Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - I'm still available Sven!

Me(blue shirt foreground) playing football in an LA tournament

Last Saturday May 6th I took part in my first 'Futbolito' tournament at the Pasadena Rosebowl.  For those that don't know, Futbolito is a Hispanic 4 a side football game played on tiny pitches the size of a tennis court.

My company asked for the salespeople to put forward the names of 4 company sponsored teams to enter the competition which draws teams from all over Southern California. Since I am English and the Americans I mostly work with have no interest in football I was an obvious choice to put a team together.

The company I work for sponsored the teams $150 entry fee and supplied  shirts with the companies logo and name on to aid promotion, which I have blacked out to avoid the huge number of letters I might get from adoring female fans.

I put together a team of Argentinian players that I play with on Sunday and off we went. I was expecting some older teams in the 'senior' level of the competition but was shocked to find most teams to be between 18 - 28 years of age.

Needless to say at 42 years of age in 4 months I found it hard going especially in the first match until I got somewhat used to the fast pace of a game played on small pitches. The Argentinians guys wives and girlfriends showed up for support with coolers of drinks, empenadas and various snacks, unfortunately Elina did not make it since it is difficult to get fully mobile with a 2 year old and 5 month old in tow.

 It was a nice day, we did not finish  first in the 4 company sponsored teams which offered a prize of a few hundred dollars much less the whole tournament of probably 100 or so teams, however we were the oldest team in the contest.

  I would like to officially make myself available to Sven and the England team for the upcoming World Cup finals in Germany this year, I do come with experience of playing with the Argentinians just in case England meets them in the knockout stages.