Football - I don't play it

First of all, lets clear things up. I’m not talking about American football, the one where you throw a ball that’s not even shaped like a ball. I’m talking about real football, the one North American decided to call “soccer” for some odd reason. Probably not to mix it up with their American football (which, mind you, you don’t even kick that much, you mostly throw it around and run while holding it. Shouldn’t it be holdball or throwball or something? :P)

Football, this is how I understand. It starts with a ball which is round, and there are two teams, each trying to win. The objective is to kick the ball into the opposite team’s net, scoring a goal. At the end of 90 minutes, the team with the most goals wins.

I heard about some foul moves in this game. One is the 'hand', it when you touch the ball with your hand and you're not the goalkeeper. The other is 'offside'. I hear people shout out a lot 'offside..offside' but then I never knew exactly what that 'offside' means. Is it that when you kick a ball so hard to your opponent? Is it when you try to kick the ball and you missed it? Not at all. It goes something like- you can’t pass the ball the a member of your team if you’re past the halfway line and there’s no defender between the player you’re passing to and the goalkeeper. Frankly speaking, I knew this only when my younger brother told me when I was in XI standard! LOL

Out of bounds, corner kicks, you all know about it. I knew very well about this corner thing, and when we went to a far away village up North in Mizoram. All the football players, young and matured call this foul-move as "Gaw-nar". What is "gaw-nar" anyway? I asked one of them, and he told me. It was the same as "corner", just that we say it in different way.

Come into topic. Well, I use to play football as a kid. But not with a real football, but with some small balls or wraped up polythene bags with old cloths. And we have a rule, no out of bounds, no corners, no hand and we play it on motor roads. The biggest kid is always the captain and he make the rules, if he say a goal is not a goal, its not a goal. If the time is up and he say we still have 2 minutes, then we have 2 minutes more.

World Cup 1994 was the first time I ever watch football in my life. I am a Brazil fan since then. We have hand-made wrist bands with B.R.A.Z.I.L letters stitched on them. I was a football freak during that time. Time passes, friends use to go to playgrounds to practice football and I never went. The reason is that I don't want to play with big 'tlangvals' who'll shout at us for small mistakes. But still practices inside the house. I felt so sorry for all the things we've broke during the game then.

When we grew bigger, my younger brother play it much more than me and eventually dad bought him a football and a ball boot. I started to fly away from the game as Mortal Kombat was much much more interesting than football. Delta Force, I know all the codes for unlimited ammo, life and invisibility when I didn't know what a yellow card means. Being the only brother he had, my bro always push me to play with him. Sometimes, I play with him and sometimes I don't. If I don't, he'll play it near me by himself disturbing me from destroying Shinook all of the time.

At 7th standard, I was the House leader for St. Matthew at Mary Mount. Football was one of the biggest competition between the houses, and we were preparing hard for it. For the first time, bought myself a ball boot. :-) and I was the captain for our team. We tried hard to select good players from the house, some wanted themselves to play so much that they start saying bad skills about other players. Some even shouted at me on how I select the players that I don't know who play the game well. After much controversies, the big day came. We were all set to play at the great AR Ground (The biggest stadium we've ever had). I was the defender and next to me stand a nerd looking guy, wearing thick black framed glasses Fela. The game started and I was talking to Fela that it's been really great for us to play in such a game. Right after the start I hear the crowd shouting in joy. The other teams had already score a goal on our side.

I saw my teammates rushing towards me, shouting in anger. Why did you do that for? Why didn't you stop that guy? Why did you miss that? I was so shy that I move out of the field silently. That's the first and the last time I ever wear a ball boot. From that day, I stopped playing. I am so ashamed that I not only let my team down, but the whole house. And I am so sorry to hear that our team loses the match.

Come to think of it, I got more interested in playing computer games than any other during those days. You know, I use to play a lot badminton and we use to have small tourneys in our locality. I love the game very much until I broke my racquet! Basketball, we use to play a lot in the evenings but the most thing I hate is that it always bounce back right on my nose. So, all I got with me is MK4 again! Exchanging game cds were very easy and playing Hercules never break my nose.

I love to watch football. Football is a king! Lets look into Canada, Toronto, Ontario – with such a multicultural city… often you can find Football to be a more regarded sport than many others (Basketball, Baseball, or American Football for example). The Toronto FC stadium is always sold out during games while the Blue Jays are having a hard time selling tickets. This is not happening in India. :D

India, with such a great population, cannot produce even one team to enter the FIFA World Cup. I guess there are more guys like me. And much much more guys who do not know what is football and play little cricket game really well.

EPL, Champions League, La liga etc. I know they play it, but only watch it when my friends watch them. World Cup, never miss a game. Euro, ditto. Some people don't understand why a mizo boy isn't playing football. Aren't you a mizo? They often ask me. I love to watch, I respect the game, but I don't play it. It may seem odd that a boy like me never play football, but I know there are more guys like me, who'll always support the ones playing. :D As a matter of fact, other boys will think we are 'girls', never playing football. But, we're just above that. I love Vanneihtluanga's saying about this, let me write how he says in mizo "Football khelh hi ka sawisel lo, theihtawp chhuahin a thui thei ang ber thlen zel tum se ka ti. Tuai u awrh chauh ka nia, mi faten football an khelh laia wikipedia ka chhiar hian ram tan ka tangkai zawkin ka hria".

Don't ask me how to tackle your opponent. How to play a defensive game, who will be the best midfielder. Ask me whether your jerseys and shorts have the perfect contrast. Is your name printed on the jerseys are too fancy and I will tell you. :D

Here's a funny song by Belle and Sebastian (About American football) :

I don't want to play football

I don't understand the thrill of the game

I don't want to play football

I don't understand the thrill of the running, catching, throwing

Taking orders from a moron

Grabbing for the sweaty crotches

Getting hit by people I don't know

Sugar, I'd rather play a different sort of game

Sugar, the girls are just as good as boy at playing