captain's ball

how close we came. twice

today was anglolympics, captain's ball. we were in the group with .3, .11, .13, .15. not the easiest but by far not the hardest. except for .11. well. so we thought

first match against .15 ended 6-2 in our favour. fantastic start, i thought

second match was against .11, and this is where the complications begin. we played against a largely understrength .11 side which was still quite potent with jarvin and some others in play. 3-2 in our favour, thanks to liz low scoring two points with her goal

third match, we needed to win this to guarantee qualification, and more complications would present themselves. against .3, another tough contender in our group. 3-0 or 3-1 in our favour, can't remember, didn't matter, we were certain we had qualified based on the results of the other teams. as such...

last group match against .13, the other strong side in our group, who had earlier destroyed .15 19-3 (7 goals from else = 14 points). anyone who hadn't played earlier got their chance today, and we gave .13 an avenue to try and achieve best runner up. we got owned 10-1. so we were through....

it seemed that there was a dispute between the .11 and .13 match earlier, and they wanted to take it to a rematch. this was bad, because if .13 won, then they were through and we were out. i won't go into details, but i must say thank you to both .13 and .11 players, the former for refusing to play the rematch, and the latter for not pushing the matter any further. i apologise that we squandered the lifeline you gave us.

semi finals against .2, we lost 4-3 (the winning Golden Goal), and then we lost to .10 in 3rd place playoff, again 4-3.

first off i'm going to apologise for letting the team down so many times in the two last matches we played, like the times that i shot when i should have held on or passed. i'm sorry that we couldn't get past the final hurdle, when the matches were so so close to ending in our favour. i'm sorry that, at times, i wasn't as composed as i should have been. i'm sorry for all that, and more.

we came so close. but it was not to be in the end.

but forget that. congratulations to the point four team, for giving our opponents one hell of a fight before going down. to the lot from 5.4, thank you ever so much for coming down and giving your all for the games. without you we most definitely would not have gotten anywhere.

one stage is over. next week is football. and all i ask for, is more of the same that i saw today. play your hearts out, enjoy the game, and in the end, the results matter less than the friendships formed and the bonds created between our two classes.

i'm sorry, and thank you all