I had a lot of expectations about Peru before we left in
January, and most of them have been met or exceeded. However, I had one
specific dream before coming here that had yet to be fulfilled in the past 4
months: I wanted to play a legit game of soccer with Peruvians.
This past Sunday, a group of Peruvian medical students
invited me to play in a mini-tournament of 6 medical student teams. I
immediately said yes, and even went out and bought brand new soccer cleats.
I arrived 20 minutes early and started stretching, my
anticipation was high as my dream was finally coming true. My team arrived a
few minutes later, but 70 minutes later…we were still waiting for our game to
start (bad sign #1). Then we started playing and I was the lone player they had
sit on the bench to start the game (bad sign #2). Then half-time passed with me
still on the bench (bad sign # 3). With 10 minutes left in the game, they
subbed me in and I got to play…I made one mistake and basically didn’t get near
the ball again before the game ended. After the game, the captain told me I’d
get to start in the other game they were playing that day. We waited another
hour until our second game, only to find out the other team wasn’t around and
had to forfeit…hence no game #2 (bad sign #4).
At this point, I had been at the soccer field for about 3
hours, had my new shoes on, but hadn’t really gotten to fulfill my dream. A few
players on our team packed up their stuff and started walking off. I was trying
to laugh about the situation, but the comical randomness of the situation was
not making me feel much better.
Finally, somebody suggested we go play a pick-up game on our
own. We set up for 5 on 5, with smaller goals and started playing soccer. We
played for the next 90 minutes without taking a break and I had a ton of fun!
My team won 10-7, and I scored 3 goals. Although I was nowhere near as good as
some of the guys, I felt like I held my own (or at least didn’t suck that much,
which would have been pretty bad considering my new cleats are neon green and
call a lot of attention to myself).
Anyways, it was a great day and it rekindled my love for
team sports (hoping to find some time to join an adult soccer league once we
move to Tacoma).
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| our team! captain was the goalie. I missed the memo on the MAN U jerseys. Also, notice my lime green shoes |
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