Fullname: J.J. Ocuaman
Nationality: U.S. Citizen (Father is from the Philippines, born and raised - Pangasinan)
Birthdate: 05/12/99
Birthplace: U.S.A.
Height: 4 ft. 11 in. (but still growing...)
Position: Center/Left Defender or Striker
Clubs: GRFC (currently), WPFC (former), SCFC (former)
Keep an eye on this young lad, I know the Sounders Pre-Youth Academy is... ;-)
Hhhm, still 12 years old, interesting.
Do you have vids of him playing?
He has an upcoming tourney, so I will take a vid there. Sorry, we take the camera to almost all his games and can never seem to film. We get so excited that we end up filming the sky, the ground, or combination of it all REALLY fast! Dizzy....
We do hav a 16 year old, who is extremely talented but wants to take his futbol in a different direction. *sigh* so whatever makes him happy, in terms of futbol, we will support. Of course, so long as it is productive.
Getting ready to head to the tournament in a couple of hours...it is 1.5 hours away, and is extremely popular for camping because it is in the middle of NOWHERE! However, I prefer the comfort of my own home, so I rather make the trek every day.
This tournament hosts select to competitive level teams, and is like a zoo!!! Tons of people, and it kind of has a fair setting, sans the rides! Parking is a nightmare due to the amount of people, even after many choose to camp in tents and R.V.'s...but its the last good to excellent tournament to participate in (in the area) before league play starts in September. Its like saying "farewell summer..."
So wish my little J.J. and his teammates GOOD LUCK, as his team will be competing against some great teams, 2 of which are within our residential boundaries, but we snubbed due to club politics. Yes, even at the youth level politics lurke about, you just have to choose how much of it you are willing to deal with, before it interferes with the real reason we run around taxing our kids 4-5 times a week, for development. I refuse to pay a coach or a club who only looks for short term gain, as opposed to long term development/success; been there, done that.
I will be attempting to record the games this time, and hopefully stay focused. I will forewarn you that you may hear some loud cheering, and maybe even some sideline comments from fellow parents...but hey, its futbol and we are all just passionate!!! Until later!!!
I did film the game today, and I was able to follow it!!! However, the game had no significant plays. Our boys won, but the game itself lacked a lot of luster. It happens when you play a team of lesser skills...so I decided to save you all from boredom, and we will see what tomorrow brings!
Tomorrow, or I should say later today they face a team they won in semis in a tournament earlier this summer, and they will be facing this team potentialy in state league this fall. The match up should be good, so hopefully I will have something more significant to share.
My J.J. hardly even touched the ball...he did take a free kick from the 40, but it was blah...and although it was right on goal, it was right in the middle so the keeper had no problem with making an easy save...and well needless to say my oldest from the sidelines had a lot to say about his little bros free kick, that I probably should not be sharing over the video recording...gotta love kids!!! To bad the oldest boys team doesn't have any more tournaments this summer, cause I forget how critical he gets of his younger counterpart....
The team will be having a team late lunch/early dinner after their game today...pizza! Ugh, yes I have to go along with the pizza request because as I state previously, this tournament is in the middle of nowhere, and you have to take what you can get.
I will continue to document/log the happenings on J.J., so read if you'd like, or ignore too, but whatever you choose, thank you for letting me share my little piece of futbol, from my little corner of the world, on my little player! :o)
You can record all his game when you can, and select the best plays in one video.
@Azkals, thanks! I forgot I have software that allows me to do this...note taken.
Today Force took a draw of 2-2...the team again lacked luster, and although they dominated they allowed two very silly goals in. The second one even moreso...but they are 12 year old boys, and unfortunately decided to just be. J.J. however, had an awesome free kick, that would have been in all on its own, but one of his teammates decided to give it the extra nub, which was just fine. This gave us our first goal. He touched the ball a lot more today, and performed good, but there really was no need to perform great based on what was happening on the field.
Tomorrow we face the toughest team in our group play, and I am sure they are saying the same. This game is critical as it is the premier club in our boundaries, and the coach and the Director of Coaching of this team/club have been trying tirelessly to recruit my little J.J...so much so that they have made all kinds of crazy offers to us, hoping we will sign him over. That team played on the field next to us, and the coach kept chatting me up, and asking me how J.J. was doing, is he happy, etc. :o)
I started filming the game, but half way through the first half I had to stop. A ball that came out of play struck my little 4 year old right in the face!!! Well, it was downhill from there in the filming for me, and my oldest was to busy criticizing so he was of no help...I wish he would have played in a pick up game or something. I am not use to him not playing in the same tournaments, but their summer tournaments are over, and they don't play until next month for league, and then his next tournament is in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving. Joy me...
