First Futsal Tournemant with MyRAWK - The Aftermath!

3 somersaults and 2 carpet burns later, it was finally over. The rag-tag team from MyRAWK has survived the last minute training and our first ever futsal competition. I was playing for the Team B guys (wearing white) and we lost both our preliminary game - one due to our inexperience and naivety (1-3), while the other was because we couldn't cope up with the stamina of a national league level Afican team (0-2).

The other team sent out by MyRAWK, Team A did a lot better than us as they are our main team with better, fitter and younger players. They won against a local team (2-1), draw (1-1) against a top level African team and finally lost out to the another African team (the same one that beat us earlier) in the last 16 knock-out stage with a score of 2-4. They were so close to qualifying for the quarters and was leading most of the match but just lack the extra steam to hold on till the end to prevent the Africans from scoring.

Considering the fact that we had trained for barely one month+ and hardly with a full team, we did pretty well but ultimately the lack of training & fitness did us in. We were jokingly saying how we will be thrashed by those national level teams and Africans but much to our credit, we held together as a team and fought hard to ensure we walked out with our heads held high and kept the scoreline respectable.

All of us kept cheering each other on through out the match and were easily the most boisterous bunch of guys in the futsal center. When we played the African teams, we could see all the local teams and spectator were cheering us on. We were also the only "muhibbah" team in the tournement, we have Malays, Chinese and Indian playing for MyRAWK. It was great to get feed back from a friend that the organisers were very happy with our participation - we were "fun, noisy, boisterous and friendly."

It was sort of a vindication to the bunch of guys that had worked so hard to make MyRAWK what it is today. We do not need to be egoistic and act like a bully to form a group to represent LFC fans. Being friendly and open to anyone and everyone will win eventually win us more respect and goodwill from all football loving fans. Walk On lads!

Team A (red): Mike (captain), Kelvin, Jaz, Randolph, Tony, Rizal, Ben & Allan

Team B (white): Will (captain), Syam, Steven, Bul, Alvin, Nyana, Ming & Jon

-JonC-

The sacrifice i do for futsal.

Been a pretty crazy 2 weeks or so for me - not much in term of work (logistics industry slowing down due to the lackluster American economy causing the usually busy Christmas season to be quiet) but because of futsal. Been training hard for a competition and trying to loose more weight to gain my stamina and pace back.

I've been finding it hard to keep pace with the 2 hours training session twice a week. Well, my recovery power ain't exactly the same as when i was in my 20's and the fact that i just play futsal casually once a week is not helping my cause one lil bit. Been having pretty bad feeling about the competition as i do not like to join any with out proper training (only trained one month prior to it - no where near ideal preparation) and not knowing your opponents. My worst fears are confirmed when i was told there will be teams with African and Middle Eastern players - they are big, fast, skillful and physical.

I am not looking forward to waking up this coming early Saturday morning and drag my arse out of bed to go to Kajang for the competition. Well, everyone's been saying we need to be positive and take it as a team. Well, if you know futsal and the team enough like me, then its easier said then done. Looks like it's the famous "park ya team bus in front of goal" approach for us and hope to gain something by counter attacking to nick a goal or two.

So much for the church organised friendly competition and this thing is getting serious. Well, i will be praying for devine intervention to see us through to at least the knockout stages inorder to not make an arse out of ourselves and the sponsor on our shirts. If there's ever a footballing god, we'll need all your help!

-JonC-