SAISA Boys Football 2024
As of February 13, 2024, OSC has started its annual SAISA Boys Football Training. The end goal for the football team is good placement in the tournament on April 17th, 2024 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Last year, I traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to compete where we unfortunately came 6th.
However, along with the team, I was also expecting a change this year in myself. Last year I had played goalie for the team a position I fit into well having had prior experience for most of my childhood. Yet, this year I wished to not have the pressure of being in goal on my shoulders. This led to me trying my hardest to let the coaches play me outside of goal. Unfortunately as of March 7th, I have been unsuccessful as I have a pretty locked-in role in goal. I will keep you guys updated on my positional situation with my future experiences.
Hello again! It is now April 4, 2024. We have been training non-stop as a team and are ready for our trip to Nepal. A quick schedule change has changed the tournament structure as there is no time for all the matches on Lincoln School’s one football pitch. Because we are flying in on Tuesday we have been chosen to compete on Wednesday afternoon ahead of the tournament start against the home team and the home crowd. This is frightening for our team as our tournament resides in this game.
The tournament is structured with 2 groups of 5 teams and the top 3 placing teams in each group advance to a playoff. With Lincoln being in our group this game could be decisive. With this being said, I think our team compared to last year is a major improvement and we are heading in the right direction for the tournament kick-off.
POST TOURNAMENT UPDATE: As we landed in Kathmandu, the vibrant culture welcomed us as we stepped out to the refreshing cool air and embarked to our hotel. Once there, we rested easy knowing tomorrow was full of tourism before our tournament kicked off. Waking up on Wednesday we got ready to go to the Boudhanath Stupa with other schools to enjoy a lovely experience of Nepalese culture, and people, and have great conversations with the local Nepali vendors. As the sun was at its peak, we went to the well-known pizza place inside the Stupa’s walls and enjoyed a delicious feast with the Islamabad and Chennai schools.
Wednesday was a special day for another reason though, for the first time in the rememberable past we were to play the host school ahead of schedule on Wednesday afternoon. Due to Nepal’s single field, the days would be seriously crammed from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM games. The Nepal schools approach to solving this was to have us as well as Chennai and Islamabad play on Wednesday afternoon before the tournament starts on Thursday.
As we approached the school ready to play we were quickly shocked to realize that time had flown by and it was already time for our match. Setting out on the pitch was a fever dream for many of our younger players with this being an experience of a lifetime. The home crowd roared as the game kicked off and after some good defense and a favorable goal, we were left 1-0 up in the opening 10 minutes. As the half was coming to a close we made a risky gamble to try and push for a greater lead which would ultimately lead to our downfall as we would concede late into the half. As the second half kicked off we had gotten a quick pep talk to bring us back into the game and we came out gunz blazing. Chance after chance after chance but we just couldn’t put the ball on target. Unfortunately, as the game was coming to a close we got too ambitious and frustrated which led us to leave our defense open and us conceding in added time and losing the game.
As we went home devastated there was nothing to do but look at our next game tomorrow at 10:00 AM. The next morning, we got to school hungry. Not only was this a match against an old friend it was a revenge match for last year where we lost 5-0 to the Dhaka Tigers. As the game kicked off, we looked stronger than the last game, especially in the back as we were shutting down every chance they got. But yet, we were unable to find the back of the net once again. Our kryptonite seemed to be added time however as our desperation for a goal was extremely evident as we would concede at the end of the first half once again. Ultimately, ending in a loss for us and making us 0-2 so far.
(Game schedule following our second match, Photo: Author)
After a devastating loss, we had nothing to do the rest of the day except sulk and build ourselves up again for next game.
An unfortunate tournament structure meant our only scenario to get past last place in our group was to get at least a tie and a win on the new day. Going into our first game we knew we had high expectations for ourselves as we were going up against a favored finalist contender. As we played the school from Jordan we came out strong with a goal in the first 5 minutes, but a well played attack came out strong from the opposition as they would equalize and before we knew it we were trailing 3-1 at the half. As the second half started, we would concede once again, however, passion flowed through our whole team as we would score 2 quick goals in succession to bring our deficit down to 4-3 and give this strong team a game to play. As the minutes winded down we got desperate once again and ended up losing 6-3 at the final whistle. However, it was not representative of our performance in this game. With nothing to play for, our second game was against Lahore, a side that looked amazing with a number 10 who had the whole tournament shaken. We headed into the game with low expectations and were down 2-0 at the half. However, some uncontained passion came out as we would come back with 3 second-half goals to win the game 3-2. A bittersweet ending as we had been playing with untapped potential all tournament but were able to beat the overall second-place team.
(Sunset Image at SAISA, Photo: Author)
The third day was quick as a consolation game for 9th was easily secured and I was even able to play out of goal for a little and get a goal in our decisive win. Overall, SAISA was an overall amazing experience and a wonderful opportunity that I am infinitely grateful for.