A New Chapter: Christ University, Bangalore

On June 2nd, 2016, I started a brand new chapter in my life. I had just joined the "best" university in India for a Bachelors Of Business Administration. I was pumped. I was eager to join, eager to start playing football especially because I had heard a lot about the football scene in Bangalore and that it was on par with Mumbai's football scene.

College started and I was assigned my class and it took me a while to realize that football practice had already started. A while being three weeks to be exact. But little did I know what was about to come in the next year.
Excelling at football and making my mark in Christ football was my main goal when I joined. And that's what I had drilled into my head as well.

Buzzing from a great inaugural season at the VPPL, I was ready to go!

On my first day of practice, I was kind of under-confident, to be honest. The ground was buzzing with over 100 players who looked really hungry to prove themselves. I looked around to see who the coach was and it was pretty obvious who that was. He went by the name Arun Sir, tall, dark and with a hearty, genuine smile. I took my own sweet time during kit up when a senior walked in and told us to get our asses to the pitch quickly. I got up and headed out to the pitch where the coach was talking in his weird style. I am not sure how I would describe the way Coach speaks but let me just tell you that it was as amusing as it is irritating. But then again, he was here for football, to coach a bunch of arrogant college kids. Who was I to judge?

So, in Christ, we can practice at two grounds because sometimes, the numbers are too much and it helps accommodate the different teams of the university. I was sent to the second ground where two teams of 11 were divided and set to play against each other. I was in one of these teams and I had made my stance very clear from the onset of team creation that I will only play in the centre midfield position no matter what happens. The problem was, there were three other central midfielders on my team. So two of them took a hit for the team and played in a centre back position. I did not want to take the risk of playing in any other position because I have had the sad experience of playing in an unfamiliar position during a trial and eventually not getting picked up.

 I felt bad for both of them, but one of them turned out to be an insane player with an even more insane work ethic which astounded me. His name was Karan. We instantly had this telepathic communication. I knew where he was, I knew that when I was in trouble, there'll be a solid centre back at the back to cover and he knew exactly how I liked to receive the ball. We both had a good time playing with each other. Little did I know that we would go on to play with each other a lot more, win trophies, lose some, but always put in our 110%

FOCUS

I played a few really beautiful Hollywood passes across the field which is when I caught the coach's attention. When i figured out that he was looking at my play, I stepped it up. I started running more, putting in more tackles, more effort and I eventually scored a goal.

After the game, the coach huddled us together and spoke to us with great excitement ahead of the new football season. He did single me out during his talk when he made the statement "I know a polished player when I see one" and he looked directly towards me at the far end of the huddle.

Instantly I knew he meant me and that this was just the beginning. I realized that I would have to square up for a spot on the Christ A team with people not just doing their undergrad but those doing their masters and doctorates as well, tough, strong and really good university level players. I knew that it was going to be hard but then again, I wasn't new to adversity and I'm certainly not the guy backing down from a challenge.

So that was that a new chapter in my life had started in Bangalore and my goal, was to leave a mark in Christ football history.