So has the U-20 FIFA Worldcup come to an end. This was what i was looking forward to even before the enlistment. The first thought that came to me when I was confirmed of my enlistment was that I will be able to witness the live scenes of U-20 World Cup that is to take place in my home country. As there were much expectations for this huge tournament, the emptiness after the end of it is even bigger.
I spent 20 days of my holidays for this wonderful tournament. I watched 17 games in total out of 52 games being played. So I watched 1/3 of the games. This was such a wonderful experience for me. Being on the spot, made me to widen my horizons toward football. How the matches are being played, where the VIPs are and etc. I managed to take a lot of selfies with the celebrities like my dream super star Lee Youngpyo, Cha Duri, Heo Jungmoo, Jurgen Klinsman, his daughter and son, some of the USA stars and the fans of participating countries. While watching matches, I had such a wonderful time recording down and writing down my thoughts on it to think and learn and open my sights to football. Watching various matches helped me being able to spot out the strategy, formation and team tactics. Pre-studying which players were the key man and as the tourney proceeded, I began to be familiar with players in teams. Especially, team England was the team that I watched the most game by 4 games, helping me to be so familiar with the team and as an award of that, I even got a jersey from the coach. That was one wonderful memory.
Going town to town was wonderful too. I always wanted to visit various stadiums in different cities and thanks to the hosting cities, I managed to visit Jeonju, Daejeon, Cheonan and Incheon stadium for the first time. Amongst all, Jeonju Worldcup stadium was the most memorable and remembered as happy memories. When there were several games held in a day I will choose to go to Jeonju with no doubt. Jeonju was that special to me. The first time I dropped there for Guinea vs Korea with Jun, we realized the girls there were so friendly to visitors. That was amazing. Food were amazing and there were the atmosphere of festival in there. The sights of hundreds of people wearing hanbok and doing the traditional dance at the hall was such a memory for me. Great win against Guinea to start off the first round of this tournament for Korea Republic. I visited there again when I dropped to watch England vs Costa Rica. I could have gone to watch other matches but I knew it could be last time me witnessing the Costa Rican team so I did not hesitate to choose to go to Jeonju and I was right for sure. When I took this bus 101 at Girin park, I saw this lady sitting alone wearing her FIFA card and I did not hesitate to ask whether she was going to the worldcup stadium. We talked about football and we became friends. It was amazing that I managed to see her again when I visited jeonju the third time in the bus. How amazing it is. She acknowledged her destiny and shared me her namecard. She was such a friendly person to get me around in Jeonju. She seemed like she was goal-minded and I am sure she will be successful as a football fan. Having food in jeonju was so amazing that they were nice and the gamjatang restaurant in front of the lan shop was amazing. The auntie gave me more rice to eat and she meant it.
Other stadiums were amazing too but well yeah that Cheonan was a little hard to get and the stadium's atmosphere wasn't that favorable and Daejeon stadium do not leave much memories to me but it just wasn't a memorable memory for me. Incheon was amazing though. That closeness between the pitch and the stand made people take photos with the players.
So this memory of me, searching the key players before heading to matches, getting down to the stadium an hour before to check out the events going around outside the stadium, getting the ticket pretending to be a middle school student, sitting down near the VIP seats just to take photos with the celebrities and football people.
When I enter the stadium, the music will be being played, Work hard Play Hard these songs and the other pop songs while the players will come out and warm up. When it's 34minutes before the kick-off the screen will show highlights of 2015 New Zealand U-20 worldcup and then the silence fills the stadium and the announcer will welcome the people to the stadium for this match and when it is just 30 minutes before kick off they will announce the starting XI. Highlights of the current worldcup and the M/V for this U-20 which is 'Trigger the Fever' by NCT Dream will be played and when its 11 minutes before kick-off, this serious song will be played and the players will start to enter. People will start to settle down and clap for the players. At half-time people will go around to get food and I will be busy trying to get photos with the VIPs. Those were amazing memories I had. It indeed widened my horizons to see football. This report that I am working on, will surely be an instrument to make me grow further. I've seen people who were sharing same dreams as me and how hard-working they had been. it's time for me to set my goals again look up and run towards it.
The end of this world cup would leave a little blankness in me but surely, there would be things to look out for and the thought of me having to learn so much and experience so much that is clearly just what I had needed. This 20 days of long holidays wasn't as how I wanted as u know I was weird with family, i just didn't wanna get involved although I think I might not had a choice and I was a little obsessed with trying to talk to girls and stuff but yeah if those were experiences i guess that's fine and maybe I could learn from it too. And clearly I made a lesson that things come and go.
U-20 worldcup has clearly 'Triggered the Fever' for me.
I did get a good rest in here enjoying my moments its time to get back and do my best to serve my country.
Trigger the Fever.
No comments:
Post a Comment