Before the Pakistan Street Tournament could take place, we arranged a few preparation matches, the first and most prominent one of them being against 16A. Within days of forming our team we challenged them to a game and while both teams considered it a friendly, we all knew it was anything but. For them it was a matter of brushing us aside as some breakaway nuisance that would self-implode and scatter once they inflicted an embarrassing and convincing defeat upon us. For us it was not only a matter of establishing legitimacy for our newly formed team, but also showing them who in fact should be considered the A team. Kamyar and I typed up fliers to advertise the game, colored the borders in florescent colors to make them noticeable and posted two of them on each street, one at the beginning and one in the street itself. The advertisements seemed to work as a sizable crowd of spectators had gathered for the game. Once we arrived, the fact that 16A was already present in matching shirts and headbands, and practicing on a field with newly painted lines, indicated that they were taking the match just as seriously as us.

Our lineup for this game was only slightly different than the team that we entered in the tournament. Babak hadn’t quite committed to the team yet and it was literally before kickoff that we discovered our goalkeeper as we warmed up and took practice shots on him after he volunteered to step in goal. The 1st half was a fairly even match with neither team able to break the deadlock. It was halfway through the 2nd half where I received the ball on the right flank and charged towards their goal. I spotted Kamyar to the left of the goal and attempted a pass to him. However, as soon as I released the ball I angrily smacked my thighs in frustration as I had completely miskicked the ball. Kamyar’s positioning had apparently made it clear where my pass was intended for and as a result everyone had gravitated to the left. It was thus that all including the opposing goalkeeper were wrong-footed as they leaned left and my miskicked and not so difficult to stop shot squeezed in between the goalkeeper’s planted foot and the near post.

I’m not sure how many times I jumped up and down, pumping my fist in the air, ridding myself of the tremendous pressure of relief and all the while avoiding my teammates who were trying to catch and pummel me. I finally came to rest near our own goal. I went down on my knees, tilted my head back and with both arms reached for the sky, reminiscent of Jorge Burruchagga’s goal celebration in the 1986 World Cup against West Germany and in the 1990 World Cup against the Soviet Union.

Trailing by a goal, 16A threw everything they could against us, playing with a high back line and becoming susceptible to counter attacks. On two occasions I managed to intercept a ball and quickly released Kamyar who had an easy task of confronting the keeper 1v1 and calmly putting the ball past him. When the final whistle blew, we had emerged victorious by a score of 3-0.