I play medium tier co-ed soccer, have for the last dozen years or so. I just hit 40, am slowing down and taking longer to recover from injuries. I know my time at a fun sprinting competitivish level is coming to an end but… Sure, I’ll miss the new dope friend aspext of it but equally importantly, 3 nights a week for years, I’ve been so happy to play and for a few hours a week the world, the future, politics, none of it mattered, all that mattered was stopping the bad guys from putting a ball in the wrong place and hopefully making it go to the right place (I’m defence, that half of the field is up to the other 6)

I dunno. Hoped maybe one of you has had to do this before and can share some thoughts. (I just had my foot clipped pretty bad, know I’m out for a few weeks but just came back off another injury etc…)

Edit: Goodness gracious, you folks are all so kind and supportive. Thanks so much, I’m definitely feeling less dejected and much more hopeful about the next stage of living an active and wild life.

  • MyBrainHurts@piefed.caOPEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I have! I’ve only watched one league and it was wildly competitive (lots of Europeans who played at much higher levels back home) but I’m sure there must be some at an appropriate level.

    The thing that has really stopped me is that on most of my teams I’m 5 - 15 years older than my teammates so they couldn’t come with me and I love them. But, maybe it’s just an opportunity to make new friends

    • bigfondue@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      That sucks about leaving your teammates. My friends were really happy when they were able to move into the older league. They were playing in the younger league before they turned thirty, so it was them at 28 or 29 and the league was I think 16-29, so they were playing with some young guys who were skating circles around them and playing more aggressively than they wanted to.

      • MyBrainHurts@piefed.caOPEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Ha, I fully get the appeal of getting away from the younglings! I’m lucky, I can still keep pace with most of them. Which led to my favourite accidental burn:

        Defending against some fast kid (okay, early 20s) and I beat him a few times on sprints to long balls. After the 3rd or 4th time, he says "man, you’re really fast for an… " then pauses, re-evaluates, “uhhh , you’re really fast!”