IITH FC - Believe! ( Part 2 )

Our coach Akbar sir was shouting at me“Goreyy! Goreyy! “And all I wanted was the match to end. We had five minutes left in the game and after making a successful tackle I cleared the ball into their half and eventually created a chance for our striker ( Junglee) . But the Roorkee leftback made a unnecessary foul on our striker tried reaching for the ball .Hence we got a free kick at somewhere in the right half of their half. Our coach was shouting out instructions and it was our last hope! and so our playmaker- Yatharth took the free kick. It was one of the perfect free kicks were it landed exactly on the penalty line right in-between the goal keeper and the defense line. The ball hit one of their players and rebounded to Parag. All this time, I was literally praying that it would be goal and the next few moments were like a slow motion movie. The ball was put in the back of the net and I actually felt the ground vibrate as we started running towards “the first goal scorer in IITH History- the legend” in ecstasy. The whole IIT H contingent was inside the field celebrating, shouting out chants and the referee had to intervene and clear the ground before resuming the match again. By the time I came back to my postion I was in peace- I think it was at that specific moment in which we as team- IITH FC started to BELIEVE!

The whistle blew and we won – The first victory – the first goal- it was ours. We beat one of the top teams in the tournament. All the teams were stunned by the result. We were the talk of the day as it was the first time a new IIT bet an older IIT in any sport.  We bet IIT Bhuvaneshwar 2-0 the next day with a help of an amazing chip by Carlos. We topped our group and made History that day. We were the hope of all new IITs. Nothing was more imperative than the fact that we had to win against Mandi in the quarter finals. There was drama early in the match as we conceded a goal  I still don’t know how that went in ) but we amped up our game and scored three more goals to go to the Semifinals. We again created history by putting our IIT on the points table. We had a tough match against Delhi in the Semis and almost got through to the finals. They got a lucky break and got a penalty in the dying minutes and capitalized on it. We were devastated and torn apart after the match as our dream run was over. We were silent after the match as we knew we could have done better(Ahh that blistering feeling you get! ).

I had an early dinner and went to sleep exhausted by the defeat. We had to face Kanpur next day in the 3^rd place match. I was sound asleep and one of my teammate ( Shyamboy )woke me up and said we won the Bronze medal. I thought he was pulling my leg but apparently Kanpur had been playing an outside player in their matches and was disqualified and we won the Bronze medal by default.All the hours of practice at the grounds weren't a waste. We wrote history that night .The night was full of celebrations and the next day upon receiving the medals of honor- we knew we had done well- we as a team have proved that IITH is no longer a new IIT . We as a team started to Believe.

Football  ~my Soul – A blog by Aswinreva!