Monotony?

Yes, the past posts have been a little monotonous - I'm sorry, we just can't stop winning. :P

No really, my posts have been monotonous - football, more football, more victories, more detailed goal explanations, more randomness, more Our-Own-Sharjah-Press-Reporter type posts.

The reason - these posts are for me, and to a certain extent our football team - to serve as pieces of memory, years down the line. The goal explanations are for me to visualize 10 years down the line, and chuckle away with sheer delight. Most of you haven't been able to read through all of them, and it's cool, I don't expect you too.

Selfish? Well this is my blog, so-

For those of you that have supported us, the football team, with your 'congratulations' and 'good luck' comments on this blog, along with your MSN nickname encouragements - RESPECT! Thank you, it is much appreciated - by me, and by the entire team, any support is.

P.S. For some reason, I loved writing this post.

by Anish Malpani

Finals! - Finally...

Finals:

Modern: 4
Charan - 15'
Dusty - 20'
Anish - 33'
Charan - 40'

Indian High School, Dubai: 1
Some Dude - 50'

For the first time in 20 years, Modern High has won a senior inter-school football tournament. Actually, leave alone "won", for the first time in 20 years, Modern High has progressed to the next stage of an inter school senior football tournament, and boy, don't we feel proud having the honour of creating history.

The finals was interesting. The first 10 minutes saw Indian High dominate completely, and it seemed like they would score any minute. But a good counter-attack led to our first goal. Romit's cross from the right-flank was met by Charan, who slotted home another volley, this one involving less luck. It was taken really well, a great finish - thanks Charan!

The second goal was even better. I chipped in a ball for Dusty from the left flank, it rick-o-sheyed off a defender, and Dusty smacked (well volleyed) it home which was clearly the best goal of the game. The third goal came in the second half, where I outran the defence and push-passed it beyond the goal-keeper. The fourth goal was created by Dusty. He himself had an opportunity to score, but missed it. However he got hold of the rebound, and from the left flank, set up Charan. Charan thwarted it, and the ball went flying into the goal, after hitting a Indian High hand and experiencing several deflections. 4-0 to the good. Brilliant.

Ali got his second yellow card of the tournament, and it was yet another proud moment for him. However the resultant free kick resulted in a goal. So there, IHS got a consolation. Big deal. By the end of it all, we all seemed tired. "Seemed" because god knows where the energy came from for celebrating the way we did. We went officially bezerk. Hugs and kisses, and more hugs, and some uncomfortable handshakes, in addition to the victory lap and the jumping huddle, exemplified the pure ecstasy we were experiencing.

Personally, I would like to thank the 11ths and the 12ths that came and supported us today. It helps - it's encouraging - so thank you. Another thank you to Tejas and Govind for videotaping our match, hopefully they will give us edited copies. Yeah Tejas, I am hinting. Also, thanks to all the teachers that supported us through out.

Thanks everyone!

P.S. Right now I can't stop typing. We have frigging won! Brilliantly unbelievable!

by Anish Malpani

The Quarterfinals! YES!

Updated: The Khaleej Times article on the quarterfinals...

Quarterfinals:

Modern: 2
Anish - 32'
Charan - 58'

Delhi Private School, Jebel Ali: 1
The 'Captain' - 20'

Hypocritical luck was again hypocritical today. It didn't trip us, but it kicked Our Own, Al Warqaa out. Clearly the most dominating team, Our Own, Al Warqaa were devastated to be kicked out by the poor Indian High School team by the cruelest of settlers - the dreaded penalty shoot-out. A team that scored 10 goals in 3 matches lost to a team that scored 0 goals in their group matches. Unbelievable. Damn, I feel for them. Because of Our Own, Al Warqaa, we progressed through the group stages, and now we have progressed to the semis, while they have stumbled. So this bit is just a tribute to them. Well played guys, you were just unlucky.

Our match was different. A poor 1st half was capped by a 40 yard free-kick from the DPS, Sharjah captain that passed into the net over our goalkeeper. Annoyed and suppressed, we came out in the second half more pumped up then ever, almost as if to throw back the suppression on our opponents' face. And we did just that. A brilliant move, that involved a one-two between Aaron and me, led to our first goal. I won the ball in midfield, played it to Aaron, who supplied me a sublime, first-touch, backheeled pass, which I received on the run, I then glided past a couple of defenders and slotted home the equalizer. 2 minutes - that's all it took. From then on, the scenario changed completely. We dominated, winning more balls in midfield and by making less errors. Edwin put on a strong performance, anchoring the midfield and defence by not allowing any ball to seep through. The defence looked more solid, and Bharath made a couple of good reaction saves. On the other end, I hit the bar twice. The first instance was when Romit fed be lovely ball, and I tried to lift it over the goalkeeper, only to strike the bar. In the second instance, my pace beat the defence, but my finish could only hit the inside of the post. How that didn't go in? - I will never know! Charan also had a couple of brilliant chances. At one time, he was clean through with only the keeper to beat, but he stumbled under pressure. Aaron also came close with a volley. It seemed to be just one of those days.

