Starting the new academic year with an astonishing football match!
I always heard that the Netherlands is famous for its unpredictable and unfavorable weather, and this summer proved that to be true. Nonetheless, the moment it started to get better, the summer vacation ended, and the new academic year started. Other students and I who spent their vacation in the Netherlands, were upset about this fact.
However, International Studies’ staff and BASIS’ sports committee did not let this opportunity go to waste and they decided to make our “getting back to school” very interesting. They organised a football match between us (the students) and the staff of BAIS (among them even the Chair of the programme!). Can you imagine after a whole year of online learning, meeting your instructors in person for the first time in a football match and as opponents? I don’t think many people experienced that before.
Moreover, the best thing was that the football match did not have any consequence on our grades, which gave us the green light to not go soft on them. It was not an easy game though! The match became very competitive and filled with excitement. It was ending up in a draw, but we agreed on finishing it with a golden goal.
All the students were delighted with the weather, meeting other students, and with the overall atmosphere. There are some glorious moments that stuck in my mind. The first one was our team playing the one touch strategy to find ways to score and end the game and the International Studies staff cheering enthusiastically for their colleagues against their students, while our fellow students were doing nothing, which was kind of a heart-breaking fact!
Another glorious moment was the instructors communicating and making tactics in Dutch so that we don’t understand them. The third was, me trying to block one of the tutors and him calling for his teammate in Dutch “hij pakt mij verkeerd = he is blocking me in the wrong way”. Fourth, me tackling the tutor after he tricked me and got the ball (just joking). I am quite happy that he is not teaching me any courses this semester though. However, the most glorious moment was when he ended the match with a magnificent header. We lost the game, but we started our new academic year with joy and excitement. Thanks for BASIS sports committee and BAIS staff of course.
Written by 2nd year student, Ahmed Al-Yousefi
