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Other entries in Bangkok

Tesco-Lotus Futsal Tournament

With Bec staying in Nakhon Sawan with Fabiana and little Davi, Andrew joined up with Adriano and his futsal team "Christian Nakhon Sawan" to head to a national futsal tournament in Bangkok. With the 13 guys involved packed into two utes for the adventure we set off with high hopes.

To say that the playing conditions of the tournament were eye-opening would probably be an understatement. The 'court' was set up in the car park of a Tesco-Lotus shopping centre. Not only was it about half the regulation size it still had the raised car park lines everywhere but the centre circle and goal mouth - where the concrete had been painted green. For the team which had been preparing for the tournament on a large indoor court in Nakhon Sawan it took some getting used to. Unfortunately the situation wasn't helped by the fact that for almost all of the three games the team played it rained. For the last game a tropical storm hit with such vengance that the court resembled a child's wadding pool. Would that discourage the thai organisers or a cause a delay in the game - not likely. Everything went ahead as planned, with two very wet teams contesting a highly amusing but not very skillful game as played slipped all over the court. Two highlights were the goalkeeper who came slidding out to clear a ball and seemed likely to keep sliding til he hit halfway (and in the process flipping an opposing attacker on his head) and the defender who after taking a knock slid two or three metres on his bottom.

Whilst not eligible to play I found it an amazing opportunity to see some of the challenges facing Adriano as he seeks to keep the team organised whilst still prioritising evangelism. This particularly became aparent in the way he dealt with the players reaction to losing all three games. To watch as he tryed to sort out the infighting and breakdown in realtionships that occured through losing and then sought to fairly but graciously distribute monetary winnings from an earlier tournament was a real challenge to me and I felt a great witness to his willingness to really give his heart for the guys. Even if that meant they were able to damage it.