Applying the Bard to the Beautiful Game

We had a low turnout for this morning's travel soccer game in Flemington; we were missing several key players and had only one substitute-- who was not only sick, but had a sore quad from Saturday's game-- and we were playing a team with several big, fast players and an eleven year old goalie the size of an adult (he could punt the ball nearly the length of the field and he caught everything cleanly) and we were down 1 - 0 at the half so I paraphrased Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V to inspire them: I began with the mathematical division of glory . . . the fewer the players, the greater the share of honor, and then reminded them that they had showed up and and if they did something remarkable then those players who were not in attendance "should think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap" and then my very tired crew went out for the second half and immediately gave up a goal, so we were down 2 - 0 and things looked hopeless, and then they got inspired by something-- whether it was my speech we'll never know-- but they came back and tied the game and came damned close to winning it . . . if it wasn't for that giant goalie, but it was certainly a David vs. Goliath performance . . . the other team had eighteen players and we had nine and a half, and I was very proud of their effort.