Week 6 – Emotions

Another week, new adventures, new stories. Even when you know that the schedule is identical, nothing is similar.

This week started strong. On Tuesday, we tried to coach. Just tried. The rain from the past few days made the pitch unplayable. At first, it looked alright. But as soon as we started delivering our possession session, the square our U17’s played on began to get destroyed. Then, we ended the session to avoid more damages for the pitch. Chibanga, U17’s headcoach, made them play a little match on the other side of the field, where the water was. I thought that was a bad idea, it really was. And as a player, I probably would have said to my coach that I wouldn’t be playing to avoid any injury. However, they played. For us coaches, we couldn’t stop laughing as long as our players were struggling and falling down every two seconds. Best session ever !

On Wednesday night, we planned a barbecue for Jake & Kinvara, the others Europeans visitors at GDM, departure. We bought some sausages and bread and headed out to Futeco around 7:00 PM. With a couple of beers, a nice fire and some good conversations about football, food and others things, everyone improvised a speech. What a moment full of emotions that was, I can’t even imagine how it will be when our time here will come to an end. On our way back, we got caught up by the rain about 2 km away from GDM. After a few minutes, we started to run like it was a matter of death. By the time we arrived at the club, every single clothes we were wearing was wet, and wet is a small word to describe what happened. I’m not even sure my shoes are dry by now…

The next evening, another goodbye meal was planned by GDM. Rice, chicken, tomatoes were on the table for a splendid feast. After dinner, everyone started to dance and sing. A pure moment of fun and joy. I’ll never forget that night.

For the whole time Jake & Kinvara were in Manica, I had a little card game ritual with them called “Rummy”. Supposedly a simple game of who has the most points at the end, we took it to another level. This game became a mind game, especially between Jake and I. The tactic was to guess what the others had and deal with that in consequence. We played 69 games in total. I won with 4590 points, ahead of Jake with 4030 points and finally Kinvara with 3810 points. This games doesn’t look too attractive like that, but I assure you, I’ve never played a better card game than this one. Poker is out of the question of course. Poker is way better.

On Saturday, we played another 11-a-side match against our U17’s. With Armando back in the midfield by my side, we dominated the first half. Unlucky and clumsy in the final third, scoring became an issue. Finally, the referee gave us a penalty. I scored and we were winning 1-0 at half time. Then, our team started to play in a 4-2-4 formation. Clever. Armando and I struggled to dominate the midfield like in the first half. We tried to explain to everyone they had to come back to defend but they didn’t listen. James got substituted really quickly and our situation got worse. The U17’s equalized. Then, I got substituted. We scored a lucky second goal and then conceded two stupid goals. Armando managed to equalize with a new penalty and that was it. 3-3. What a disappointment.

#Mozambique