no disgrACE in 3-3 draw

There are days when the weather is cool, nice, cloudy and perfect for football. Yesterday was no such day. The sun was so bad, Maran had tan lines. And that is no exaggeration.

With one phone call and a couple of absinths, Philbert and Navin PP managed to make sure half our team for the game were in good "SPIRITS". So fair play to them.

Here was the line up in full:

Sober: Harvey, Riz, Chan, Harish, Maran, Vana, Shyam, Farhan

Not so sober: Maran, Kumaran, Sat (arrived 310pm for 3pm game), SK (arrived 345pm) and Prak

Confused: Vana's friend Damon ("guys let's just go have a beer screw the game".)

The opponents brought 200 players (rough estimate).

Game started off with our much fitter opponents running around and creating all sorts of mayhem for our defence. MiB's defence adopted a new tactic yesterday. As long as the ball is played behind you, stop, look at the ball, put up your hand and say "OFFSIDE". It will work 5 out of 10 times. When it works great, when it doesn't work, that part we haven't figured out yet.

As the game wore on, Chan, Vana and Farhan started to create some good moves and in one such move, Chan broke clear only to be tackled from behind by the defender. Stone wall penalty. Up stepped Faizal to pass it to the keeper, who passed him back. With the whole goal gaping, Faizal thought he could make it less hot by aiming for the sun. His shot almost reached it but not quite. Still 0-0.

Within the next 2 moves, MiB was down 1-0. Like I mentioned, the new defensive tactic came to the fore here. Sat (not sober) and Riz did not pick up the opponent's striker who burst through and shot straight through the middle, leaving the diving Harvey no chance. If the game had ended here, MiB would have paid and went home happy. Unfortunately, there was still 70 minutes to play.

Chan and Vana were looking lively (they did not go to ACE the night before please note), and were MiB's most threatening players. It was no surprise that they dragged MiB back into the game. With a melee in the box, Vana picked out Chan who turned and slammed in the equalizer. 1-1. Within the next 5 minutes, Vana, who at this point was playing striker, latched on to a through ball by Chan, and made it 2-1 with a solid curling shot into the top corner.

But then MiB decided to try their new tactic again. A long ball was launched between Sat (not sober) and Harish to a striker clearly in an offside position. So as expected, MiB stopped playing. A deep running midfielder obliged by running to the loose ball and saw his shot saved by Harvey, but the referee had seen Sat (not sober) apparently push him from behind. Harsh. The resultant penalty was rammed straight down the middle but Harvey only managed a weak hand at it. 2-2.

By this time Vana's friend Damon was hallucinating and swore he saw Teletubbies on the field. So MiB decided to put our most right-sided player, Pirakash (not sober), at LEFT-back. BRILLIANT MOVE OF THE DAY 1.

The game was ding-donging between both halves and Chan was unlucky not to get a penalty after the defender tried to knee his head off in mid air. The opponents made their 177th substitution at this point.

Much to everyone's surprise, MiB's no 8 was seen on the touchline (not so sober). With his first touch after coming on at right wing, his shot on goal was deflected by the defender. But the ref, who was still feeling guilty after not giving Chan his penalty despite his head hanging from his neck by now, gave a dubious penalty! Zal wanted to try again and knock out the sun, but Harvey managed to persuade him not to, and duly stepped up to convert the penalty to make it 3-2 at half time.

If any of you have watched the war movie Platoon, there is a scene where the soldiers will be lying after 3 weeks of war, faces bloodied, uniform tattered, sweaty, exhausted and faces filled with pain. That pretty much sums up MiB at half time. Chan tried his best to rally the troops, but Kumaran (not so sober) said he couldn't get the "Pote Tak" song out of his head and had to rest. Sat (not so sober) had the same feeling. Prak (not so sober) wanted to sleep already at this point but claimed that David Beckham had met him in the toilet and told him its his destiny to play in the second half. Or something along those lines. Once again, thanks Bert and Navin.

Second half started at a slow pace. No one was complaining. The weather was getting nicer too and it started to pay off as Harish and Shyam grew into the game down the right side. Chan too had plenty of chances as he fought his way into the box, but with each attempt, tried to blaze it higher than before.

The opponents too had their fare share of chances thanks to MiB's new tactic. But with SK (not so sober) now at left back, we were containing them pretty well. The longer the game wore on, the more mistakes occured. The opponents should have scored when the striker beat Sat (not so sober) easily and squared for his team mate. Harvey made the save and MiB scrambled the ball away.

Then Maran (not so sober) decided to do his community service for the year. A ball from the right was missed by everyone and fell to MiB's prolific no.11 in the 6 yard box. He would have had enough time to jog to his bag, call Bert and Navin, persuade them to go ACE, bathe and come back and score. But he decided to kick the ball so softly into the keeper's hands that a snail overtook it.

Time for BRILLIANT MOVE OF THE DAY 2. MiB got a corner with about 10 minutes to play. What do you do when you're leading 3-2 with minutes to play, absolutely shagged out, in the burning hot sun, with some players still smelling of alcohol? That's right, let's commit 8 players into the box and leave 2 of our fastest players, Riz and Sat (not so sober), in defence. So what happened? The opponents broke away within 2 seconds of our corner and it was a 2 v 1 with just Harvey left. The striker managed to poke the ball towards goal but SK (not so sober) heroically clearing the ball from under his cross bar! Game winning save!

Having failed to let the opponents score, MiB tried again, with another 2 v 1 seeing the striker selfishly kick wide instead of making Harvey look like a circus monkey.

And just when it looked like MiB had done enough to win, BRILLIANT MOVE OF THE DAY 3. With our defence aching, and Vana and Maran (not so sober) not being able to run back and defend because of an invisible forcefield, what should MiB have done at this point? Yup, you're absolutely right. We made Kumaran (not so sober), play defensive midfield. Not his fault totally because that's not his position, but like I said, BRILLIANT MOVE OF THE DAY 3.

The opponents broke through and Harvey saved the shot, but could only parry it to the striker, who smashed it into the empty net. 3-3. Game was over shortly after that. MiB was put out of its misery.

ACE next week?