Anyway, 2 minutes before the end, Dusty sweeped in a long ball from the right flank, and Charan pushed it into the goal with a left footed volley. Brilliant. A last minute stunner. We flipped. Nirmal, our young substitute, ran onto the field without the knowledge of the officials. Our coach flipped. Charan almost got squeezed to death. Everyone lost their voices, screaming - it was sheer jubilation, one of those moments where you feel like you cannot possibly be more happy and when you think that your lives truly rock.

However, what followed wasn't a merry sight. The referee put in 10 additional minutes. 10! Yes 10 whole minutes! Even professional matches don't add on so much time. Our coach was going insane on the touchline. All the passion and anger was oozing out. It almost seemed that the referees were against us. But we tried to derive as much pleasure as we could from the extra 10 minutes by employing all the possible time-wasting techniques. Aaron, Dusty and I took the ball to the corner flag and shielded it, annoying the hell out of the other team.

The final whistle was finally sounded, and we freaked out, like a bunch of teenage girls, hugging, kissing, laughing - and then we stretched - to warm down our worn out legs. We have our semi-finals tomorrow. Aaron has taken a knock, and almost everyone has some niggling pain or the other. But once we are on the field, the adrenalin rush is just too strong, all the pain seeps away, and we have this new 'josh' in ourselves.

Basically, I am really excited and cannot seem to stop typing. Let me just conclude by saying that we will try our best in the semis, and reaching the finals would be dream-like - so we'll give it our all. And guys, all of you, thank you so much for the support. It means a lot to us. I hope you guys can come to watch the match. Support is always good! But "you can't miss your classes". Obviously.

P.S. The long detailed post is for memory, a few years down the line, for me, and for the team. So please forgive and ignore if you are bored. =)

by Anish Malpani

India At Its Controversial Best! (starring Sharad Pawar, Ricky Ponting & Damien Martyn)

Australia wins the ICC Champions Trophy like real champions. They go forth to lift the trophy that is being given to them by the BCCI head, Sharad Pawar. They acknowledge the trophy, nudge Sharad Pawar out of the way, and celebrate their victory for the press.

2 days later the mob of India notices this. They notice that Damien Martyn 'nudges' Sharad Pawar away. Obviously, there is an uproar everywhere. All across the country, there are riots and peaceful (hopefully) campaigns against the Australians. Donkeys are painted in Australian colours, and have Damien Martyn written on them. The message is clear - A bunch of donkeys kicked the "mighty" India out of the ICC Champions trophy. Right.

AAJ TAK makes even a bigger issue of this. Hey, anything controversial is good news for news television. They replay the incident a hundred times, literally. And obviously, they then get a couple of people to explain how terrible the act was, and how disrespectful the Aussies were and how they should apologize and how they should be fined, punished and what not. Then you see scenes of the mob chanting ferociously against the Australians. Ozzie flags are burnt and there are banners all around saying 'Australians Is Bad'. Right. A heated debate continues to flair up even more.

The nudged victim, Mr Pawar, steps forward, and provides a twist in the tale by not joining the country in mourning "the great nudge". He says that the Australians were excited, they did not realize what they were doing and they did not intend to do it, so the chapter is closed. Thank you, Mr Pawar for making sense.

But then, our very own super cool Yuvraj Singh wants to be in the news too, so he butts in with an opinion of his own, which is so not needed. Right. India. Obviously.

What I think? - Fine, the 'nudging' was disrespectful. It was not required and should not have been done. But it was not intended. Even Pawar gets it. Why make such a big deal out of it? There are so many other issues that require repetitive coverage, not this miserly incident. Why the hell does India have to blow up everything into this big 'tamasha'? Do we enjoy it? What about the poverty? What about the over-population? Who is raising awareness for that? The press , and yes AAJ TAK especially, are at fault for making such a big deal out of something that could have been made done by a side-column newspaper article. They know that the remaining part of the mob who weren't aware of this earlier will follow them. It's like they want to create chaos. Idiots.

P.S. I bet the Australians are laughing their asses off, not at what they did, but at the uproar they created.

by Anish Malpani