Football AT work , not football AS work

About 3 weeks ago , a few good men , from an ODC far far away , had a dream in their eyes , to take part in a 5 a side football tournament . The story is as close as it can be to a modern day lagaan or something , minus the singing and the dancing ... Nobody gave us a chance of even making it to the field , at the match time , leave alone progressing through the tournament.

So the first match of the tournament beckons . Our team was called Waryurs ... as in Warriors with a deliberate spelling mistake (or maybe not deliberate ... ) to make it appear more "IN" .... !? The opposition were called ,, errr... who cares ?? (actually I have forgotten the name !) ... Our inspirational Vice-Captain ??? Samir (all pun intended :D ) gave one of those talks you hear in the movies , before the underdogs go and score a miraculous win in the final seconds of the game . Anyways none of that actually happened here . When we took to the field , we looked like a replacement of our football superstar selves in some parallel universe . No coordination , no communication ... We almost looked like we were there to make up the numbers really . Not that we didn't try hard , but all the effort was to no avail . Add to that the lovely dummies of captain marvelous , who dummied not only the opposition , but his teammates too (what a dummy !!) . We went 3 goals down , and I managed to salvage some pride by scoring a penalty . The final score read 1-3 to us . After the match , we thought that we could've done better (ofcourse , everybody does ) ... Missed chances had been the root cause of the defeat . We also needed a midfield general who could control things in the middle of the park (basketball court , actually) . Out went captain marvelous , in came Amit a.k.a Scholesy.

In the second match , Amit a.k.a Scholesy lived up to his billing as a midfield dynamo , scoring a goal in the opening minutes , with some help from the opposition (3 deflections to be precise) . We won by 1-0 , but it didn't matter if we had won by 1 goal or 10 goals , the thing is , WE WON !!!! yay !!! ... The underDOGS had released the CAT among the PIGEONS with this win.

In the third match , the underDOGS were actually the overDOGS (nonsense !!!) .. because they were facing the reservoir dogs of the tournament a.k.a Thomasz . An olympus derby to be precise . Passions running high !!! (not really !!) .. It was time for boy wonder to finally prove a point that he is more than just a penalty specialist (P.S : Am talking about myself). In the dying minutes of a hard fought match , I finally did justice to our performance . 1-0 Winners . The team that everybody thought was just there to make up the numbers , was in with a real chance to make it to the quarters .

The final match of the group was against Ball Kickers (I don't think they quite knew that this name could have a double meaning or maybe they intentionally kept this name , keeping the pun in mind) . This was the team that was scoring freely , 4 goals , 3 goals . The fiercest attack of the group v/s the meanest defence (up until that time atleast :P) . Cometh the hour , cometh the man , Samir finally silenced the critics (who ???) , with his fine long range effort . We were kicking the balls of the ball kickers , until the final minute , when insanity and frustration of living in pune finally got to me , and I started shouting "Foul !!! Foul !!!" . The ball kickers didn't stop playing and scored :( . At this point of time , I thought my teammates were gonna kick my balls .
If we had won that match we could have avoided the eventual winners of the tournament in the quarters .

The quarter final day arrives . The first match is ours (as usual , in the scorching heat) . I tried to show as many skills as I could , to scare the opposition before the match , but all my efforts proved futile . Their whole ODC came to support the team , and we had a solitary supporter showing up for the big day ! ... We felt as if Ipswich Town were playing away at San Siro (not really , but you get the point , right ?) . We lost 5-1 :'( . A solitary penalty was our only consolation from this match . After the defeat , like good sportsmen we congratulated the opposition , cos' they were marvelous during the match . We couldn't have played worse in our nightmares , than what we had played like that day.

Well that was the end of the fairytale story for us , and it was back to the ODC . Work , work and yes you guessed it right ...... work.