Soccer Game

So the annual trainers vs trainees soccer game was held on the OPASS field. The lines were drawn, who would win? The experienced Ghanaian trainers, or the younger more nimble trainees? The Africans who have watched and played futbol their whole lives, or the thrown together band of out of shape westerners.

Who could know?

The event was scheduled for,and began at 8 AM. At least for the Americans it did. In true Ghana-Time fashion, the trainers did not all arrive till sometime near 10. So to kill the time we decided to have an OMNIBUS vs Education warm-up game. Education, with the Kukurantumi boys club (our JHS math education group is comprised of all dudes... it's been a long 10 weeks of training) was ready to go and kill the weak omnibus tree-huggers. As a reminder for those of you playing along at home, OMNIBUS consists of Environment, WATSAN (Health and WATer SANitation), and SED (Small Enterprise Development.) Education was ready to go, we got our hands on some PC provided jerseys, which were bright orange, suited up and put our meanest looks on. My UF shirt was already bright orange, so I decided to rock the Alma-mater instead of a jersey. OMNIBUS was also ready, stretching, passing the ball, and looking quite prepared. They were missing one person however, and so we decided they could take Pego (a science teacher going to the Northern Region.)

Both teams lined up on their respective sides of the field and huddled in for a pre-game pep talk. On 3 we chanted in unison "1...2...3...EDUCATION!" Not wanting to be outdone, the other side of the field shouted their battle cry as well: "OMNIBUS--AND PEGO!"

Mike Butler is a senior volunteer teaching Science. He's originally from the UK and went to the University of Florida in the 60's (Go Gators). I call him Big Mike. Anyways, Big Mike took one of the whistles and was the ref for the game. He blew the whistle, and the game was on.

Elyse, from WATSAN was quite the futbol-shark. She ran circles all around our over confident boys club, and it turns out that trading pego pre-game was also a fatal flaw. Combined with the trademark "BOOOOOMMMMM" that came anytime the ball came near Beth, it was a rough first half. Pego could sprint like it was noone's business, Elyse was ball handling like she was on the Ghana Black Stars, and Beth kicked the ball so hard we had to go a few towns over to retrieve it.

End of the first half, 2-0 in favor of OMNIBUS. Time to regroup.

Ok. Head in the game. We can do this. I've seen enough 80's movies to know that all we need now is some good theme music, an aging coach that everyone loves, and a hot girl in the stands which our team captain has recently fallen in love with.

Ya, we had none of that. What we did have was:

Come on guys, get your freakin heads in the game!
You gotta pass the ball!
We're not gonna make any goals if we dont concentrate and work together!

Things were not looking great.

Anyways with about 5 minutes left in the second half we get a good breakaway. A pass comes from downfield and we find ourselves with 3 educators, Arjun, Jordan, and Me, against 2 defenders. Arjun got the ball past the first defender with a great pass to Jordan. Jordan drove up to the net with the last defender right in his face. With how competitive he is and his general loud attitude towards the game at this point, everyone knew Jordan was going to drive the ball all the way up on his own. He made it to within striking distance of the goalie, and just as everyone was expecting the shot, he made the slightest touch pass to his right. Playing Right Wing at the local AYSO in elementary school, this was the only position I had any idea how to play. And the fundamentals taught you to always be just to the side of a developing play.

Slight touch to the right, both the goalie and the defender expecting a shot from straight ahead.
Easy goal.

Boyeyey.

We all cheered, I hugged Jordan for a great play, and pointed at Arjun and determinedly marched towards him to give him a high 5. He did, after all, set the whole thing up. When we slapped hands my Order of the Engineer ring flew off. In the middle of this huge OPASS field.

Crap.

I didnt have time to look for it then, so we continued with the game. We ended up losing 2-1, but I'm quite happy with the first goal I've scored in over 10 years, haha.

After the game was finished, the people who wanted to continue playing (not I) regrouped to play the "trainers". The trainers consisted of about 3 trainers and a bunch of incredibly in-shape high school kids from OPASS walking onto the field.

I feel no need to relive the massacre which occurred by documenting it here.

Down one ring, up one goal, overall I'd call it a good day...