Soccer, as performed by preschool girls

The game of soccer, while the most popular team sport on the planet, is, without question, almost completely unrecognizable when played by a group of four year olds.

It seems simple enough: divide the group in two, give some of them red jerseys and the others green, drop a ball in the middle and watch as they instinctively drive towards one goal or another.

Doesn't actually come off that way. What happens instead is a little more complex than that.

The challenge begins when the girls with the red jerseys don't like the color red and would rather have pink, purple, or yellow. Inevitably, one player will reach such a level of disappointment with the color options that she'll run off the field in tears towards her mother, looking for comfort.

The color debate is eventually settled. By this I mean that the girls who refuse to wear red are switched to the team without jerseys, and the same number of girls are switched from that team onto the team with the red jerseys (another girl runs off the field crying because she didn't want to wear a jersey at all).

With the abominable red jerseys finally on the appropriate amount of girls, it's now time for a break. The players scatter to various ends of the playing field for their water bottles and spend a few minutes comparing one to the other ("she has a Hello Kitty bottle... can I get one, too?").

After the break (which ends when parents start physically directing their angels back to the field), the girls reconvene in the middle and complain about the jerseys again. The coach holds the pink soccer ball borrowed from one of the players (in this case, my little player) up in the air and drops it in the middle of the crowd.

There are about ten girls on the field (this is not an absolute number as it constantly changes based on how many spontaneously need their shin guards adjusted, are thirsty, want a snack, and are wondering when this will be over). They watch the ball drop, and this is where any resemblance of soccer disappears completely. Four girls stare at the ball as one picks it up with her hands and starts running towards the goal. Three chase the girl, screaming that she can't use her hands, one screams towards a parent to report the violation, and the final girl runs in the opposite direction of everyone else.

Once the girl with the ball throws it into the goal it's time for another break. This is when my daughter (owner of the game ball) returned to me, upset because she didn't want people fighting over her ball. I tried to give her a mini-synopsis of soccer by saying, "honey, they're not fighting, they're playing soccer. The idea is to get the ball into the goal." I pushed her back towards the field realizing I'd just confused her more. No biggie, I thought, watching one of her teammates trying to convince her father that she was too hot to wear the mesh red jersey.

The playing resumes. The ball is dropped in the direction of one girl who starts kicking it. All of the other girls slow down and patiently watch her kick it towards the goal, around the goal, back on to the field, and in the direction of the other goal. Her mother, meanwhile, pleads with her that she's going the wrong way. A few other girls mistake the directions of that mother and start running in the opposite direction they were going and end up running onto another field in the middle of a different game. They stay for long enough that someone in that game kicks the ball to one of them and they start moving that ball back to the field they came from.

Time for another break.

Playing resumes. The ball is dropped. Two kids collide. One (mine) is crying.

Peach is now upset because she has a grass stain on her sock and didn't know that playing soccer would turn her blood green.

Time for another break.

Playing resumes but of the ten original girls, two have quit due to exhaustion and two others have removed the red jerseys.

Break.

Playing resumes. There are now a total of five girls on the field and only one of them is wearing a red jersey (she happens to like the color red). The coach looks around for the rest of the players. Two are snacking and one is arguing with her mother over the red jersey.

The ball is dropped, and all five girls run towards it together, graciously allowing a pre-determined girl to kick the ball into the goal.

The game is over.

Peach can't wait for next week's game. She has, however, resolved that if the jerseys are still red, she'll play on the team that doesn't have to wear them.