Another dream comes true

As a kid I assumed I was to become a football star like my dad. I remember listening eagerly about tales about dad''s exploits from everyone except him. Of course life took a turn which was different but equally interesting which left three unfulfilled dreams. One to hear the national anthem playing while I stood in a stadium, second to play a soccer match under floodlights, third to play soccer in Kolkata.

Dream 2 happened when I played for ITC in the CCFC cup and dream 3 came true when we played CCFC B team under floodlights in Kolkata.

It's been an eternity since I played a competitive 11 a side match. In the games that we played at school level, we never really were tense because we as a team had lost just 3 competitive games in the entire span we played together. It was generally about how many goals we would win by.

Years later, I looked around at my team mates, most of them people who must've been good players at their times. I wore my shin guards, laced up my super expensive adidas boots (something I never could afford in school) and walked out to the ground, a silent prayer in my heart substituting the prayer we said before each school game and then it was magic.

I played in the position I had started playing soccer, the right back. The game started with a run along my side which badly exposed me. I recovered only to see the player scoring because of bad judgement by our stand in goalkeeper. 0-1 and we were just 5 minutes into the game.

The opposition had reason to thrash us because we were a group of individuals who had hardly played together and were all out of practice. The game begun with us suddenly trying to come to terms with the situation. I was one of the 2 people who did not understand bong on the field but still understood what I had to do instinctively.

That's the magic of football. a person from Ghana passes to another from Ukraine and they both know what the other person wants. We slowly began climbing back into the match and before the clock struck half time we were 1-1.

The 2nd half saw us reinforcing our defence with 2 new people, only two of us remained and soon we were dominating the match. Suddenly it was school again. After making hasty clearances all 1st half, I regained the confidence to make passes within our D, even dribbled past a player and made a run forward. The clock seemed to have turned back and I was totally enjoying myself, as cocky as ever.

The final whistle blew at 70 mins and we won 2 - 1. Another dream comes true.


- Pranay Rao