On sandals I am standing, in puddles in the goal, having previously arranged with my friends that I will not dive for the ball, they should not criticise me for that. I cannot express “to dive” or “to throw myself down” in Chinese, instead I claim: “Today I will not fly”, which causes uncontrollable laughter: “Today, he won’t fly, but otherwise he can.” All right, I’m not going to get criticised that today I cannot even fly.
Two minutes later, my intention not to dive is forgotten. Five minutes later, I look like an eight-year-old who is playing happily in the mud, and I am indeed happy! Only at one action I take back my right leg, not willing to risk that the opposing player would kick against – 0-1. But I can prevent a lot of goals, the referee even makes a goal for us, and when he is once fouled, he whistles while lying on the ground, everybody laughs, there is a free-kick, no protests. During the game, a prolonged rain unfolds, dunking everyone who had not yet been thoroughly wet before. The final score is 3-3, my friends are satisfied with my performance and would like to thank that on occasion I was yet flying, that I even played without any equipment, I am satisfied with myself, too. My sandals are wet, I am completely dirty, from top to bottom, and that way I am going home by bike for showers and laundry.
Life is not just the pursuit of money. On the contrary.
The injury break I had used a few weeks ago for photographing my team when playing. On this occasion, there was also an opportunity to observe and telephoto how groundkeeper Fu trained his little five-and-a-half-year-old son in playing football. When he realised I was taking photos, he asked me to send them to him via e-mail.
A week after the unexpected “sandals game” I come again for a Saturday’s game. Groundkeeper Fu notices my approach, waves and thanks profusely for the photos. He asks me to his office, now one of the photos is a wallpaper on his computer. He invites me to tea, we talk, in thanks for the photos he gives me one of his special tees for a present. He is a real tea expert.
The game is interesting. I notice when playing that my condition has worsened from before the injury. I was driving my bike a lot, but that’s different than running, throwing myself down (“flying”) and getting up. So I have to perform a morning jog again, which I had not been able to for weeks, either. But I feel good, I also padded the injury under the shin with a bandage.
My warming-up is always very important. I have to get a lot of shots on goal from short and medium distances so that I get the feeling for the ball, shutting off the conscious part of my mind and begin automatically and without thinking to catch, punching, plunge into the corners. That is also the main cause of relaxation for me: All the business, technical or scientific problems, often haunting me yet when biking to the pitch, disappear at the latest when warming-up. But during a football game the conscious part of my mind is in standby mode, I use to claim; I must not think, “when will the ball arrive, do I jump now or soon, do I have to run outward now, when will I have to plunge?” If something like this happens, it’s always already too late. While being the goalie my brain has a “timeout”, it may decide for me without any conscious participation on my part, then I am at the height of my power, then I am also subsequently recovered very well.