Early last week Mater and I played our third game of Total Attack!! Soccer, which was also our briefest since we had to halt it to watch an important hockey game (wherein the Columbus Blue Jackets clinched a place in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in their history — hurrah!). We only played until the 22nd Minute, at which point I was leading 1-nil.
This was the first game in which we used the third Advanced Element: Shots on Goal, and it certainly reduced the scoring opportunities. Mater, frustrated by my increasingly conservative tactics, quoted the rule book with an accusatory tone, “Players should shoot on goal as soon as possible.” (Emphasis hers.) Dramatic pause followed by my hysterical laughter and then hers — thus was much valuable playing time lost.
It should be noted that AE 3 made scoring much more difficult and the only goal scored in the game was accomplished by dribbling.
One memorable moment was when I maneuvered one of my Strikers around one of her players to dribble the ball closer to her penalty area, and she exclaimed, “You can’t do that! You changed direction twice!” I pointed out that my player was dribbling, not passing or shooting, and it became clear that she was not aware of the distinction with regard to the rule that there may be no more than one bend in a pass or shot. “Do you mean all this time you’ve been playing as if a player [i.e. playing piece] can change direction no more than once per move?” I asked incredulously. She nodded meekly, and I realized she had been playing with a self-imposed handicap for the past three games. Needless to say, this invalidates all three, but we begin with a clean slate for Game Four.
For Game Four, we shall be using the first four Advanced Elements, and with luck we’ll be able to play two entire halves for the first time.
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