Qatar brings us the 63rd Nation (and perhaps a new stadium)
What is football? It’s that game when you can lose 1-5 at half time and win 10-7 at the end.
That’s what a confident Bibs team was able to achieve today, in an intense 5-side game played in the wide spaces of Kensington Gardens. A classic remuntada that has a name and a face, new player Khaled (top picture with Hossam) who brings us Qatar as the 63rd Nation.
Despite the vicinity with the Royal residence, the sombre mood that is wrapping the nations did not affect the nine FDs that came to play, determined to give it all.
The Colours team enjoyed greater ball possession and got control of the game. Protected by Alessandro in goal, Marcello, Francesco, Yassin and TonyS moved the ball with ease and created chance after chance. Playing in goal for the Bibs, TonyL had a hard time protecting the unusually large goal and succumbed in two occasions.
Down 0-2, the Bibs team [TonyL, Hossam, Paride, Julien] realised that their only hope was in securing the missing player. Without stopping to play, Hossam got on a zoom call with executive search firm Egon Zehnder and appointed them to find urgently a top scorer while texting Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti to see if they could loan him one of their players. But sometimes luck is your best friend, and the solution presented itself when Khaled, arriving with his bike, said the magic four words “Can I join you?”
The Qatari player lacked proper boots and wore more cloth layers than a Caribbean explorer on the North Pole, but he appear fit and talented and was immediately recruited. With him in midfield, the Colours started to attack with more confidence, but ended up opening more spaces for the Bibs, who found the net two more times with cynicism, getting to a comfortable advantage (4-0).
The Bibs continue to press ahead resorting to what appeared a desperate tactic, that is having TonyL leave the goal to go in attack. The kind of thing you typically see in the last seconds of extra-time. The gamble paid off. Khaled received the ball on the left side, touched it briefly to go past Marcello and sent a low-driven shot that Alessandro could only watch go in goal. In the following minutes, the scene repeated itself several times. Khaled would get the ball in attack and shoot with power and precision, scoring in style.
Feeling the pressure, the Bibs tried to defend their advantage but they started to look tired. Francesco lost several balls. TonyS missed a few easy tap-in in front of goal. In a pivotal moment, Francesco went past Hossam on the right side and sent a juicy ball to Yassin, who arrived comfortably alone in front of Tony. In this type of situation, 999 times out of 1000, Yassin would score without even thinking about it, but this time his shot lacked precision and was saved. The ankle injury might still hurt him, or perhaps he was just unlucky. Either way, the Bibs had little doubts that the game was now in their hands, and continued to score, winning 10-7 at Golden Goal.
All Bibs players deserved accolades, but it was Khaled to bring home the Man of The Man Match award, a remarkable accomplishment for a debutante. He promised to be back soon, this time with proper football boots.
In the after-match, there was time to talk with the Qatari about the upcoming World Cup. Khaled ensured us that all the new stadia have been completed, and told us something we didn’t know. Two of those stadia were built in such a way that they can be easily disassembled after the tournament and sent to an African country where they will be rebuilt. What a smart thing to do. Perhaps we should ask the Emir to give a stadium to us as well. That would be a more fitting destiny for such an architecture marvel.
