As I have mentioned before we have been playing soccer here in the IMOP building. (For the record I don’t care what it’s really called or what makes more sense, its called soccer!) Our group of players has varied from 7 to 12 of the guys from our program (and occasionally a few girls as well) and we have had a lot of fun with it. We try to play once and hopefully twice a week and more than once have ended up playing against complete teams from other schools, programs and countries. As you all know, I have never been an athletic person, and until recently I would not have been in the shape to play anywhere near the level we have been playing at here. But I have been having a lot of fun with it!
We play in the small stadium on the campus next to our building. While it is quite small (maybe basketball court sized) it has an artificial turf field, decent goals and a good fence around it which reduces the ball chasing significantly. It is a good surface to run on and much easier to (and softer) fall on then real grass. Our games are normally played in the evening when we are able to book the stadium by the hour for the price of 150 rubbles. I consider this to be an insanely good deal considering it is paying 5 dollars for an hour’s entertainment for 10s guys. I cannot think of many other ways of having fun that are so inexpensive. It has the added benefit of getting us outside and running around as well, which we do much less of here then most are accustomed to in the US.
The one interesting, or some might say absurd, portion of the experience is how we are able to book it. The guards to our building have the key and we have to go through them in order to get access to the locked stadium. In order to accomplish this we have to talk to the guards (only in Russian) and we have about a 50% success rate in getting them to know what we are talking about or for them to care enough to help us out. More than once we have been told the venue is booked all day, only to never see anyone playing there, but we take this in stride and find other things to do.
The other is the matter of payment for the venue. The fee (150Rub an hour) is not posted anywhere, there are no receipts, no sign up sheets and almost every time the money goes from our hands to the head guard for the day’s pocket. And we ask no questions…
This has been great for me to get out and do some solid running for an hour several times per week. In the beginning it was also a great way to get to know the guys in the group, at the time when I did not even know all of their names. Additionally my skill at soccer has gone from well, 0 to passable! I even scored a goal in one of the 3 games we played today!
Moreover, I have never seen a group of Americans so determined to get out and play soccer as during some of the times when we have been unable to! I suppose that what they say is true, soccer is the world’s game and America’s youth is joining in, whether the rest of the country likes it or not! But first we need to get better at it... those European students are tough, fast and not afraid to play hard.
No comments:
Post a Comment