Last night, I personally reenacted the first half hour of The Mighty Ducks, The Little Giants, and The Big Green.

A little after dinner, some Moroccan kids approached me and a friend named Victor and asked if we would like to play in a pick up soccer game. I had heard rumors of some informal games being played during Ramadan (more on this particular holiday later), and it sounded like fun. I mean, neither I nor Victor had played soccer since we were about ten. I remember that at that time Chris Woods and a few others tried out for the Classic team and started traveling long distances to games. Me, I still preferred my Saturday morning cartoons. But still, an informal soccer game would be a good opportunity to rub shoulders with the locals and get a little exercise, right? Kind of.

At 10:00pm, Victor and I walked into a converted basketball court in the gymnasium and our jaws collectively dropped. The stands were packed. If I had to ball park a figure, I'd say there were about as many people there watching the games as during a better-than-averagely attended Haverford Mens Basketball game. And they were rowdy, too. But then my attention turned to the game being played out before ours. The quality of the game was certainly several notches above anything I've seen in the states. And it's not like it was the varsity team, either. From my perspective, it felt like I had been invited to a basketball game in Chicago, only to find myself thrust onto the boards for a match between St. Joseph and Loyola Academy. It was like I had handed a Moroccan a lacrosse stick, given him a half hour of instruction, and sent him into a game. Disconcerting, to say the least. Then we noticed another team warming up: our opponents.

And this is where I had my first flashback to the aforementioned underdog movies. Remember when the Mighty Ducks first step on the ice and see the Hawks skating lines and taking shooting drills on the goal? It was worse than that. These guys had matching jerseys, ran choreographed drills, and - the icing on the cake - had a team picture before the game started. Having gotten a good look at the opposition, I turned to look at the team we were fielding. There were five Americans (bad), none with recent soccer experience (worse), and most of whom had the same wild-eyed look that I'm sure I was sporting (worst). The Moroccan captain seemed on the verge of tears before the game even began. And it didn't get any better.

I will say this for myself, I had a lot of fun. And I credit myself with using hustle and scrappiness pretty valiantly in the face of overwhelming technical superiority. The vocal crowd made things really interesting. They cheered for every 50/50 ball and everything. I'd like to thing they were rooting for the team of misfits and underdogs, but who knows. As far as the score, some things are better left unsaid. But, we held them to single digits, and that's something that should be recognized. Small victories, right?