Ever thought that the
universe is somehow conspiring against you?
I have experienced this thought multiple times. Ever had a perfect
situation just crumble and blast into a million pieces? It’s like you have a 3-0
lead in the first half and then the
opponent team comes at you like horde of bulls and suddenly your team is
trailing 3-5 ( remember Tottenham vs Man U 2001/02 ) or you had a perfect match
until you are sent off for a stupid reason. I had gone through a few moments
like these during my college soccer life. The most vivid of these austere
moments happened to me almost two years back during INTER IIT tournament in IIT
Delhi.
The past one month before the tournament had been one of
the most grueling and tough days in IIT. The end semester exams were over and
practice had started for the tournament. Miraculously I had got selected in the
final 15 squad for the tournament. I had not been playing the best football in
that semester, nevertheless my speed and stamina had indeed increased since my
first year. I was playing for the center (stopper) back position for the
team. I had become somewhat good in that
position mainly because of clearance. We played a couple of matches against
Sangareddy FC (a local team near our IIT) and I did a decent job in both the
matches. But I knew I still had tremendous room for improvement. The practice
sessions before the tournament was grueling, we were practicing two times a day
(almost five hours a day). We had to do so to have a decent chance in the
tournament. The team had collectively improved and the senior players in the
team were in exceptional form.
The winter cold climate was killing me (mainly because I
never got used to the harsh chill weather as I was raised up in Tamil Nadu –
one of the hottest places in India) . I thought this was bad, I had no clue
what was waiting for me in Delhi. So the
practice sessions were over and we had begun the long journey to New Delhi. We
did not get any practice session slots in the tournament due to late
registration. So our only choice was to practice as early as 6 in the morning
or as late as 9 in the night as the ground were free only at that time. This
was my first time in the INTER IIT tournament and so I was a little intimidated
by the teams by seeing their practice session. Our first match was against Kanpur,
this team beat us 4-0 in the first INTER IIT tournament. So we watched (more like spying) their practice
sessions as well to understand their level of play. Their fitness coefficient was
really high compared to ours. But our coach still had high hopes for our team;
according to him we had a slightly better team than all the teams in the
tournament. The first match in our group was IIT Kanpur vs IIT Guwahati and IIT
Guwahati won 1-0. Skill by Skill Guwahati had a slight edge over Kanpur. Our
first match was against Kanpur.
So the match had arrived, I had been waiting for this day
for a long time. We went to the ground an hour earlier and began the warm up. I
was not brimming with confidence and hence was benched for the first half. The
next half hour was a total demolition of our team by Kanpur. We were down 3-0
in the first half and all that damage was done by a single guy named Hakeeb. He
literally ran through our defense and scored a Hat –trick. During the half time,
our coach gave a blood boiling speech (we called it a “fire speech”) that
pumped the whole team. But even that was not enough as the whole team was
drained out physically and emotionally by then and we once again found the ball
in our nets one more time. But still everyone was trying their level best to do
well.
The
next moment the coach screamed at me “ASWIN, take off your sweatshirt and start
warming up”. After five minutes I was substituted as a Stopper back. So here I was
in the first biggest match of my career and I could literally feel my heart
thumping in my chest, I was still pumped because of the “fire speech” our coach
gave during half time. We got a throw in and this was the first time I got the
ball and I cleared it into their half. Ten minutes had gone by, we were
attacking with all our might to get that all elusive goal and then disaster
struck! – A single moment of insanity was all it was. The ball was in their
D-line and all the focus was on it, I was near the half line circle and was
ready for the counter attack. Then the other center back (my senior) told me to
go near the striker and block his lines. So I went running (remember I was
still pretty pumped up) and then I suddenly slipped and collided with the striker .He
fell face first on the ground, but somehow I was still on my feet.
He
started appealing for a foul, but the referee did not see it (not even the
lines referee). The opponent striker seeing that know body saw the foul was
frustrated and started advancing towards me to attack me. He tried to catch my
shirt and throw a punch, but couldn’t do it. Then my teammates started
advancing towards that guy in fury. My coach suddenly noticed this and informed the
side referee that I was being attacked by opponent. The
main ref got a wind of the situation after getting info from the linesman. He called both " number 6 " (we both had number 6 jersey) towards him. He showed a red card to
him and for a second I thought I got away with all this and he showed it to me
too. I couldn’t believe it, three semesters of hard work and perseverance all
ended due to moment of madness! I thought I had somehow got out of it and then
in a blink of an eye I was back in the bench in utter dismay. All hope
shattered – I thought of not playing football the rest of my life. But the
coach was not angry on me, on the contrary he was pleased as I didn't show any
fear at least. The final whistle blew and all my teammates ran towards me and
started praising me, I was little confused – I knew I somehow got the other
player out of the game but that was not a reason to celebrate. Then they
told me the guy who got the red card along with me , the number 6 guy was none
other than the star striker of the tournament, the guy who destroyed our team
in the first half – Hakeeb !!.
Football ~ my soul -- a blog by Aswinreva
