مبروك to RLC Football Team

Proud to announce the advance of RLC Football Team to the 2nd round of QP Chairman's Football Tournament 2009.

Not only had they qualified for the 2nd round, they also did it in style.. They beat Occidental Petroleum (OXY) 10-2. What a night to remember.. Players Of The Night were Ali Musa & Mohamed Juma. Both of them scored 4 each while Mohamed Harbi & Mohamed Derbali scored 1 each.

Unfortunately, all the achievements not without any drama.. On our previous game, we were beaten to the core. We lost 6-1 to Dolphin. I personally called it A 6-1 Night of Nightmare..

However, Allah must be on our side though.. HE rewarded us with our effort & surprised us with pleasant finding. We discovered that one of the players from Dolphin was actually a professional player who played in Qatar League under Qatar Football Federation. It was a breach of the tournament rule. Professional players could only be in the team if they were working with the Oil & Gas companies they represented but not as import players. For that reason, they were penalised & considered lost the game 3-0.

Once we had cleared Dolphin out of our way, the next hurdle was to take on OXY which we considered as an easy task. We knew that OXY lost miserably to Gas Operation (Ali's twin, Jassim played for this team) 16-1. Yes, they lost 16-1. You might think they played basketball... hehe. We managed to win 10-2..

The 2nd round will be a tough game as we will meet AMWAJ. AMWAJ has 2 supermen on its right wing. They run so fast & reach the goal before you can even blink... We had friendly game with them last time...

Whatever it is, hopefully the team will get through to semi-final... The next game will be on 24 May 09.. Will they bow out to pressure or stand tall?

If they sail through to semi-final, it will be the 1st time ever RLC goes to semi-final after 12 years of the tournament life.. Then we can celebrate..

RLC Team Made Its Debut

RLC means Ras Laffan Industrial City. It is for those who do not know what RLC stands for. It is where my office is..

The match was the 1st match after almost two months of training.. It was on 28 April 2009 ie last week.

Getting ready for the championship was not easy. What made it more challenging was to get the players who worked on shifts to attend the trainings. What made matter worse was that the coach, Ali was also a professional player who had commitment to his club. Even then, the coach seemed more committed & discipline than the players...hehe. I suppose it took a lot of discipline & hardwork to be a professional footballers. Else, everyone would be a professional footballers. I was very sure I would not be one.. haha. I could never play football.

The good thing about having involved with the training was that I had already lost 5kg, I still needed to trim 4kg more... With the tournament had been in full gear, I might not be able to fully participate in the trainings. The coach & players now concentrated more on tactics & strategy. I was really going for fitness.. I could still join them for early part of the training ie fitness part of it..

All the preparations were for QP Chairman Football Tournament 2009. It was officially launched on 22 April 2009. All Oil & Gas companies operating in Qatar had been invited to participate in the tournament.On its 1st debut on 28 April 2009, RLC team fought hard till the end. At the end, they had to settle for a 3-2 lost to Gas Operation, Maiseed. It was an interesting game with RLC team controlled the 1st half of the game. Unfortunately, luck was not on RLC side on that night.

They have two more games for the 1st round. Hopefully, they will win and qualify for 2nd round.

My 1st & 2nd outings...

This is my 1st & 2nd outings with the new toy.. Rather challenging due to the fact that I needed to take shots of football games.. I tried my best.. What else could I do? Luckily, there was not so much action on the 1st outing though due to the fact that Ali, who requested me to take the shots, did not play on that night..

On the 1st outing, I realised that my lens was only sufficient for medium range photography...

The next day was real photography for me. This was the 2nd outing.. Lucky me, I managed to borrow a longer range lens for that night. Thanks to NKhairil79.

On that 2nd night of outing, the real challenge was to capture the best moments of the game.. It was rather difficult being a beginner! Trust me.. I did not manage to capture the moments when Ali scored two goals for his team. To begin with, I came late to the match.. hehe. I missed the 1st goal. He nearly scored three goals! He missed one goal. If he did not get cramped leg for the last 10 minutes of the match, he probably would have scored more... Well done to Ali & his team for winning the game hands down, 4-1!

I managed to capture his 2nd goal on video though. Could you imagine how busy I was that night? At points of time I needed to take photos & the other points I needed to record the game on videocam. A real challenge for me! They required skills and extra pairs of hand, definitely... I was very sure Ali was happy with the results of my skills.. Else he would not give me one of the medals presented to the players from Qatar Football Association (QFA).. تسلم.

There was actually official closing ceremony to mark the end of Season 08/09. All players were given a medal for being part of the tournament. Since they had extra medals, Ali took one and gave it to me. I hope we would not get into trouble with QFA.. hehe. I had yet to take photo of the medal.. Will do it soon and upload it here, InsyaAllah.

(As promised... here is the medal.. updated on 12 April 2009

The goal shown down here came from a free kick... At least I managed to get one shot for the goal.. Not bad for a beginner...Still I need to learn a lot more... It will take more time & effort to get the best out of this camera.. Luckily, I have few friends who are ever willing to part with the knowledge and skills... Thank you, guys...