“Football, like life, is about change” – Hank Stram
This year the OSC football team underwent a major, and I mean a major change. Last year we suffered defeat only winning one game and scoring only 4 goals throughout the entire tournament, this was very hard on us mainly due to the fact that we had so much talent on the team and still didn’t achieve the results we wanted. However, this year was very different as we had to completely adapt to a new team, which was very young and inexperienced. We went into this year with no superstars ( except Josh 😉 ) so we had really built up the team from scratch. The returning players (Me, Josh, Rizqi, Lukas, Dom, Ben, and Phillipe) had to work alongside Mr. Turner and Mr. Scott to build up the knew OSC Boys Football Team. The training sessions were rigorous. The whole team had to bust our backs this year in order to achieve the victory we deserve, which eventually drew us closer together. We became more than teammates we became family because we all had to endure the hard work together. another important factor that drew us together, was the absences of egos amongst the group, this really helped us develop to great football players. 
In the midst of our training, the OSC team also had a number of practice games. These games were interesting, to say the least, and we had generated some rivalry amongst other schools. These matches very grueling, it was action packed with goals, fouls, tackles, and most of all it had a lot of heart in them. However, our “Derby” rivals British school was destined to be one of our opponents this year. We had previously lost to them in the U19 TISSL Football tournament which stripped away our tournament chances, so we knew that we had to win this year. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of that game but that game was intense. It was action packed and we ended up with the Victory, a well deserved. This was a big boost of morale for us, to propel us into a winning mindset before SAISA.
After 4 months of hard training, the time came for the tournament.
We left Sri Lankan on the 6th February towards the desert land of Oman. the travels were extremely eventful, as the whole team got up our mischief as usual. It typically involved a lot of singing as well. However, we were already for the tight and excruciating battles on the football field. we arrived at 12:30 at Muscat International Airport, and upon landing the butterflies entered into our stomach and inside our heart, we all said: “we are finally here” and we all couldn’t be happier. After we landed we all left for lunch to a mall and had lunch. Afterward, we headed towards the school to which our host family picked us up. Josh and I left the group and socialized with our host families.
The first day of the tournament came. We played Chennai first and Lincoln School afterward.
We lost Both matches but unlike last year we scored goals. Unlike last year we scoring was not a problem.
on the second we played ACS. The ACS game started at 10:30, and it started off as usual. The OSC team started off strong into the first half, we pushed ball upwards towards the ACS side and ended forcing the ACS side to kick the ball out for a corner. This was our first goalscoring opportunity so it was tense, we need this. Rizqi crossed the ball from the corner and incomes Josh to bang it into the top corner. 1-0, ACS immediately answered back with a header of their own from Caleb their star player. the score was 1-1, all tied up until one of the ACS defenders followed our forward and were given a penalty. Dom stepped up to the challenge, to which he banged into the right-hand side of the net. 2-1 into the half, our spirits were high but those high spirits had lets are mind slip, and in a blink of an eye 2 more headers from ACS went in in the first couple of minutes into the 2nd half. 3-2, this was prime time as ACS scored another goal via a volley into the top right of the box making 4-2. However OSC didn’t give up, in the last 5 minutes we had awakened our spirts and pushed for the tie, an impossible feat, but we did it. we scored 3 more goals in the last 5 minutes of games to win the game. it was in one word spectacular, SAISA HISTORY and I could not be be more proud of the team from the little of island of Sri lanka.
But our efforts weren’t enough as we lost our game to the mighty Dhaka and were eliminated from a playoff spot. were playing for 9th place and the only opponent we had left was ISOI. As we went to that, we knew that we had only pride to fight for and with that, we pushed ourselves for the victory.
what torunemnt, saisa histrory and hard battles. Well done lads!!!