"This is a beautifully crafted goal...."

The beautiful game!! Who has not been affected by it in their lifetime? Whole nations go crazy over it and some rivalries are so fierce that they spill over into the streets after the match ends.

Somehow, I got bitten by the football bug after watching my friend badly spraining his ankle yesterday. (What a sadist I am!!). I decided that come what may, I would play this game and test what I was made of.

The initial warm up was well within my running and exercise limits. The real fun started when the game commenced. A sudden desire to play 'Total Football' like Franz Beckenbauer, 'The Kaiser' saw the daylights snuffed out of me. I soon started seeing double and sometimes even triple after i took a header on my head instead of the forehead. It felt like a drill boring into hard rock violently. The opposition took full advantage of this and scored nearly a dozen goals. (Yes, my dear reader I was the hapless goalie).

My lungs, chest and legs were begging for a timeout. I soon started seeing 100s of floodlights when there were actually four. Thats when i decided to stop being macho and respect my body.

The rest was galvanizing. I soon returned to the field and this time allowed our French striker to setup the goal and me and the other striker would take shots at the goal. During one such opportunity, i was face to face with the goalie. Slammed a left footer into the net and celebrated the first goal of my life. The second one was even simpler. The goalie rushed out leaving the goal exposed and all i had to do was to tap it in.

Frenchie was amused to see such crass inefficiency on the field, but he was also very appreciative of these baby steps that i took. All the while, the only thing going on in my mind was the piece of commentary from the Euro 2004 match between the Czech republic and The Netherlands..."This is a beautifully crafted goal by the Czech republic'......I was repeating those lines but replacing an entire nation with myself....My lungs were bursting and my head was throbbing, but the joy of the moment took them all away!!!

In the end i would like to say that though this may seem like personal trumpeting, it isn't. It is just a self-realisation....