The Trophy

July 18, 2014: My brother and I decided to play soccer. Two German-American brothers playing soccer at their boyhood elementary school five days after watching their fellow sons of the fatherland defeat Argentina. “Let’s do a shootout,” I said. “Loser buys the other a drink.”

I was KILLING IT, scoring 7 of 10 goals off my older brother Rob. Time to switch sides. I block the first goal, and the second, but miss the third. Rob cracks in three more in a row. I tried to focus. “Just block two more and then you can think of whether you want a pint at the Dutch Garden or a Makers on the rocks at the Creekside.”

On the seventh shot, the Rob floats it over the crossbar and over the fence into a small grove. Instead of throwing the ball back over the fence, he punts it straight up like Danny White. The soccer ball is now stuck in the top of the tree.

We take turns punting basketballs up in the tree, hoping to knock the soccer ball down. Sixty minutes would pass and two basketballs would get stuck in two different trees before we would decide to quit. “Let’s leave it. It’ll fall down eventually.” I went back every day for the next two weeks.

The ball never fell.

Last week we had two inches of rain and winds up to 30 mph.

The ball is still up in the tree.

As what we in California refer to as winter sets in, the leaves continue to fall and the canopy that damn ball is sitting in gets weaker. My hope is that a stronger storm will come along and dislodge that ball. If not, I’m gonna get pvc pipe, a potato, some hairspray, and make me a badass potato canon and shoot that thing out of the tree.

Once I get the ball back, it’ll get placed on a wooden stand and become the BFFA Trophy. I think it symbolizes everything in fantasy soccer: two balls symbolizing two divisions, the loneliness of being on top, the constant threat of others trying to knock you down, and the fact that you reached the top cuz you were f**king around and randomly ended up where you are.