[FredFriendly]

I'm not a soccer fan, never watched it on TV, only been to a few games played by pre-teen kids, so I know nearly zippo about the game. Nonetheless, I am thoroughly enjoying this anime. Shou's enthusiasm and persistence is great, and it certainly seems to be rubbing off on all the other players, as well as their new coach.

Although I have not watched any other soccer-based animes yet, I have watched several other sports-based animes (Cross Game, Big Windup, Taishou Yakyuu Musume, to name a few), and I find this anime every bit as enjoyable.

Spoiler for episode 6:

So they finally get eleven players, even though they had to borrow a couple of players from the fifth grade team. I'm surprised that the businessman didn't complain about Erika being a girl on the team, let alone Reika after she joined up. It was good to see that Shou put so much trust in Erika's judgment, even though he's, presumably, never seen Reika play. It was also good to see the Furuyas complimenting Erika on her speed.

The one thing I hope they do is to realistically portray how Reika is supposed to lose all that weight. I'm presuming that she's also the girl in the OP, who looks about forty pounds lighter than the current Reika. It is possible that she could lose it in about a month under a severely extreme regime of diet and exercise, but it would be fairly unrealistic for the normal teenager.

I know that the minimum is eleven players, but how many players would a team like this usually have? Wouldn't they want to recruit more than the bare minimum? I know for the upcoming matches they had to get eleven, but why stop there (other than nobody else wanting to join)?