18th – 22nd February 2020

This year I had the opportunity to travel to Muscat, Oman for our girls SAISA football season. SAISA stands for South Asian International Sports Association, it’s an association which allows international schools from South Asia and the Middle East to come together and participate in sporting events.

The tournament had 8 schools participating, this included India, Nepal, Oman, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Jordan. This allowed us to meet people from international schools and make new friends.

Over the course of our season, our team bonded with each other. This translated onto the field, good collaboration off equalled to collaboration on the field. I think this is one of the main factors that lead to our success. We needed to trust each of the players on the field, as a goalie a lot of people needed to have trust in me to save the ball, I needed to trust my defence to always get the ball and support me when I needed it. This year we also had a new coach and I feel that this was a large aspect. Our last practice consisted of a penalty shootout and a very sore bum on my part.

The first day of the tournament was the 18th of February in Muscat, Oman. As we landed in Muscat our first trip for the SISA football girls was, of course, to go to the mall. We stuffed our faces with junk food which was a perfect idea before a 3-day competition and then we were off to our host families.

The host families are what makes SAISA so special. We get to stay with the families that have kids enrolled with the school for 3 nights and you get to develop a friendship with them and learn about all of the different cultures. The host family that I stayed with this year I had stayed with 2 years ago so I was very familiar with how things went around in their house. They were a Spanish family and I always remembered their breakfasts being the best! We also managed to swing getting ice cream almost every night.

After some ice cream and a game of foosball with our host out in their compound, we fell straight into bed.

We started the tournament off by playing against the host team which was already incredibly intimidating. Everyone in the bleachers was watching intensely, you would often hear an “OOO!” if a striker missed the ball, an “AHHH!” as the ball got played up and applause when a goalie made a save. Even though the geckos put up a good fight and played one of our best games we lost 1-0 to the home team. It was one wrong move in defence and communication. Even with the loss, we knew what we could have improved on. Our strikers put up a good fight with constantly pressing the goalie just not getting the shots in the right places.

Our next game was against Karachi American School (KAS), this was one of the worst games that we played this season but we still won 5-0. There was a lack of communication, our heads weren’t in the game and we definitely got some dirty looks from Mr Turner. KAS was also a very young team which unfortunately worked to our advantage.

Our host had organized a dinner with some of the other SAISA athletes and their hosts. This was loads of fun we were talking about previous events that we were on for SAISA and we got to enjoy some yummy

The second day our first game was against ACS this also wasn’t one of our strongest games of the tournament. In the first 3 minutes of the game, we had scored an own goal but we didn’t lose hope. In the last 5 minutes, something clicked inside everyone’s head and we immediately started playing better. In the last 5 minutes, we had scored 2 goals which had put us back in the lead and allowing us to win the game.

Before our next game, we had a team talk with our coaches out on the field next to where we were going to be playing. Everyone was telling each other and for the first time our whole team was talking about football, we didn’t have anything else in our heads except for how bad we wanted to win the game. We weren’t thinking about school or our friends our mindset had transitioned to how much we wanted the win. This translated onto the field where we ended up scoring 3-0 against the American School of Bombay (ASB). We were all jumping with joy as this had put us in the semi-finals. Mr Turner also had a big grin on his face which made the win feel that much better.

We had a social that night and TAISM had a massive buffet full of Arabic food like shwarma, falafels and some wraps. There were picnic blankets set all around the grassy field and we ate as a team. The TAISM girls decided to come and eat with us. Our main points of discussion were the thing that we all had in common which was each of our football games. We bonded over how unfair the refs were and complemented each other on each other’s skills. The night ended with us all dancing to the Macarena and new friendships that we were left with.

The last day of SAISA proved to be very trying. Our first game was against Dhaka, they were known for being incredibly aggressive and an unbeatable team. The sound of the whistle started us off, we really worked collaboratively this game the I was working with the defence to make sure that they knew if someone was behind them. Even though Dhaka had some great opportunities the Geckos pulled through and managed to take them into overtime. In the last 5 minutes, Lizzy managed to get a shot into the back of the net and we were all rejoicing, the first time in 5 years the OSC geckos were straight through to the finals.

Most of the day was left with us preparing for our game and watching our friends play and cheering them on.

Both teams were on the field, no one dared to speak, all friendships that had been made with each other were all gone, we were there to play football. All you could hear was the cheering from the stands from TAISM. The whistle blew and we were off. At half time we were up by 2 points with a beautiful goal done by our defence from a free-kick. Our hope was high until they scored a goal from a handball, the ref had moved the wall I had created which let her shoot the ball right into the exposed area. The score was 2-2. Thinking that we were going to go into overtime a goal was scored from their attack right under the crossbar of the goal. The whistle blew and the eagles had taken the win.

Everyone was disappointed and there were definitely a couple of tears but no one had appreciated how far we had come. From a team that would just kick the ball halfway across the field, we had transformed into a team that could pass, create opportunities for each other and learnt to work together. I was happy to wear my silver medal with pride, we had come so far from our 5 months of training as a team, we had turned into a football team that earnt respect from the rest of the SAISA schools and I was proud of my team for that.