Monday, June 11, 2007
More Football
Game two of the coaching experience was a fairly direct contrast to the first game. The crowd, while still a little unruly, taking the piss out of me a few times, was on my side. The little kids echoed my shouted Swahili instructions to the team. And, most importantly the team showed me great respect throughout. It was really funny to join the team at midfield just before the game to meet the other team and hear the ref’s instructions. The other team did not take their eyes off of me for the entire time. I mentioned to one of the players that we might have no competition because these guys can’t stop staring at me.
The game was amazingly rough and the ref was (giving him the benefit of the doubt) trying to keep the game clean by blowing his whistle every time two players came within a couple of feet of each other. This usually meant that my team was being called for something. My Canadian sporting spirit came out and I was like Don Cherry on the sideline, however my mix of English and Swahili didn’t seem to get through to the ref.
We took the lead early in the second half and never gave it up taking a 2 – 1 lead and for the most part kept the ball in the offensive end. The other team made a few charges down the field and missed the net due to forced shots through good defense. Then after we had been playing for what seemed like forever I started in on the ref about the time. He finally motioned that there were two minutes left (I honestly don’t know how he could see his watch as it was almost 7:00 and the sun had dropped below the horizon at about 6:30). I am fairly certain that he was waiting for the other team to equalize. He must have given up when our keeper made four spectacular acrobatic saves within 20 seconds. After we cleared the ball the final whistle sounded and the fans charged the field lifting Freddie, our goalie high in the air as the team swarmed him as well. It was quite the party atmosphere and I even tried to lift our goalie into the air but being used to lifting Abby I was not ready for his weight so I pretty much just grabbed him around the waist, lifted him a inch or two and dropped him unceremoniously.
We had a nice little team chat in which I found that more guys speak English than had originally. I find this very interesting! Oh well, tomorrow is an important game and I am very excited to see how we do. I just hope the ref forgets his red cards because I may have to bring out the white towel to signal our surrender.
The game was amazingly rough and the ref was (giving him the benefit of the doubt) trying to keep the game clean by blowing his whistle every time two players came within a couple of feet of each other. This usually meant that my team was being called for something. My Canadian sporting spirit came out and I was like Don Cherry on the sideline, however my mix of English and Swahili didn’t seem to get through to the ref.
We took the lead early in the second half and never gave it up taking a 2 – 1 lead and for the most part kept the ball in the offensive end. The other team made a few charges down the field and missed the net due to forced shots through good defense. Then after we had been playing for what seemed like forever I started in on the ref about the time. He finally motioned that there were two minutes left (I honestly don’t know how he could see his watch as it was almost 7:00 and the sun had dropped below the horizon at about 6:30). I am fairly certain that he was waiting for the other team to equalize. He must have given up when our keeper made four spectacular acrobatic saves within 20 seconds. After we cleared the ball the final whistle sounded and the fans charged the field lifting Freddie, our goalie high in the air as the team swarmed him as well. It was quite the party atmosphere and I even tried to lift our goalie into the air but being used to lifting Abby I was not ready for his weight so I pretty much just grabbed him around the waist, lifted him a inch or two and dropped him unceremoniously.
We had a nice little team chat in which I found that more guys speak English than had originally. I find this very interesting! Oh well, tomorrow is an important game and I am very excited to see how we do. I just hope the ref forgets his red cards because I may have to bring out the white towel to signal our surrender.
