Saturday, May 27, 2006

Run-Up to the Soccer World Cup 2006

Soccer World Cup 2006 is here.Countdown has started.Soccer aficionados are waiting crazily for the kick-off day. Rn't U? I am.Come 9 th June and I don't know whether I shall be able to give enuf time to my profession and day dreaming about her;-) Soccer is such a game of passion.

As run-up to the biggest event in soccer at Germany this year, our company(CSC)'s Indore center organized soccer tournament for the crazy soccer lovers.Five teams came out with the list of their star footballers (I shud better talk football than soccer:-)). Teams were X-Busters,Phoenix Blues,Mavericks United,AL Stars and Galaxy Stars each consisting of 8 players.40/400 people participating in the event.Isn't it an amazing ratio? Such is the spirit of playing football that prevails at CSC Indore center. Out of those 40 stars, I was also one playing for X-busters as the team's striker.

The tournament kicked-off with Phoenix Blues as the favorite and AL stars as the rookie.X-busters,Mavericks United and Galaxy Stars were teams each with one or two regular football players and posed gr8 threats to the Haughty Big, Phoenix Blues.

It was the first match.Between Phoenix Blues and my team. First half of 20 mins was a gr8 show of skills by both of the teams.Score read 2-1 in favor of the Blues by the end of 1st half.Second half began and we showed some grit to level the score.But our disappointing finishing shots always eluded us the levelling score.The Blues, true to their potential showed a majestic display of game and put us down by 4-1 by the final whistle.That helped them to stamp their edge right from the DAY 1.

As the days of the tournamnet progressed, AL stars kept losing their matches with all other teams and surprisingly losing all of them by a margin of 5 goals.On the other side, Phoenix Blues kept winning all of their matches by good margins.My team showed some gr8 play but couldn't win any of the league matches expect te one with AL Stars.Such was my luck that inspite of making some great moves and getting clean-goal oppurtunities, I couldn't shoot any goal.I remained goalless.Friends outside the field used to say,"Manish yaar , u played gr8.But Luck was not on your side.Goal ke mamle mein tum unlucky ho."I knew , it was more coz of my nervousness in the penalty area that I failed to score than my bad luck.But anyways,words of praise for good show of play, pouring in from all the sides helped me to console myself to a great extent and I always looked forward to score in the next match.But that eluding goal never came in any of the next matches:-((

At the end of the league matches, the four teams expect AL stars made it to the semi-finals and our team was once again poised against the still undefeated Phoenix Blues.We were awaiting eagerly for this clash and hoped to reverse the first clash's score.A Big Hope but Not an Impossible Hope.

The match started with gr8 zeal and to much of our expectations we showed a gr8 game-play.We hardly gave any chance to the Blues to penetrate our strong defence and our strikers consistently kept on challenging thier defence with great moves and co-ordination in the front-line.But thanks to my VOW to NOT to score any goal I missed some of the gr8 oppurtunities I got in the first half.I can't forget those two oppurtunities when it was just me and the goalkeeper across the flying football.And both of my shots went into the safe hands of the goalkeper avoiding such a large dia of goal post.I don't know how much my team members cursed me for those unforgivable misses but atleast I know this that they kept me saying that I cud do it and just neeeded to be focused and put one shot in the right area. First half was really entertaining.We could see the Mighty Blues sweating out of fear of losing the game.They ud have never dreamt to lose the game on such a big day, the semifinal.But the fear was real and we cud see that on their faces.The second half started with equal vigor but as the match progressed our team started to show the loosening of their grip on the ball and much to our disappointment and to the Blues' ecstasy , they put 4 goals in our goalpost in the last 10 minutes.A pathetic ending to the gr8 start.I cudn't forgive my lost chances.It was me who lost the match for my team.But nothing cud be done now.We were out of the race to the Cup and more depressingly, I remained goalless throughout the whole tournament.To say a good striker, but not able to score any goal.Sounds so funny but this is the harsh truth I am living with.

Mavericks United was the other team who made it to to final to set clash with the yet Invincible Phoenix Blues.The final was surely a good game but ended in an expected result and the Blues went on to win the Cup with a convincing winning score of 2-0. Good team surely deserved to be the winner but I knew our team could defeat theirs had I played with more intelligence and focus.

Kaash wo wanha hotee
mujhe protsaheet karne ke liye,
Mein ye
abhaaga goalless Manish
ek goal kar paya hota.

;-)

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