Wednesday, November 25, 2015

LBS Diaries Part 23 - Football, bloody hell!

Here in LBS, the most active society is the Officer's Club and no doubt that Rajaganpati...err my bad, Dr. Rajaganpati has been doing a tremendous job in conducting one activity after another. Hat's off to you man. This guy is like always running around passing sheets in the class to get names for the teams and then making video films to promote the upcoming events. Some of the faculties actually commented that he would have been excellent in the field of marketing. Plus who can forget the delicious cakes and cutlets. And I have been after his life from the very beginning to organize a Football tournament but apparently he had everything sorted out. And finally our chance came today.

As soon as the plan was out, we started practicing in the mornings and in the evenings as well. Now this was going to be a war between different sections. Don't get all worked up, by sections I only mean the lecture groups A, B, C and D. Now in the scheme of things, as we have been playing football here for a while, it was obvious that C was the favorite to win the thing as it had the likes of Irfan, Deepak, Sumit and others. Now our Section D also had a decent team and that day during the practice match, seeing our performance i was pretty sure we would win the thing. It was really getting dark but since everyone wanted to continue, we went on. And in that little light which was there, I got hit by this mighty kick of one of the opposing defenders. It was like that perfectly inelastic collusion we studied in Physics. His stud hitting my toe area. And boy, that pained like hell. Blue toe, that too on my left foot. My best foot. It was that "Achilles foot" moment. Man, you hit the best possible part of me. Heartbreak. Feelings of vengeance started to creep in. But then a toe for a toe would make the world notoerious!

One needs to accept that things are not always hunky-dory for you. You got to accept the shit and move on. What if I cannot kick the ball and give long passes, I can use the short ones breaching their defense. I can stay back ensuring a strengthened defense. I can head the ball in set pieces. Oh, there are so many ways. And this hope carried me through. And then came the match day. We decided to skip practice the day before as we didn't want any more injuries. And more so, we were kind of comfortable with the players we had got for all the positions. Fortunately we got the red color in the draw and with two die hard United fans in the team, it was show time!



Our first match was against lecture group B and from the looks of it they had a good team. The match  started off on equal footing with no major movements. The audience felt that D United was not showing their real colors as they were still warming up to the occasion. Well, I kind of agree to it. We were actually not feeling any pressure from the other end and ergo were little bit easy on our legs. But then one goal and then another and then another. We were on a roll. Excellent forward play by Kelzaang, Apoorv and Sree. Our strategies which we had chalked out during the lectures was finally coming to play. The final score was 8-1 in our favor. I remembered that 8-2 drubbing of Arsenal by Man Utd once. Uncanny resemblances.

The final game with C was to played in the evening. I wanted it the next day but so much is happening towards the fag end of FC that it had to be concluded today only. Now our opponents were notorious for their forward play and hence we tweaked our formation a bit which worked fine for most part of the game. And we had taken the lead and had good control over the ball. But then there was this own goal which perhaps brought down the morale of the team. But good teams keep their composure unhurt by such unfortunate happenings. But some of us couldn't which is where we lost the game. Battles are fought in the field but won in the minds. Very true for sports as well. But then we showed resurgence and came back in the game. But then sometimes things don't go the way you expect them too. They played well in the closing moments. Kudos Section C for your victory.

D United
From L-R: Rohit, George, Sree, Apoorv, Arawind, Kelzaang, Mukesh, Yours truly and Aman.

I have said this before and I would again say it, Winning isn't everything but wanting to win is. And we did put our best. Great stuff guys, proud of the way you played. It was undoubtedly the best football game I have played. Thank you for this. And I know the expression i am going to use is for Epic occasions but for me it was one the best footballing days. "Football, bloody hell!"

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