Friday, April 20, 2007
Disappointing end to the soccer season
It was a very disappointing note on which my soccer season ended and probably this was the last time I played competitive soccer because I will be out of the school and studying days soon and will be into my professional life. I think my frien
ds Abhishek and Greg will agree with me that we didn't play to our potential and that hurts more.
We lost two tournaments in succession, one organized by Texas A&M University's Recreation Facility Center and the other one organized by............ called 'The Mini World Cup'. The Mini World Cup was only a two day affair, in all eight teams participated with each team playing three group games, then semi-finals and finals. For the mini World Cup Greg, Abhishek and I played for the Japanese team and we are very thankful to Naruki for considering and inviting us to join his team for 'The Mini World Cup' tournament. We played Columbia, Africa and Venezuela in our group and lost all the three games of which Greg, Abhishek and me were regular members, although we(Japanese team) gave a tough fight in each game before going down the ladder. We tried all our best but I think something went wrong in our strategy and moreover our fitness was also given a good exposure. I was more disappointed that I could not offer much to the Japanese team but looking at the positive side of it is that there's always to learn something and I learnt about my k
ey weak points. All the teams were very talented and skillful and the tournament was highly competitive. Playing in this tournament gave me an opportunity to work on the areas at which I am very weak and above all playing competitive games of any kind is always fun. I have seen the Japanese team prepare very hard for this tournament from a long time as I and my Indian partn
ers were part of all the practice sessions and practice games that they used to organize each weekend throughout the semester. But I believe that there's always a next time to look for, learn from the present experience, mistakes and work on that. I wish very best of luck to the Japanese team in their future endeavors.
The second tournament that we lost made me more disappointing because we lost in the semifinals 0-4 and secondly I believed that we were a better team than our opponents. There were few miscalculations by our team members that gave an advantage to our opponents and they didn't miss even a single one and made full use of them. Full credit to our opponents, they sticked to their plan and played
as a cohesive unit and pounced aggressively on our mistakes. In this tournament we had our own Indian team and in the quarter-finals, we won the match 8-2, six of them being scored by me, although the team that we played was very disorganised and clueless, which gave us plenty of opportunities to score goals. It gave me enough confidence about my team to perform well in the semifinals. But sports in a funny thing, you never know when the tide sets itself against you. One has to be on its toes with immense concentration until your final objective is achieved. It was a very good team effort that made us reach in the semi-finals and hopefully we will perform better the next time.
When I go back to my childhood days, I still remember those early mornings when my dad used to take me to the play ground and teach me how to play soccer. The first thing I learnt from him was to hit the football correctly and I am thankful to him for making me learn this great game of soccer. I mentioned in my earlier post that I learnt few things from my elder brother also as far as soccer is concerned an
d I still consider him to be a far better soccer player than me. I don't even consider myself as an average player so there's a long long way to go for me so much to learn and improve if I want to see myself playing good soccer but time has arrived to set different priorities in life and focus on other things. Thats the hard part of life and I consider those people very fortunate who get to work on things which they like the most in their lives or I should say those people are dare enough to follow their dreams and interests. Hats off to them!!
ds Abhishek and Greg will agree with me that we didn't play to our potential and that hurts more.We lost two tournaments in succession, one organized by Texas A&M University's Recreation Facility Center and the other one organized by............ called 'The Mini World Cup'. The Mini World Cup was only a two day affair, in all eight teams participated with each team playing three group games, then semi-finals and finals. For the mini World Cup Greg, Abhishek and I played for the Japanese team and we are very thankful to Naruki for considering and inviting us to join his team for 'The Mini World Cup' tournament. We played Columbia, Africa and Venezuela in our group and lost all the three games of which Greg, Abhishek and me were regular members, although we(Japanese team) gave a tough fight in each game before going down the ladder. We tried all our best but I think something went wrong in our strategy and moreover our fitness was also given a good exposure. I was more disappointed that I could not offer much to the Japanese team but looking at the positive side of it is that there's always to learn something and I learnt about my k
ey weak points. All the teams were very talented and skillful and the tournament was highly competitive. Playing in this tournament gave me an opportunity to work on the areas at which I am very weak and above all playing competitive games of any kind is always fun. I have seen the Japanese team prepare very hard for this tournament from a long time as I and my Indian partn
ers were part of all the practice sessions and practice games that they used to organize each weekend throughout the semester. But I believe that there's always a next time to look for, learn from the present experience, mistakes and work on that. I wish very best of luck to the Japanese team in their future endeavors.The second tournament that we lost made me more disappointing because we lost in the semifinals 0-4 and secondly I believed that we were a better team than our opponents. There were few miscalculations by our team members that gave an advantage to our opponents and they didn't miss even a single one and made full use of them. Full credit to our opponents, they sticked to their plan and played
as a cohesive unit and pounced aggressively on our mistakes. In this tournament we had our own Indian team and in the quarter-finals, we won the match 8-2, six of them being scored by me, although the team that we played was very disorganised and clueless, which gave us plenty of opportunities to score goals. It gave me enough confidence about my team to perform well in the semifinals. But sports in a funny thing, you never know when the tide sets itself against you. One has to be on its toes with immense concentration until your final objective is achieved. It was a very good team effort that made us reach in the semi-finals and hopefully we will perform better the next time.When I go back to my childhood days, I still remember those early mornings when my dad used to take me to the play ground and teach me how to play soccer. The first thing I learnt from him was to hit the football correctly and I am thankful to him for making me learn this great game of soccer. I mentioned in my earlier post that I learnt few things from my elder brother also as far as soccer is concerned an
d I still consider him to be a far better soccer player than me. I don't even consider myself as an average player so there's a long long way to go for me so much to learn and improve if I want to see myself playing good soccer but time has arrived to set different priorities in life and focus on other things. Thats the hard part of life and I consider those people very fortunate who get to work on things which they like the most in their lives or I should say those people are dare enough to follow their dreams and interests. Hats off to them!!
