On the 4th of February 16 boys from the OSC football team including myself took part in the SAISA Football tournament. Each year our school participates in international competitions that involve us to travel to other host countries and fight for the championship titles against other schools. The host countries that take part for these SAISA tournaments are Chennai, Bombay, Dhaka, Oman, Nepal, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Each school sends student representatives to fight for a championship trophy to take back home to prove their dominance in that sports that they take part it. This year these 8 schools including ourselves took part in the football tournament that was hosted in Nepal, Katmandu. The process for taking part involves try outs, intense training sessions, games to test and prove your individual skill. These 3 aspects is what helps you make the team, if you excel in all those areas and prove your dominance you are safe to guarantee yourself a spot on the top 16 team. Being given only 6 weeks to cover all those aspects it was quite a challenge for us because some of the players that tried out hadn't played football or were experienced but didn't know how to play with a team. Imagine being given 6 weeks to work with, play with, train with new players. It gets hard to get used to but we had an advantage.
OSC is a school of 400 students and there aren't many seniors, roughly about 230 students that are in the secondary school. We had an advantage because most of our players on the team had been taking part in the last 3 years of SAISA football so working together with each other wasn't that hard for us to do. We knew each other and how each other all played and we were confident on stealing the win for this years International SAISA Tournament.
Knowing the location and country of Nepal itself we weren't worried about winning or being strong we were worried about independent fitness because of the temperature and altitude there. Nepal is a cold country and for 16 students that live in the tropics to move out into the colder region is going to be a harder adaption for as to make. Most students aren't even friends with the cold weather and that includes myself. The only obstacle in our way was the cold and we had to figure out reasons and solutions for working/playing past that. The tournament is 3 days long but we were there for 5, we took the time to adjust to the weather and admire the country and its features that it had.
Those 3 days had been the best and worst times of my life. The OSC Geckos take to the semi finals and we knew from the start that we were the dominant team and that nothing could stand in our way from getting that championship title. Winning the Semi Finals against our competitors, the host school of Nepal. We faced the Lincoln School and beat them 3-0 with some casualties. I personally was taken down and had dislocated my shoulder, and received 2 muscle bruises and 2 torn ligaments in my shoulder near my rotator cuffs. With being sent to the hospital i was unable to play the Finals against Bombay, but although i was upset i was happy to say i had contributed a lot to bringing our team to the finals.
Towards the end of the 3rd day we faced off against Bombay and took the game to penalties after a 1-1 draw during the match and a no goal process in both extra time. Penalties it was, having not taken or practiced that much of penalty shots we managed to come out on top and take that championship! The Geckos made history and it is a memory i will never forget and always cherish.
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