Happy Belated Birthday to my cousin Emma!

We tied our game tonight 2-2. This was not a good result. Team Stommen is not very good at winning sometimes, and even with this caveat, I still think we deserved the victory. However, when you don't put a game away while you are in control these ties and reverses can happen.

We scored first against Floya, when D latched on to a rebound and scored with her head. D scores many great goals, but even she has to admit that this score was a special one. It isn't often that someone who is 5' 1" on a good day, scores with their head. We sat back on our lead and cruised.

Then it happened. A harmless enough looking cross along the ground and into the box, took a slight deflection from one of our defenders into the goal it went. Horrible luck for the poor defender. It is an awful feeling to score at the wrong end of the pitch. But, these goals happen, and they are often a result of poor communication. This was one of our biggest issues today.

We took the lead again when D caught up to a great through ball from our left back. She chipped it over the keeper. I am sure Carolina will be excited about this goal scoring machine that we are developing in Norway.

We stayed in the lead until the 80th minute, dominating and creating a few really good opportunities for ourselves, but failing to put the ball into the net. Then, a long, high ball into the box was fumbled by our keeper. Now Ingrid is a wall for us back there, and she has saved our asses on many occasions. Now, she made just one simple error, and it was one more goal to them and a tied game. It's easy enough to blame the keeper, but the fact is that the defence was so confident in the keeper that they didn't do their defensive job covering her. It was a good reminder that the job isn't done until the ball is safely tucked into the keeper's arms.

We put huge pressure on Floya in the last moments of the match, and even managed to get two great chances, but this just wasn't our day. Foya foiled us, and we have to live with a tie. It hurts, but we received one point and in the end that is better than nothing. The tie leaves us in fourth place, but Team Strommen has to face Staebek, the League leaders next week, and Kettemn the weeek afterwards. They will be without D and me.

Now our attention turns to Canada and the match against the USA. I leave tomorrow for camp in Toronto. I like Norway very much, but I LOVE Canada. I can't wait to be back on home (field) turf.

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