Thorpeland Photography

Crash and Burn

The stage was set. My Thursday night soccer team had finished the regular season in 4th place and squeezed into the playoffs for a chance at the championship. The one team that stood in our way, the first place team. They had already beaten us once this season, but this time with our full team we felt victory was in our grasp! The game started out well enough, they scored two goals on us and we answered with one just before half-time. Down 2-1 wasn't bad at all. Second half starts. Im playing rights-side striker, the ball is played perfectly through their midfield and I get the ball to my feet with one defender left to beat for a shot on goal. He rushes towards me and my soccer instincts take over my feet. I start to do a normal wrong-footing move on him by stopping it fast and switching it from my left foot to my right, to leave him standing still. I plant my left foot on the turf and cut back to my right. At that second I feel a tremendous pain in my left heel. My foot rolls over and I almost collapse to the turf. I regain myself and still have control of the ball. All I can feel is an intense burning in my heel. I pass the ball off to a teamate and get off the field for a sub to come in. I managed to go back into the game and even score a goal on a free kick. They still ended up being too much for us, winning the game 5-2. Ouch. I came home and iced the foot/heel and went to bed. I woke up to try and go to work. I stepped out of the bed.... AAAAHHHHH!!!! No way. I cant even put an ounce of weight on it. The heel is now black and blue and swollen. Looks like a deep tissue bruise. To answer your next question, no... I didn't go to the doctor. I know enough about this type of injury to know what I would be told by a doctor. "Stay off it, put ice on it, take some asprin to help the pain and oh yeah... stay off it", is what they would tell me. I can do that without paying them say it. So, Im going out tonight with some friends. It's going to hurt, im going to be slow... but oh well. I'm tough, it'll heal. I hope.