and Eddie kicked the ball over the goal keeper. One of the defenders tried to head the ball to stop the ball from going in but head butted the ball into the goal. Near the end of the game it was 8-0. Then Marcy and one of the opponents collided and Marcy broke her arm. The game stopped and Old Tom called the ambulance. They came and took Marcy to the hospital. We had no reserves so we had to play our hardest and not get tired or we would lose. At the end of the game our team won because we had team work. The other team was angry about us winning. After the game we went to the shops and got chocolate and then went to the hospital to see Marcy. She was surprised to see us because she thought we had forgotten about her. Marcy didn’t know the score and she smelt chocolates so we gave her the chocolates and told her the score. Marcy was very happy for herself and the team because we did well. Back

Near the end the second half we had scored 8 goals and had almost scored another. It was five minutes until the end of the game and the score was 8 – 8. We were getting tired and then the Try Hards started scoring and we lost our lead. None of us liked that because it was so hot and we couldn’t run for much longer. It was two minutes until our game was finished we had two goals to score or we would lose and not get the trophy and a medal each. Suddenly the Try Hards scored another goal. It was a good goal because out goalie is the best goalie of all the teams but they got it anyway because he wasn’t concentrating. There was only one minute to go and we had to score three goals to win. There was no hope because they had just scored another goal. It was the easiest goal of the day because one of our players kicked it in the goal. After the final whistle blew the Try Hards were really happy because they got a trophy and a medallion each and they went to Pizza Hut. Our team was sad because we missed out on the Trophy and medallions. Back