The day was finally here. Today was the day
that we had been training for since November. For the girls who have been
playing with the Malditas for a while, today was the day they had been training
for for even longer. Thailand is ranked 29 in the world. They're a
really good team made up of quick, smart, technical players who have played
together for a very long time.
For almost a week now, we have been sharing a hotel
with them: dining in the same room for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; rooming on
the same floor; sharing the same wifi (and we're convinced that they were using
up all of it); sitting on the floor in the same hallway trying to get wifi;
etc. Now, all we wanted to do was beat them. Unfortunately, that
didn't happen... and as Monika stated, "it was one of the most
heartbreaking losses I have ever experienced."
The atmosphere in the stadium was even more intense
than it was the other day. Aside from the sounds of people putting on
their gear, the locker room was filled with silence. Tito Ernie asked if
something was wrong. Nothing was wrong; the silence was nothing but a
sign of focus.
When we walked out into the
stadium for warm-up, there was a lot more noise than there was the other day.
There were more people in the stands, and there was drumming. Thailand’s drumming. The drumming continued throughout warm-up and
the entirety of the game. Not gonna lie, I was actually pretty impressed by
their ability to keep up the same beat for 90+ minutes. Flags were waving
in the stands. When we walked past our fans, all the Filipinos were
clapping and yelling out cheers.
It had been raining all morning
and the field was wet and slippery.
Because of the rain, we weren’t allowed to warm up on the field. After warm up, we went into the locker room
to change into our jerseys and we entered the stadium again. Both teams’ starting 11 followed the referees
out to the center of the field.
Our national anthem started
playing. I got chills again. After both countries anthems, we all circled
up in a huddle and prayed as we do before every game, practice, and meal. The starting 11 took the field (not me--I
didn’t get any playing time this game) and the referee blew the whistle to
start the match. Joanna tested the
keeper and took a shot from half field like she did against Iran. It took one bounce and almost went over the
keeper’s head—but she tipped it over the cross bar for a corner which we were
not able to capitalize on.
The first half was pretty evenly
matched, and the first and only goal of the game was scored by Thailand L. It was
offside, but the linesman was out of position and the referee didn’t call
it. Such a bummer. I thought for sure the team would tie it up
in the second half. We outplayed Thailand
and got close so many times. However,
the game ended in a 1-0 loss for us, and in my eyes Thailand definitely got
lucky.
It was such an upsetting game,
and it always sucks that much more to lose because the referee made a bad call,
or in this case, failed to make a call.
Tears were shed and no one could say anything to any other person to
make the loss feel any better. Tito
Ernie said that he was very proud of us, and I’m very proud of the team
also. Every single player who stepped
onto the field fought hard for 90 minutes and kept on pushing until the final
whistle blew. Luck just wasn’t on our
side today.
In terms of making it to the
world cup, we still do have a chance.
But, Iran needs to beat Thailand and that would be a miracle. All we can do at this point is focus on our
game against Bangladesh.
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| The team after the game |
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