Thursday, November 16, 2006
Indoor Soccer Experience
I have and will always prefer outdoor soccer instead of the indoor version of the game, but when I and my friends heard about this event called 'Indoor Soccer for the Mini Olympics' being organised at TAMU's Recreation Center, we immediatley thought of giving it a try. The rules for this game are slightly different than the game we play outdoors. First of all its a 7-on match and it comprises of two 20 minutes halves with rolling substitutes.
Our team's name was already registered by one of our friends, so I job was reduced to muster 8-9 players only. Abhishek, Greg and Homarjun were the first 3 names in my mind, then I called Sumanth, Ahmed, Osama, Anshul and Nishant to make it a complete team. Our match was scheduled against China at 6'o clock in the evening on 10th November'06 and we hadn't practiced on the floor at all. As usual we lacked proper management and planning before the game. Everyone came in piece-meal from here and there and somehow managed to gather at the venue just on time.
Well, to say it frankly, I was quite confident of my boys that we will perform good though as I said we hadn't any prior practice and at the end of the game we do performed to best of our capabilities. We lost the match 5-2 but the game was played in good spirits and each team member contributed their best. I would say the best part of our game was watching Greg at its best at the defence and Osama giving himslef all in goalkeeping. I can't imagine even a single minute without Greg being on the field. We started of pretty well, with Ahmed, Sumanth and myself on the forward and mid, I managed to score 2 early goals. It was only because of the good passing and co-ordination between three of us. For the first 10-15 minutes we were leading 2-0 and then due to our slackness China got thr' our rock solid defence twice and equalized at the halftime.
After halftime, stamina came into play and made its full toll on us. Indoor soccer is a fast game and requires good amount of stamina. If one is not used to it, then better think twice before getting into it. Our players got exhausted and China took full advantage of it and scored three quick goals. At the end, we tried to give our best and somehow managed to cope with the pace of the game. With Abhisek coming into forward along with Ahmed created few hopes but of no use. So the final score was 5-2 in favor of China as they deserved to win the match. So I would say it was a very good experience playing indoor soccer with a good team. Although we didn't win the match but I got a little satisfaction from the fact that we were not totally outplayed by our opponents. At the end I would like to thank each of our team members, especially Ahmed and Osama, for being part of the team and taking their time off for this game from their busy schedule.
Our team's name was already registered by one of our friends, so I job was reduced to muster 8-9 players only. Abhishek, Greg and Homarjun were the first 3 names in my mind, then I called Sumanth, Ahmed, Osama, Anshul and Nishant to make it a complete team. Our match was scheduled against China at 6'o clock in the evening on 10th November'06 and we hadn't practiced on the floor at all. As usual we lacked proper management and planning before the game. Everyone came in piece-meal from here and there and somehow managed to gather at the venue just on time.
Well, to say it frankly, I was quite confident of my boys that we will perform good though as I said we hadn't any prior practice and at the end of the game we do performed to best of our capabilities. We lost the match 5-2 but the game was played in good spirits and each team member contributed their best. I would say the best part of our game was watching Greg at its best at the defence and Osama giving himslef all in goalkeeping. I can't imagine even a single minute without Greg being on the field. We started of pretty well, with Ahmed, Sumanth and myself on the forward and mid, I managed to score 2 early goals. It was only because of the good passing and co-ordination between three of us. For the first 10-15 minutes we were leading 2-0 and then due to our slackness China got thr' our rock solid defence twice and equalized at the halftime.
After halftime, stamina came into play and made its full toll on us. Indoor soccer is a fast game and requires good amount of stamina. If one is not used to it, then better think twice before getting into it. Our players got exhausted and China took full advantage of it and scored three quick goals. At the end, we tried to give our best and somehow managed to cope with the pace of the game. With Abhisek coming into forward along with Ahmed created few hopes but of no use. So the final score was 5-2 in favor of China as they deserved to win the match. So I would say it was a very good experience playing indoor soccer with a good team. Although we didn't win the match but I got a little satisfaction from the fact that we were not totally outplayed by our opponents. At the end I would like to thank each of our team members, especially Ahmed and Osama, for being part of the team and taking their time off for this game from their busy schedule.
