How I built my dream team from home

Let me confess, I have never had an athletic bent of mind. I rarely got picked for a sports team in school or college. Growing up in a Sharjah neighbourhood, as children got together for some friendly street football matches that used soft drink cans as goal posts, I was always designated as the ‘trusted’ defender.

My job: To shoot the ball into my own team’s corner so that more capable players could come around and defend the match. I would dutifully go about this task; it never occurred to me to try and actually shoot the ball back to the other half of the pitch.

During cricket matches in the neighbourhood, I was always the wicket keeper. No, it’s not because of my great glove work, but just so that someone could fetch the ball when the batsman missed it, or hit it behind the wicket (as per our rules, a batsman could not score runs behind the wicket). I could bowl some decent leg spin and during the practice matches, I would always end up taking wickets. However, I never got to prove my true worth in actual matches

as I’d break into cold sweat when I realised my performance was being recorded and judged.

The only game I was actually decent at was basketball. I excelled in one-on-one matches with my friends and during practice sessions. However, the fear of being judged considerably reduced the number of times I represented an actual team.

These athletic shortcomings of mine were amplified due to the fact that my father and grandfather were ace players. The inevitable comparisons during family gatherings would leave me perpetually hanging my head in shame, so much so that I learnt about every line and crease of my feet during these enlightening sessions.

Fast-forward to last weekend, when I took my children to the beach for a friendly football match. I set my sandals as my goal post and my five-year-old son’s as his. My son teamed up with his mother, while I had our two-year-old daughter as the star striker. I huffed and puffed my way to a couple of goals, with members of the two rival teams coming together as one to cheer my efforts. I let go of a goal for my son so as to help him grasp the concept of football. That’s all the encouragement he needed and soon started getting past me more times than I could applaud. Clearly, my dad’s sporty genes had skipped a generation.

That’s when tragedy struck. During a particularly difficult manoeuvre, I tried to dribble past my wife’s defence when I twisted my ankle as I kicked the sand instead of the ball. A collective gasp from the players ensued and they all rushed to my aid. I lay on the sand, writhing in pain. And it was precisely then that I had my Mo Salah moment. As the late evening wind strummed up an emotional tune, my son whispered: “Baba, how did you get to be such a great player?”

Those 11 words were the best I’d heard in my entire life. It compensated for all the traumatic moments I had endured as a child who was not into sports. The fact that my child looked up to my sporting abilities was more than my over imaginative mind could have ever conjured. It boosted my confidence so much that the next day, I performed rather well during a family badminton tournament. I realised the power of believing in someone and encouraging others to strive for the best.

When I was having that emotional moment with my son on Umm Suqeim Night Beach, just a kilometre away on Kite Beach, the epitome of sporting activities in the Arab world, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, was leading his team at Gov Games 2.0. Despite an injury, the Dubai Royal was egging on the participants, driving home the importance of team spirit and staying healthy. The Dubai Crown Prince has been leading a fitness revolution in the UAE, encouraging residents to adopt a healthy lifestyle. His flagship initiative, the Dubai Fitness Challenge, drew participation from over a million residents. The message is clear: No physical activity is too small and no fitness level too bleak for you to start effecting change.

A simple encouragement from a friend during my childhood days could have possibly changed the trajectory of my athletic skills. Maybe, just maybe, if some of my friends had got together and given me a pep talk about breaking the mental shackles to performing well, I could have made a difference.

Yes, I was no athlete, but with a nudge in the right direction, I could have advanced from the forever 12th man in the team to the playing 11.

So, to all those leading your lives on the sidelines of sporting activities, it’s never too late to claim your spot in the arena. If the so-called sporting greats don’t let you into their games, build your own team and get your teammates to cheer on as you rough your way to becoming a “great player”.

I, for one, have my own team now and my biggest fan.