Capítulo 4: Chinese soccer
The sun was smiling upon us with favor that Thursday, as all of us boys lined up on the soccer field in two straight rows.
"Welcome to my soccer class, I am sure for most of you this is your first soccer class." The coach said with a deep voice, he was a middle aged man and wore a black track suit from head to toe.
"I see some familiar faces. Like little fat and big fat right here..." he locked his eyes on the guy in my direction. And judging from the body proportions he mentioned it was pretty easy to guess which two people he was referring to.
"Coach I am here again!" the guy who I assumed was little fat answered.
"HAHA! I saw him taking this course so I came as well!" the guy next to me shouted, whom I assumed was big fat at the time.
"Alright, let's run first. Look to the right..." we all turned our cheek to the right. "Run!"
The moment he finished his words, we all took off running, with me leading one file, and little fat leading the other.
"Jog slower! Big fat can't follow up with you!" little fat said as he jogged beside me. And sure enough when I looked back big fat looked like he's one step away from a stroke.
"But I am just running at my average speed!" I said casually.
"Tell that to a guy who ran 1km in 5min and 30 seconds!" Little fat chuckled.
"Fair enough." I let out a small chuckle, and slowed down a little.
Near the end of two laps around the soccer field the coach called out again:
"Stop! Walk slowly now!..."
All of us slowed to a gradual halt like a machine cooling down, but not big fat, he just straight up laid on the ground like road kill.
"I am never...going to be able to run again...in my life..." he said between hasty breaths with his tongue sticking out.
"Stand up big fat, it's not break time yet. You should set an example for other students since you been in my class for two times now." The coach chuckled.
"I really can't move anymore..." big fat grumbled.
"See! Don't be like him! Resting like this is bad! It's not good for your body. If you gonna rest, then you should rest proper." The coach said with hands behind his back. "Little fat, go get the soccer bag."
"Aye coach!" little fat ran off to a small shed, and a moment later he returned with a net of balls.
"Alright, the people at the front will be paired with the person facing them in the back. Two people will be using one ball. Go now!"
Seeing everyone in the backline going for a ball, I joined in the scramble like a fish in the fray. Once I got the ball I turned back to my partner once again.
"Alright we are going to practice passing the ball. Come up here little fat."
"Aye coach!" Little fat run up to the front with a bright smile.
"When you are passing the ball make sure you are using the inside of your foot. Can someone pass a ball?"
Little fat made a gesture for me to pass it and I did without hesitation.
"Pass it to me." The coach said.
With an unexpected agile swing from little fat's leg, the ball was smoothly passed to the coach.
"Good. I want you all to pass the ball just like him by the end of this semester, so you wouldn't have come to this class for nothing. I know for a lot of you soccer class wasn't your first choice. Or you just happened to be auto filled into this class."
Well that was indeed true for my case, as my first choice for PE class was swimming, but the swimming class in my school is notorious for being hard to get. As the swimming class is completely maxed out within the first 15 min of class choosing...And with all the other PE class closed, I was pretty much auto filled into soccer class...
"But it doesn't matter. This matters about your grade, and my class is very easy to pass. As long you show up everytime, you can get that pass. So say let's all do our best, and maybe get an A, what do you all say?"
"Aye coach!" there was a series of claps.
I swear you will never see this kind of stuff in the western world...
"Alright, let's start passing these balls now!" The coach walked to the side, and from there we all entered practice mode.
Don't get me wrong though, I suck so bad at soccer, if you were to let me metaphorically describe it, I would be equivalency of the Chinese soccer team in the FIFA.
"Catch!" little fat said, as he passed the ball.
I managed to stop that one.
"Alright, pass it back!" he shouted again.
With a concerted face, I pulled back my leg and gave it my best shot. And unsurprisingly the ball went off course by about 3000 miles.
"Woops." I said.
"Shhh! It's ok!" little fat yelled as he ran after the ball. A moment later he came back with ball under his foot.
"You need to learn to control the ball. You can try kicking it slower." He said as he passed the ball to me smoothly.
