It was great indeed after a game of futsal with the half-gone team of angels a few days ago.

Back in the old high school days, I was accepted, or somewhat, willingly signed myself into the Angels team where we simply recruit just anyone who is interested to kick a ball, be it pros or kaki bangku-s.. and we’ll gather together anytime to have a good game out in the sandy deserted school padang.

I always remember.. those times where the word s-t-u-d-y isn’t in the minds of most of us. Those days, exams are not part of our lives and we learnt how to live with it blindly. When it comes to Friday evenings, we’ll have fun in the school padang with a bunch of friends and return home with few bruises here and there (yeah, we can hardly enjoy the greenery of our school field, as the brown patch of earth almost entirely dominates the whole area). We’ll climb the school fence or drill ourselves through the hole used specially for those school ponteng-ers in the back alley where the school dumpster is located to gain access to the school field. As innocent as ever back then, I’ve more than enough lung capacity.. and to run aimlessly catching the ball for an hour or so, wasn’t a problem at all.. just a few deep breaths, my legs will energetically bring me from one end to another.

As an avid footballer, I was able to experience the beauty of the game. Although my playing time were much lesser during my college and uni days (blame it on the increased workload), I’ll spend some time if I’m invited to have a game.

Then, disaster struck.. my lung, that has been loyal to me for the past years, decided to puncture itself and it needed experts to mend the punctured hole, hence an operation was done a year ago.

To date, I’ve not involve myself in any strenuous exercises, and football sessions have been reduced tremendously from one game per week (back then) to two games per year (currently). I used to ask myself, am I officially retired from this game? I used to play in front mostly as a striker hovering in the opponent’s defense, I used to twist and turn, I used to challenge myself and invent skills to clown the defense, I used to look forward to games like this.. however, I found myself being in a strange position a few days ago, when I decided to give my lungs a go. I ended up playing as a keeper.. wondering around in the box. The catch-it-when-the-ball-comes-and lunch-it quick-to-my-teammate was what I can think of. I felt breathless whenever I sprint nowadays. Hence, I volunteered myself to become the stopper. It seemed that the passion for football has been switched to ways on how to preserve my fragile lungs.

But still, when will I hang up my boots will be a question forever. My lungs ain’t tolerating me any longer. Humph!