~JcZw

As from today, I've played my most injurious soccer match since Primary 4. Just when I was getting used to pace of intra-fac games, I got a message calling me for a game with the medicine soccer team against some external team. Dunno how many tiers of goalkeepers from Mayank down they had to dig before they got to me heh.

So played for the first time on new artificial turf at VS (the last time I saw it, it was a potholed piece of sand). The first dive already promised the astro burns to follow. I must say though, that not being covered with new layers of mud with each progressive dive was a treat.

The game didn't go well, admittedly. My heart was in my room in hall with my microbiology stuff, and made quite a few mistakes. None of them led to goals, thank goodness, but I must say that I gave the defenders many heart attacks. In retrospect actually things went quite well aside from a free kick with nearly took down the post of the goal. I got a touch but only succeeded in straining my finger which was wrapped in Leukoplast as always.

On the outfield side... well, we were losing in ball in almost every 50-50 situation. So the ball would start quite far up, but would be tackled by an opponent, brought closer, forcing a tackle from our own side, whereupon the ball would spin clear, and almost invariably fall to the feet of an opposing player. Nothing like playing behind ZhengXian, Kevin, Ian, Wenjie and Samuel in the M2s team, who give me a lot more confidence. Oh the outfielders weren't bad, but just not that coordinated.

Caught a long ball into the penalty area, dived at the feet of another player who had the ball, and ran out to kick a loose ball away.

Then an attacker cut in from the wing, outmuscled the defender, and fired into the goal from hmmm 11 meters out. My dive was just a little too slow. An opponent running into the penalty area got brought down by another Medic. The penalty went low to my right. I was reacting and not predicting so again just a little too slow. 0-2

In the second half, a long ball fell to the attacker just inside the penalty area. He took two steps and shot. I dived left, parried the shot, but it still trickled into a corner of the goal.

The 4th goal was the best. A free kick was met by a attacker on the right who headed the ball back across the penalty area to another opponent who took one touch to control the ball. I ran to the left and dived to smother the shot, but hey, it wasn't there already. He'd passed it AGAIN across the goal, or it'd taken a deflection, but it was going into the right corner. When the game evolves such that the opponents can start doing 2-on-1s with you, life's not worth living.

Oh we were scoring too of course, but not quite as many heh.

Then came the clanger 10 min from time. Again, a skirmish at the edge of the penalty box. Again, the Medic was dispossessed. The large white striker turned and unleashed a snap shot on the turn, low and left. Down I went, hands first. Down came the ball, hit the ground, and oh the wicked bounciness of the artificial surface! It rose above my hands and hit me smack in the left eye. Down I went. Down I stayed. Bright lights flashed. Little birds sang. The miniature solar systems orbited in my head.

When I opened my eyes the first word in my mind, incongruously, was "scotomata". This evaporated when I finally found my specs which had been bent into a funny shape (at Parkway later, I found out that the mechanism in the joints had been twisted too so the damage was terminal).

The referee suggested I play without specs. I told him my degree was 900. He couldn't stop chuckling after that. So I played for the last 10 min with funny specs.

When your eyesight is 900 degrees and you don't have good specs, everything's funny. 5 minutes can see you developing a headache.

When your eyesight is 900 degrees and you don't have good specs, your depth perception goes. If I didn't know that the field was completely flat, I would have been wondering whether each line between the light and dark patches of the pitch was flat or ascending or descending. The next drop kick I did was horrendous. Misjudged the height of the ball completely. Possibly the worst mistake of the day.

Well so that ended the game. We didn't win. The margin wasn't big, but it was enough. Later on I discovered that my left orbit had taken the hit too and so the sides were slowly swelling up. Maybe I'll get a black eye like in the cartoons.

What a day indeed.

And on an end note, I just discovered that playing on artificial turf predisposes people to a higher risk fo MRSA infection