Tomorrow's game is an early one, and so we start our trek early. At least it will be Saturday, so traffic that early will be minimal. Tomorrow they MUST win. The draw today didn't give them any flexibility, so it is a huge MUST!!! Send your good vibes, and well wishes our way, cause they have made it to finalists all summer, and we don't want to finish out our summer not making it out of group stage.
Will keep you posted!
So Force did not move on...first tournament this summer, and their last of the summer that they did not go to the finals. Its hard to loose when your team dominated, in passing, ball control, skill, etc...our forwards could not finish for the love of them, and the other team got an extremely lucky shot that gave them the goal. All they needed to win.
I walked off the field a VERY proud mama, cause my J.J. played extremely well!!! As I mentioned before, the opponent coach has been trying to recruit my son for about 3 years now, and I have to give him and his team kudos. As soon as the final whistle blew, they all walked up to my son and shook his hand to congratulate him in such a great game. :o) *smiling*
How great is it as a parent to walk off the field, after your team just lost, feeling like you won?!?! Not too often, and you better believe I am going to gloat about it for a second or two!!!
My son's coach might have been slightly curious as to what the opponent coach was so intensly discussing with me, and if he asks me I will surely share with him. It was simply how much he enjoys watching my son compete, and how well he reads the plays, and can anticipate beyond his years. How he wished really hard this would be the year he could coach him, but is not giving up on next year...of course I thanked him and let him know J.J. is really happy where he is right now.
You see, J.J. moved to a team out of Division 1, ranked No. 2 in the region because he wants to play American football in middle school. As much as my husband and I disliked this and the fact that he did not have a lot of chemistry with his former teammates, we supported him. A Division 1 team wants you fully committed in futbol, with no distractions, school sports does not allow you to miss practice for a club sport, or you get dropped from the team. So we had to find a happy medium, and move down a division so he could participate in another sport! Imagine that?!?!
We have two clubs, not including his former club, from Division 1 knocking at our door asking him to come play for them, but he is having fun, and "tearing it up on the pitch" as he say's...he will decided next try-out's if he move back up or not. Lucky he has not burned any bridges, and has a great attitude about this all.
So Fall league will start in a few weeks...he has a lot of pressure to help get the team at the top of the leader board...but like he say's "we got this mom!" :o)
Stay tuned for fall league reports, and video on this...as always salamat!
J.J. is injured, and out for a minimum of 3-weeks...just got home from the ER, and re-evaluation occurs on Monday with his pediatrician. Injury was non-soccer related, but soccer is affected. He is extremely bummed, could not stop talking about it, and the doc held firm to him with a "NO, you are not participating in any sport for at least 3-weeks!" Extremely deep laceration, taking a chunk out of his right leg, just below the knee, outer part of the leg...exposed the ligament, but fortunately did not damage this!!! Thank heavens!!!
By the sound of your words looks like it's severe, but I hope it is not.
He is healed now. Positive confession I learned in church. :D
Changed the title into your kid's name.
Do you have a photo of JJ?
Much better! We went in on Tuesday (yesterday) for follow up diagnosis, and got a call from the doctor today. Stitches out on Saturday the 10th, and once out he is great to GO! He is super excited, and YES he is healed...
I will figure out how I can upload a pic of him...I will do one for each of the three clubs he has played for over the years.
League play starts the day he gets his stitches out, so we scheduled his appointment super early in hopes he can still play. He is working with his Sounders FC private trainer, in a "classroom" setting, so it is working out pretty well.
thanks for changing title, and let's see if I can figure out how to upload photos...
Ugh...didn't work. Here we go again...
http://photobucket.com/soccerpride
see password above
Photo posted above.
The photo is a bit funny, your boy's team mate is on the ground grimacing in pain.
LOL! Yes!!! Actually, this is J.J.'s first "club" team, so this was back in 2008...the teammate on the ground unfortunately spent most of the year in that very similar position. Love him, actually his dad was the coach of this team, and his parents are like our best friends...but he tends to be VERY dramatic...still until this date!
J.J. currently plays for the GRFC 98 Force, the photo above is of SCFC 98 Blue. There should be more photos there...
So after realizing how this site draws in people from all over the world, I thought of something fun...I am in the U.S.A., and here I am called a "Soccer Mom." Which doen't bother me, but a lot of people sometimes mean this offensively...I will get into these details later.
My idea is to start documenting the life of a "Soccer Mom," here in the U.S.A, and better yet, get the rest of you to do the same. I think it would be exciting to document how our lives around soccer and how it really works for us. It will give us an inside into how other countries view this wonderful sport, price, training, etc...I am going to use "Soccer" going forward here, because this is what it is called in the U.S.A.
I hope others jump on board as well, as I would love to read your experiences too. I am sure we can all learn something from eachother.
