MY WORLD CUP QUEST: OUT OF MY LEAGUE
23/32 WORLD CUP TEAMS COMPLETED
WATER WAY TO GO
On day 10 of the World Cup I took a cross city taxi to Ramkhamhaeng. This area is famous for its canal, its traffic and its stadium. It is home to Thailand's biggest sporting stadium, Rajamangala. This 50,000-seater stadium is where the Thai national football team plays their home games. One of the great visual pleasures of Bangkok is taking a canal boat on the Klong San Saeb canal to Ramkhamhaeng. This canal begins in the old town of Bangkok amid temples and palaces and finishes up 72 kilometres away in provincial Thailand. You can take a journey along a third of the distance for 1 euro. It is a journey worth taking as the boat slices through Bangkok indiscriminately. You can get a voyeuristic look into the cities component parts as you journey through the differences in this city be they religious, socio-economic or lifestyle. Watch it all go by; perfectly manicured sports fields at international schools, heaving slums built over murky water, airy hipster apartments living close but not too close to the grime, busy bridges, towering condominiums, noisy markets, graffiti covered walls, patches of lush greenery fighting back, floating litter, mansions, children playing, serene temples, how-do-they-get-there shacks, tired commuters, mansions, and an unbroken line of sky.
For a suburb Ramkhamhaeng is very cosmopolitan. Its huge university has drawn students from all over Thailand for decades, especially from the south. Immigrants of the the international variety come here in droves now with significant pockets of people from every continent. It is a bustling place packed with people, food and vehicles that you dare not drive to at rush hour.
OUT ON HER OWN
In the late evening I traveled to Ramkhamhaeng to meet a Senegalese woman. Sportslady has had a distinguished career as a volleyball player and has played a number of seasons in the Thai National volleyball league. She doesn't just come to take part. Her club Supreme Chonburi have been national champions of Thailand on multiple occasions. She also helped lead them to victory in the Asian Club Volleyball Championship in 2017. In that tournament Sportslady was voted the Most Valuable Player. (They retained their title in Kazakstan just a few weeks after I met her.)
Sportslady's down to earth and friendly demeanor belied her stature as one of Thailand's best volleyball players. We met in a quiet bar and were later joined by one of her American teammates to watch Senegal take on Japan.
ANALYSE THIS
Professional sports people cannot exempt themselves from any sporting contest I soon learned. The teams were analysed from their offensive styles to their physique. They could tell which players were flagging and compared the football on show to their own game where players must exert themselves in short, sharp bursts, much like a counter-attacking football side. American had played soccer for most of her childhood and Sportslady moved into volleyball from athletics. Competing came naturally to them. A half time break was too long a stretch without competition and American suggested that we should play cards. I was happy with this development. I've played cards since I was a kid and I confidently suggested a game to them called 31 which I've played for two decades. Both of them had never played this game before. I told them the rules once. Then I lost. Winners really like to win.
PRO TIP
During the game Sportslady told me that the whole of her country would be watching this game. Businesses would close. Millions of people would turn their eyes to a screen and hope the same hope. Senegal took the lead in the 71st minute giving us all a chance to begin to dream for this small African country. "He's only a baby" Sportslady enthused after they scored. The veteran sportswomen was beaming with delight for her young fellow countryman. Unfortunately Japan did get a deserved equaliser soon after and the two professional athletes said that it was a fair result. There was nothing else for it, I agreed.
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