h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

of the local dads' tournament that is.

my kids go to an international school here, and at the end of the year we have a mini-world cup between all the sections.

if you wonder how an american can play for ingerland, just know that it depends on what section your bairns are in... "england" was actually represented by a scot, a moroccan, a serbian, a frenchman, an american... and one englishman.

in the first match we beat last year's champion italy 3-0. next was a careless 2-1 loss to japan when we had the nil in hand with a minute to play... had we calculated instead of going all hands forward for the win we would have known the point was all we needed to get to the semis, but 50-year-olds are worse than U-10's... luckily it became academic with our 5-0 trouncing of germany, who showed those traditional teutonic traits of complete and utter indiscipline and disorganization.

our semifinal against spain was a laugher: despite some nice technique they were just too old, too fat to perform that deep into the tournament. even 10-minute matches take their toll on decrepit wheezing bodies, and since we would have to play the final on 2 minutes rest, we let them off at 2-0.

of all the participants it was italy who had reason for gnawing regrets... after allowing 4 goals in their first 11 minutes of play, they organized, settled down and played like winners. and due to a rule that allowed nations with insufficient showup to call on players from the other pool to make up the numbers, half of italy DID make the final... as poland.

the final was hard fought (i have two hellacious bruises to prove it, and one of our players had his jaw dislocated!) and on 8 minutes we were lucky to be a goal up... italy gave it all they could, but a goal from another planet put us up for good... at 2-0 they brought their keeper up and gave up an undeserved 3rd.


our final results:

W-4/N-0/L-1
GF-14/GA-2