December 8, 2007

Tokyo (JAPAN)

Tokyo Tech Annual Football Tournament

Waking up this morning was awful, and there is no way I would have endured such a blinding hangover if it wasn't for the opportunity to compete in a football tournament. There is nothing like the excitement of winning to get the adrenaline going, and it was with such a mindset that I stumbled down the stairs and out the door with a backpack full of my gear at 8am this morning. I stopped at a 7-11 to buy several Red Bull energy drinks and a bottle of water, but the real miracle pills were inside my bottle of extra-strength aspirin.

Our first football match wasn't until 10:30 (thankfully), so I had several hours of additional recovery time, without which I would have been a disaster on the field. I have heard rumors that many of the best footballers (Tony Adams, Roy Keane, Alan Shearer, and George Best, to name a few) were reputed to show up at games still drunk, so I was hoping such a historical precedent would reap similar rewards for me.

And indeed, it did! Our team went on to win our first three matches, with me controlling the midfield and leading the tournament's scoring charts with 5 goals and 3 assists. I felt fine as long as I was on the field running, but every time the game ended (the matches were 20 minutes each and were played on a small pitch), my world started spinning and I had to flush my system with more water.

Our team was comprised of players from France, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, and America, while most of the other teams were uniform in their nationalities (Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Nepali, Thai, etc.) Also, the other teams played together frequently, whereas our team was a rag-tag group put together at the last minute. What actually happened was when we heard there was $$ to be gained from winning the silly tournament we got on our horses and signed up. A taste of the big bucks and worldly fame brought back memories of Singapore, where I once won several hundred dollars in a football tournament on Sentosa Island.

Ashamedly, I was ejected from one of those games on Sentosa for "violent conduct" (a load of crap, truthfully), and the same thing nearly happened today when other teams started hacking away at my ankles and pulling me to the ground. I have had enough bad experiences with teams taking me out (see these photos from yet another tournament held in Singapore), and I have never taken kindly to losing to begin with. So, when confronted with the prospect of getting hacked and losing as a result I probably have a slight tendency to over-react, and today was no different when I found myself going after a few opposing players and throwing one to the ground. Either way, they got the message, and I was lucky to stay on the field while adding more goals to our team's cause.

But in the end, it was not meant to be: we were eliminated on points after a few unlucky goals meant we couldn't advance - on account of a rubbish points difference (we were, in my opinion, the strongest team). At the end of the day, I finished the tournament, which included over 200 players, as the top scorer, but I couldn't shake the frustration at missing out on the opportunity to walk away as the champion.

Next time, I suppose.