“What are we?”- “ONE TEAM”
“What are we?” – “ONE TEAM”
“Who are we?”- “CDSC”
With the exclamation of this motivational saying of the CDSC Lions, our sportive weekend started at the airport in Chiang Mai. There, our 19 players met after school to fly to Bangkok together with 4 Chaperones. On the sports ground of the RIS Swiss Section – Deutschsprachige Schule Bangkok, the 12th Thai.Ger soccer tournament was to be held the following day. With a U12 and a U14 team, we set out to participate in this friendly tournament, which finally took place again after three years of Corona break.
When we arrived in Bangkok, the host families of the Swiss school were waiting for us to take in the children and us chaperones for two nights. Many of our CDSC- Lions quickly made friends with the children of their host families, who were almost the same age, and so the first evening was spent in the families with dinner, games and good conversations. However, not too long, because the next morning the tournament started at 10 o’clock with the first soccer games of the group phase.
Our two mixed-gender teams took turns playing and cheering on each other in their game-free time. But not only the student teams gave their best, but also our CDSC Old Lions, the teachers-and-parents-team of CDSC, arrived to compete against various teams from Bangkok. It was a sunny day, but despite the heat, our Lions gave everything and as always played fair and united as a good team.
The U12-team played continuously strong and achieved a well-deserved podium finish in the 3rd place match. Our U14s also fought tirelessly but lost in the final to an opponent with strong nerves. In the finale, they stood up to a team, that had beaten them 5-0 in the group phase. The Lions fought hard, biting their way to a draw, only to lose in the penalty shootout by just one point. All spectators were surprised and thrilled at how strongly our team had held on in this final, and second place was more than deserved. The same happened to the CDSC Old Lions, who unfortunately also lost the penalty shootout in the 3rd place match. But nevertheless:
The fun and the time with the other teams and host families were definitely most important at this friendly tournament and plans have already been made to invite the teams from the Swiss school to visit us soon. The end of this great, eventful day, the children then again spent in their host families and on Sunday on the return flight, I heard more than once, that the time was much too short and they would have liked to stay a whole month in Bangkok and with their host families. With that, these three days full of fun, exchange and of course football fever came to an end and we are all already looking forward to our reunion in Chiang Mai in April 2023.
Anja Tändler (Team CDSC)
