My Futsal Mania

-
picture taken from andybatt.com

Life back in my hometown is sweet...
Free food... Free board... Free transport...
Met up with old friends...
Visited the good old favourite food spots...
As well as some new ones...
But best of all... I played lots and I mean LOTS of futsal!
Almost 2-3 times a week!

It truly is a wonderful adaptation of the beautiful game...
Scaling it down has made it more accessible to non-football players as well as more challenging for those who frequent the eleven a side game.
I'm having a lovely time playing with different opponents as well as having different teammates in every game...
Some times we work well together & have chemistry...
Some times the team breaks down & we fail...

Here is what a typical futsal game in Kuching, Malaysia is like:
There are usually 3 teams. 5-6 players a side.
2 teams enter the court or pitch first and compete to stay in the court. The third team rests.
In the court, the team that manages to score 2 goals gets to stay while the opposition is kicked out & the resting team enters to compete with the winning team.
This repeats itself until the time runs out.
There are not winning teams in this type of game.
Every one's a winner...
We're just here to have a good time & pitch our individual skill against each other!

The game truly is perfect...
However, as humans, WE are far from perfect...
Last week, I joined some friends for a game of futsal.
Everyone was a complete stranger to me... even some of my teammates.
But we played well together as a team.
There were 3 teams & we played the typical game.
Most of the players were new to the game so they were quite hard on the tackling but it was acceptable & we did have some good moments.

However, towards the end of our booked time at the court, a fight broke out.
My team was resting so we watched as the 2 teams inside the court yell at each other, push each other & eventually, punch each other.
It was quite amusing as some of them were topless and they were unseasoned fighters swinging wildly inside a netted court which made them look like caged up savages.
Soon the two teams were forced apart by the resting team & some of their more reasonable teammates.
Later on, they left the court in a ceasefire.

I have played many varieties of football for many years with people of different personalities & different abilities...
This was the first time I saw a fight over a legal tackle which brought a player down.
A legal tackle is a tackle where the defender goes for the ball & not the player. It is understood that incidentally, the attacker might be brought down in the process.
Most teams will professionally shake it off if it was a legal tackle.
This team of amateur chinese players didnt...
What a shame...
Hope they reflect on this & in the future, choose to ellicit respect by how well they play the game rather than how intimidating they can be.

Popular posts from this blog

What To Do When Your Unifi Service Suddenly Drops

-
Image
After finally putting my kid to sleep, I was about to settle into the couch with my wife & stream a movie, when my Unifi fiber optic internet connection suddenly dropped. When it didn't come back after 1 hour, I realized that I had to do something. Considering that I pay my bills promptly every month, it must be a technical issue. Here's what I did to fix the problem. It look me less than 20 minutes. 1. First, I checked my modem (the white machine). I checked the lights on the modem. When the modem is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, PON, LAN1 & TEL1. If the red light for LOS lights up, call 100 to resolve the issue. Also, I made sure that all the wire connections were tight. 2. Next, I checked my router (the black machine). Again, I checked the lights. When the router is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, GLOBE, WIFI, LAN1. My POWER light was blinking, so that means that there was no internet connection. Again, I made sure th
Open Full Post »

Understanding The New SPM (2021) English 1119 Paper Format

-
Image
This outline & those of other SPM language papers were made publicly available on the Lembaga Peperiksaan Malaysia (LPM) website . I'm sure you've seen the above being circulated on the internet. But, what does it mean? How does this paper compare to the current SPM paper for English? Do we have to change our testing practices in Form 4? At this moment, information is sparse despite great public interest. As the head of the English panel at my school, my Form 4 colleagues will come to me for what to do & parents will ask me what this is about. Until we have very specific instructions from the ministry, this is what I will be telling my colleagues & parents based on the limited amount of information available to me from my intimate experience with the current SPM paper & second-hand information about the PT3 English paper. Let me know if I got anything wrong or if you have more detailed information.
Open Full Post »

How To Fix Logitech Options Not Loading

-
Image
I use a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard at home & love it to bits. Very quiet & the tactile response is just perfect. Also, it's super small so easy to put away when I need to pile exam papers on my desk. Still, there's one small problem though... It is a compact keyboard so the multimedia buttons double as function keys. I use the function keys A LOT & it's really cumbersome for me to have to hold the "fn" button every time I want to use them. I.e., try pressing alt+fn+f4 with one hand. Thankfully, with the Logitech Options software, I can default to the function keys. A few months ago, I was chagrined to learn that my keyboard had spontaneously returned to factory settings. "No problem", I thought. "I'll just change the settings in Logitech Options." Only to find that the app wouldn't load on my Windows 10 machine, resulting in the blank window you see screen-captured above. "Let me try reinstalling." Uni
Open Full Post »

A Review of Mosquito Coils In The Market

-
Image
Mosquito coils = The first line of defence against savage jungle mosquitoes. Remember when there was completely no electricity at my school ? It happened during the dry season so the nights were really really warm & hard to sleep with the windows closed. Why close the windows you ask? Because if you don't close the windows, the savages from the jungle will climb in & suck your blood! Literally! I'm talking about swarms of mosquitoes gang-banging your skin & leaving you with clusters of chickenpox-like bumps on your skin in the morning! These guys even bite through clothing!! The itchiness that ensues will practically ensure that you never have a good night sleep. In order to keep those monsters at bay, I had to go really low-tech. I eventually experimented with mosquito coils. There are so many in the market & I thought that all of them worked the same since they had the same basic ingredients. I was wrong. They had different effects on the mosquitoes &am
Open Full Post »

Exotic Fruit: Buah Isu

-
Image
I've been teaching in the Iban motherland for more than 1 year now & I have tasted many exotic fruits exclusively available only within these quiet secluded timber forests. Now, don't you smirk at me! You perverted baskets I call friends are thinking about a different 'fruit'! There are no innuendos here. The exotic fruits that I'm talking about are REAL fruits. First, let me introduce you to the cousin of the king of fruits... Buah Isu Buah Isu resembles it's cousin, the Durian , but I was told that it is NOT in the Durian family. The spikes are longer & they are sharper. They are also very much smaller than the Durians. It's about the size of a man's palm. It has a pleasantly sweet fragrance which is not pungent like the Durian's. Because of it's size, it is easily opened with a cleaver. After opening my first Isu, I couldn't help but bounce off the walls in gay laughter. It was all too amusing to me! I though
Open Full Post »