I wouldnt have gone, normally. There are usually a lot of people who turn up for the weekly game. And most of them are very good players, most of them players of Infy Team, so I save myself from huge levels of embarassment by not going, even though the temptation is there. But Aswin checked the numbers and told me the turn out was going to be very less, guess due to most of the players resting ahead of the Inter DC Championship to happen on the weekend at Mangalore, so basically the day's game could turn into a tiki-taka practice. (So he told me) Thats how I ended up in the Loyola Ground, only to find (to my despair, perhaps) quite a healthy number of people turned up, enough to play an 8-per-team match.
The team split was very unfair and unbalanced and left them stronger.Now I want to state with the least self effacing tone that my physique doesn’t really favor me having a good go at my favorite sport (or any other sport for that matter.) I get easily outrun, outmuscled and outpaced. This wouldnt have mattered if my technique was good enough to mask the other shortcomings. Sadly, no. May be stamina can be improved over time with practice, but 25 years of being has taught me I am not going widen into the normal human size.
^I have this gift of being able to drift off from any topic and end it up in extolling my virtues. It’s an irritating habit.
So Aswin took me into his team. I said in jest I'd be Sergio Busquets, to be safe. I didn’t want to start on the wings, it required pace, breaking away and delivering accurate balls into the box. (And there wasn't enough players on each side to have a couple of wingers per se on the left and right). And also since the numbers per side was less, it meant one had to do a lot of tracking back to help in defense too if one's playing on either of the sides, more so since their team was offensively much better. Starting in a central midfield wasn’t an option either, it required good vision and creativity to initiate moves. So I started just in front of the back three, in the Busquets role. As the game progressed I found that I sucked at breaking up play, something the defensive midfielder should be good at, if I may dare enough to call my position as such. Most of the players I closed in dummied and got away easily. I was enjoying the luxury of being novice since no one from my team shouted at me.
Fatigue got the better of me after odd 15 minutes and I saw myself ball watching at times their players started swift counters. Aswin was his usual brilliant self, and Pradeep and Biju was quite solid at the back. Pradeep ventured out forward at times and even scored our first goal. Twijin was on right back and was quite good, so was the guy who played LB, who introduced himself as KK. Ratheesh lacked a good partner upfront, as Aswin had to play almost box to box. Sreerag prevented himself from committing any heroics to save himself for the tournament ahead as he was to be the team GK. But the player who impressed me most in our team was Athul. He was everywhere. Last man defending, collecting the ball from midfield and attacking upfront. I would like to know someday how it feels to play without tiring at all like that.
Towards the later part of the game I found myself in more advanced positions. I got the ball a couple of occasions in their box when it was too crowded, but I always looked to pass even then, since I was so unsure of myself to shoot it. On one of those occasions, when I was standing just ahead of the centre line in their half facing my own goal, we had just broken one of their attacking moves and Athul had passed the ball to Aswin. Aswin advanced, looked ahead and caught my eye. The look on his face told me he would give it to me, and by some instinct I darted forward, with only one defender to catch me. Aswin's ball was perfectly weighted. It evaded the defender who was closing on me, and fell just ahead of me and bounced high. Dhanesh Bhai was their goalkeeper. He saw the threat and advanced too. Both of us were equally near to the ball and I raised my feet quite high to nudge the ball over his head. That judgement proved to be wrong, since he was able to parry the ball away just in the nick of time. That was one of the best chances of the game for me. I should have tried to control the ball and get around him instead of trying the shot. Misjudgements like that can leave you ruminating later and sighing over with a lot of what-if's. The next best chance came sometime later, again in one of the counters when Aswin advanced through the left. I ran forward too through the right, to give him options, just in case. He shot for goal to far post, and was inches wide. But had I not paused in my run I could have been there to connect it for the simplest of tap ins.
The score was 4-3 in favor of them when this happened. I was once again in their box near the D, the ball was free in the air and I tried a shot, it was weak and was blocked and came back to me. This time my right leg guided it to Aswin who was free, who shot it for goal. I dont care if you say that it is debatable if that can be called as an assist, because I'm going to.
0 comments:
Post a Comment