In the beginning of November, the best 10 players in the Varsity football team were selected to go to Lusaka, Zambia for the (International Schools of South and East Africa) football tournament. There are 7 teams involved in the tournament, they come from international schools from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa. I felt like we had a very strong team for the 6-a-side tournament but it was my first ISSEA tournament and had no idea what to expect of the other teams. I went into the tournament with no idea what to expect but I was very excited to play football internationally. The tournament was 3 days long, but we were away from Nairobi for 5 days. The first day was to travel to Lusaka, and get a tour of the school, and the last day was to travel back to Nairobi.
On the second day, the tournament began, and we had 4 games that day, more than any other team. The games were 2 halves of 15 minutes each. Our first game was against 2-time defending ISSEA champions Uganda, we lost the game by conceding twice in the second half and lost 2-0. As a team we showed great character by winning our remaining 3 games that day 2-0, 1-0, and 3-0, against Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, respectively. The second day we played 2 games, completing the round-robin stage of the tournament. We played Ethiopia first, who were undefeated. We controlled the majority of that game, so it was unlucky of us to concede 2 goals again in the second half without scoring any. We lost 2-0, but we knew we could have beaten them. After that match we had one more to play of the round-robin before the semi-final stage of the tournament. After the game against Ethiopia, we knew we had already made it into the semi-finals despite losing the match. We also discovered that our next game was irrelevant, points wise. Whether we won by 10 goals or lost by 10 goals, we would finish the group stage in 3rd place behind Ethiopia in 1st, and Uganda in 2nd. But we had motivation to bounce back with a win against South Africa. We won the game 3-1, and were through to the semi-finals. On the last day of the tournament we would play two games, the semi-final against Uganda, then either the final or the 3rd place playoff, agaisnt Ethiopia or Zimbabwe. In the semi-final, many refereeing decisions went against us, and Uganda were awarded 2 penalties that were arguably unfairly awarded. Despite this, we showed great character and persistance to win the game by 3 goals to 2. We had achieved already what ISK has never achieved by playing in the final, but we were focussed and hungry for success in the final, and wanted to set the score straight against Ethiopia. We took the field and I was quite nervous, but we played well in the first half and were unlucky to be losing 1-0 at half time against tournament favourites, unbeaten Ethiopia. In the second half we continued to push and were awarded with a goal, a second came shortly after and we had taken the lead. In the dying seconds of the game Ethiopia had an opportunity and had a shot that was cleared off the line by our defender. The ball was cleared and we had won ISSEA! For the first time in the tournament's 11 year history, ISK had won the Championship. It was an amazing feeling, I was overwhelmed with joy, relief, and emotions. I walked into the tournament with no expectations of success and came home a champion. I had learnt a lot throughout the tournament, about persistence, concentration, ambition, and success. I learnt that through persistence, and concentration, you can succeed by achieving your ambitions. Ambitions are important, I learnt this by not having any, well at least until the final. I think that because my ambitions were not to high and broad from the beginning, I was able to achieve success. I took it each game at a time, instead of having a broad goal, that might be seen as unrealistic. I had developed the skills of teamwork, which is necessary to win a tournament. We also needed to have humility because there was a losing team and he had to show respect to them, because they gave us a good game. ISSEA was an amazing experience and winning it was the icing on the cake.
No comments:
Post a Comment