"Alright." I replied, stopping the ball once again.
Alright...Slow down Tao...
That moment I did the same exact thing except with half the speed.
The ball was only off by 1000 miles this time.
"Good good! You are doing well!" little fat gave a thumbs up as he ran after the ball again.
Man...Feels bad to be my partner...
***
After about 15 minutes of practice the coach blew his whistle and called for our attention:
"Everyone line up into 1 line! And call your number from 1 to 3 from left to right, go!"
"1!" I called out.
"2!" little fat shouted.
"3!" big fat yelled.
"1!..." the number repeats it's self again with the next person, and all the way till the end of the line.
"Alright, you are all going to divide into 3 team of 10. We only have 28 people, so it will be real helpful is some of you are willing to play double shifts."
"I can!" one of the guy said. He had curly hair tied up with a black bandana around his forehead. And for some bizarre reason he wore a pair of clear plastic goggles. Though I don't know what his real name is to this day, I just refer to him 'goggle dude'.
"Good. Now you guys decide who's going to be facing off first and who's going to be jersey or shirts." The coach said.
The 3 of us as the representive team captains meet up at the front and did the 'palm or back'.
It's kind of like rock and scissors, you show your hand to the other person in the form of a showdown. Except for 'palm and back' you only have two moves, one is the 'back' which is a move showing the back of your hand. And 'palm' which is showing the palm of your hand. The game has to be played by 3 people at least, so if two people had 'palm' then the person who has 'back' will be ruled out, same goes the other way, if one of the moves outnumbers the other move.
"Alright, let's do this." I said.
"Palm and...back!" the 3 of us said in union.
Little fat had 'palm' while me and big fat had 'back', so little fat will be sitting off for this round.
"We can do rock paper and scissor for this one." Big fat suggested. "Loser wears jersey."
"Sounds good." I said.
"Rock, paper...scissor!" The two of us yelled.
I won with rock that round.
"Big fat team will be wearing the jersey!" little fat announced.
Thank God I didn't want to be sweating in those jersey now...
"Alright now that you all have decided, hurry up and start!" the coach waved then walked over to a stool on the side of the field.
The two teams went onto their respective sides on the field, I looked to the others and most of them seemed just as confused as me.
"So which position do I kick?" I asked no one in particular.
"Do you know how to play soccer?" one of them asked with a confident voice. He had short black hair and wore glasses but didn't feel nerdy at all.
Though I can't remember his name to this day, I just refer to him as 'captain'.
"Nope. Though I can run pretty fast in short sprints." I answered honestly.
"Then you can play right wing. I will play center." He looked to the rest and said: "Who's willing to be goalie?"
Everyone grew a sudden interest in their shoe lace.
"I will fill in as goalie!" little fat yelled out from the sideline.
The coach waved for him to go, as he ran up one of our teammates was subbed out.
"Alright, everyone get into your position!" Captain shouted, and we all hastily shuffled into our positions.
The game wasn't too formal, as we let the opposing team start off with the ball first with no particular reason, but since no one is complaining might as well just go with it.
Playing safe, the center of the opposing team passed the ball back, as their members advanced to our side of the field. Their left wing scurried with the ball for a few moments, then made a sudden straight pass across the field. Like a lightening in broad day light, Captain intercepts the pass and rushed deep into enemy territory. He passed through one, no two, no three people like a breeze in the air. The guy wouldn't have been an overstatement to describe him as the Lu-Bu among men and Chi-Tu among the horses (a Chinese saying).
BAAM!
One of the guy he passed fell to the ground and began hugging his knee like it was his dead mother:
"AHHHHH!!! MY KNEE!!!" he let out a heart tearing sound.
Funny enough, I was actually close enough to see what actually happened. Captain barely touched him, and the guy just fell to the ground. Which got me thinking this guy is either a born gifted actor or a professional con-artist...Either way that moment I decided to give him the nickname of: 'fake trip dude'.
And oh boy, that was just the beginning of the game...
Q: Do you consider yourself good at soccer?
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