The Soccer Meeting

          Last week Meshal and I had our sixth meeting already, crazy to think about! It was another meeting at the intramural fields since we both play on an intramural soccer team. We jogged around the fields for warm-up and caught up on the week… I tried not to lose my breath, as I am still relatively out of shape (but working on it!). He told me that his brother’s car had broken down that day, leaving him in an interesting spot. He does not own a car yet and relies on his brother (also in the IEP) to transport him to and from home some ten to fifteen minutes away, so he said he will basically always be either here at school or at home and not much in between. He said that was one thing he missed about home – his family owns multiple cars and his dad owns a car-repair garage as well. Had his brother’s car broken down back in Riyadh they could have just fixed it in the garage downstairs for free with their dad! Meshal remains hopeful, now that he also has his own room in the brothers’ new house, that he will also be getting his own vehicle in the next few months.

            As we jogged our second lap around we began actually talking about soccer and how long we have played the sport. I told him I began when (I think) I was about four on a team called the Rugrats. After a couple seasons I moved to a completely new team called the Knights, but the majority of my soccer career I played on a team called the Thunderbirds. I think I joined this team when I was seven or eight years old and still have several friends from the team. I played left defender almost exclusively during those years and onward, and our team was perennially dominant. Once I got onto the team we kept a core group of players, probably about eight of us, that remained year to year with a few add-ons and drops each season. Therefore, we all were pretty close to each other back in those days. One of my best friends from high school, Alex, was on the team, so when he moved to Aledo in sixth grade a few years after me we became much closer than just friends from the same soccer team. Funny enough, I was on the team with Hans (I still have a hard time not calling him Harry, since that was what he went by back then)…he was one of the original players on the team I believe! I quit soccer, unfortunately, before my sophomore year of high school to play football, but I have had a blast playing it in intramurals this year.

            Meshal told me that soccer is huge in Saudi Arabia, and he has always loved and played the game. All of his friends at home in Riyadh were fans of soccer, so it really has shaped who he is and who he’s associated himself with. We talked about his playing practically every position on the field at one point or another…he told me, “Just get me on the field, and I can play!” He is very confident in his ability as a player. We then began to discuss our favorite teams as far as international teams and club teams go. My family is from Germany on my mother’s side of the family, so I have always been partial to the German side when it comes to national competition (when the U.S. isn’t concerned, of course). Due to this I am also a fan of the club Bayern Munich, though my first club interest was/is Inter Milan for a relatively silly reason: my team, the Thunderbirds, used their jersey designs and crest as our own! Meshal told me his favorite club, but it had a very complicated name, and I have never heard of it so I honestly can’t remember what he told me, but he is a die-hard fan of the team!