Football, Boots, and Back Problems

My non-league league team had a game tonight. We played the best team in the league (though that's not what the league table says presently, somehow one of the other teams beat them last week). Anyways, they beat us pretty badly the first game 6-1. We were playing 5v5 with no subs for awhile (we got one sub mid-way through the game) though. Tonight, we played 7v7 as all the teams have been for the past couple of weeks. We lost 4-2, but could've easily tied them if I would have just put my laces through one of my shots instead of side-footing it and if I'd gotten a little less spin on my one-touch full-volley.

I did execute one of the best tackles I've done in awhile, more on this, but first, some backstory. I tweaked my back yesterday. Possibly from leaning over Daniel's crib, but the pain came on a little while after I put him down so I dunno. I read that it can happen when your abs are stronger than your back muscles and that seems to fit since I had been working out my abs pretty well, but not my back as much. Either way I was hurting yesterday, but I had just gotten my new adidas F50i boots that afternoon. So I went and played pick-up football for about a half-hour to break them in. My back felt better after warming it up a bit, but it was clear I wasn't at full speed. I have a couple games to ref this weekend so I decided to take it easy tonight and stayed at about 50-70% speed. That's how one of the best players in the league got past me and was 15 yards from goal. I spun around and tackled the ball from behind him and between his legs. Despite his protestations, it was a clean tackle. He did fall, but from tripping over the ball I had just taken from him. He did hit my foot on the way down, but I got confirmation from a teammate (who was a few yards away) that it was after I had cleanly tackled the ball. He said the tackle was beautiful. So that was fun :)

I love my new boots. I ordered them a half-size smaller than I normal. Previously I wore Copas in a size 8 and watered them down before a few practices to shrink them. A few people on football forums suggested ordering them a half-size down and letting them stretch a bit. They're kangaroo leather (as are the Copas) and it, aside from being very comfortable and durable, apparently stretches well. I can confirm this because after playing 30 minutes last night and 40 minutes tonight, they're just about perfectly comfortable and conformed to my feet.

I got the F50i primarily for refereeing since they have interchangeable studs and Kern Valley High School's field gets quite muddy. So I can change out the regular studs for soft ground studs and get better grip. The other nice thing is that the shoe part is interchangeable as well so when my current pair wears out, which going by the life of my Copas, should be in 2-3 years, I can just buy a $40-60 upper instead of a $100 pair of Copas. Though they were somewhat expensive off the bat, but Amazon had them $25 off so that helped a little, but then cost-savings wasn't really the primary goal anyways.