Can't remember the last time I got the breath knocked out of me...

(Hik, that's not a cue.)

Well, NOW I can: it was last night.

The only way for me to get between the ball and player was to jump up a tad to get in the way, in a way that the ball would hopefully hit my stomach. It was a really strong kick and it got me in that spot right between the two sides of rib cage. Pain! No breath! The Russian-ish (not sure which of them are actually Russian and which are from other countries in that area) guy was all concerned. "Are you alright?!" "I... ... ... ... am... now... "

It was just the two of us down there. And the goalie. This is what happens when your team is being quite terrible. Terrible is what happens every time (except for that other time when we pleasantly beat them by 1 -- barely -- Dawei, where were you this time!!) the Russians want to be their own team and we're missing a few key elements, which translates into NO defense (since I don't exactly count) and NO support for the strikers. Ugh.

Then he turned to instructive mode: "Next time, back up a bit and get it with your leg." "Well, my accuracy is already so bad, I'd rather throw something in the way that I know will block..." Usually it's a hip-with-all-the-rest, ehe. But, yes, if I had half a brain and could think at the same time as I'm running, maybe I could have the presence of mind to do something like that. He then turned it even more instructive by demonstrating a karate-style kick and laughing about it.

In the end, I got the ball away and the person I got it away from wasn't even all that concerned about losing it. That time. There were other times when he was not so impressed. Ahaha.

It's pretty tender when guys get all instructive. In a non-condescending way. Awww... Haha.

The rest of the time, Sergey and I managed to carry on a coherent conversation between plays. We covered everything from war-mongering ways of certain countries (as he shockingly realizes I'm half from "that" country) to the seeming lack of logic of the people of a certain country we reside in (I told him there's logic, it's just very different -- so we ended up agreeing that it's all quite interesting). And he carried out a couple devastating kick-and-goals inbetween plays. It was really that bad of a game. On our side. And he was un-tired, for a change, so those kicks ended up doing serious damage. Then there were some really bad misses. Haha. But the fact that they got so many chances to kick... terrible... just terrible...

Well, we live and learn.

And here I was, all afraid I'd separated muscle with such a hard shot to the belly, or at least bruised. But nope. At least, not yet.

:D