Bellevue vs Tahoma - 9.8.26

Bellevue 1 – 1 Tahoma

28th 1-0 Saleen PK
36th 1-1 Tahoma goal

A few weeks ago my eldest son got married in Carmel, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis, where his fiance was born and raised. Carmel is a lovely midwest town that has the distinction of having the most roundabouts in the country. Seriously. It's a town of 100,000, and hardly any traffic lights. Not what you'd expect in the middle of America. Why Carmel?  Apparently, the Mayor of Carmel in the 90s, after visiting France on vacation wondered if he could make his town safer by adopting traffic routing techniques used by French towns. And so he did. Of course, at the beginning, it was annoying to most drivers who had never learned how to navigate a circular intersections with no traffic lights. Traffic actually gets slower at first. People get frustrated at the change (lights don't require as much judgement and paying attention as a roundabout...there's not a lot of people doomscrolling while navigating a roundabout, but every day I see drivers at traffic lights playing Candy Crush or swiping right or left constantly). But slowly, as the population gets used to how to enter and exit the circle, traffic becomes significantly more efficient, and safer. Injury accidents in Carmel decreased by 50% (people aren't accelerating through intersections as lights are shifting from yellow to red, etc.). And even some unexpected benefits: with less idling at congested lights, car pollution is reduced and the unused centers of a roundabouts can be used for public art and garden-like landscaping. The data shows that Carmel commutes are faster, and safer, than before the infrastructure changes. Today, Carmel has over 160 roundabouts and I've never seen a town where traffic flows so smoothly and efficently.   

What does any of this have to do with a pre-season game against non-conference powerhouse Tahoma? Fair question.  

We are using our four non-conference games this season to build a few roundabouts. Of course we will try to win every game. But a high school season is more of a campaign than a single battle. We are willing to endure some short-term frustrations (new roles for some players, more frequent substitution patterns) to learn when to enter the traffic flow, when to accelerate, when to slow down, how to signal/communicate properly, etc., The result will be a smoother and more efficient roster later in the season. So although I understand that ties can be a bit dissatisfying, overall I was very very pleased by what we learned in our game against last year's 4A State Finalist. Although Bellevue returned lots of players from last year's championship squad, we still need to learn about each other, our inidividual tendencies, our natural patterns, and find the best combinations that make a our team even more efficient.   

Like last week against Blanchet, the first half against Tahoma was competitive. We traded goals in the 28th minute and 36th minute: Saleen with a well-taken PK after being clearly fouled in the box; and a goal conceded with just a few minutes left in the first half due to a series of unfortunate events that we can easily fix going forward). Although the first half was more evenly balanced, we still created quality chances and played excellent team defense (7 shots/2 corners for Bellevue at the half, versus 4/0 for Tahoma).  Early in the season we work the most on building a solid foundation of team-first defense and then build creativity and goal-scoring on top of that as the season progresses. We are ahead of schedule for how stingy this team can become defensively.   

If we had just played the first half and went home, it would've been a very solid performance all around; but then we took the field in the second half...and it was a joy to watch. We seemingly won every tackle, every header, pounced on every loose 2nd ball...we played quickly and confidently from back to front and back again. We were patient in attack, recycling the ball when play became congested and switching the point of attack to find weaknesses in the Bears' defense. It was really really good. The only obvious, glaring criticism is that we didn't score a winning goal (or four like last week). Statistics can never capture the free-flowing joy of well played soccer, but like shadows on the walls of a cave, it points at the truth:   

2nd half statistics: 16 shots on the Tahoma goal plus 3 more dangerous corners to 0 shots and 0 corners for the Bears. As lopsided in possession and expected goals as any game we have played in years.  

And yet, we share the points. That's soccer sometimes.  

We might have to honk a few times early in the project before all our drivers are flowing-freely through the intersection. 

On Thursday we host Eastside Catholic, a 3A semi-finalist from a year ago and a team that is among the favorites for a state title this season. Last year, we traveled to their campus, they prayed for us before kick-off, and we came away with a 5-2 victory. It was one of their only blemishes to an otherwise excellent season so I know the Crusaders are eager to test themselves against our Attacking Champions.

As always, thank you to our traveling band of supporters who braved the traffic (and more than a few stop lights), to attend our game at Tahoma. It matters. Thank you.