The Shanghai International Football League

I have most definitely accomplished my goal of playing some soccer here in Shanghai...

As mentioned earlier, I went to a team training last Wednesday and played small-sided games for a couple hours with a bunch of French guys. They play for a team called the Shanghai Puxi Lions in the Shanghai International Football League,

with many other teams containing players from a variety of countries. Needless to say, it was some great soccer and I had a lot of fun. Upon the completion of our pick-up games, they invited AJ and I to join them this Saturday (yesterday) to play with them in a game against the British. We agreed almost faster than they could finish asking, and so yesterday morning we joined them for a 7 v 7 game. The league was surprisingly much more legitimate and organized than AJ and I had expected it to be. They gave us these badass jerseys to wear for the game (you always play better when you look good)...

And we crushed the Brits, which was a good feeling after that crap performance the USA gave against England a couple weeks ago. :-) The final was 9-2 and I was fortunate enough to have knocked in three of those goals for the Lions. I'll tell you what, the British most definitely tend to be a bunch of foul-mouthed, obnoxious, and slow-moving soccer players. And the French aren't any better, with their often dirty diving and falling to get a call from the referee, but the game was a lot of fun. Although it was probably one of the hottest days that I've ever experienced in my life. It was 38 degrees Celsius, which is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was also very humid, and the sun was out (oddly, as it never comes out in Shanghai) Of course our jerseys were black as well. But after the final whistle, they invited us to play again with them today, and it was a crazy good time:

The Shanghai Premier League put on 'Mini World Cup Tournament' which was South Africa 2010 World Cup themed, and each team chose a country which it would represent.

Most teams chose the country where most of their players originate from - so the Spanish team had mostly Spaniards, the Italian team mostly Italians, and the British team mostly Brits, etc. But the Puxi Lions (mostly a French team, but today was made up of guys from Germany, Algeria, USA, Mexico and France), chose to take on a more happy medium approach to its country selection, and we chose South Africa as our team. Overall, the tournament had 9 teams: Italy, Spain, England, South Africa, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Brazil, all made up of players from over 25 different countries.

It was a pretty great thing to be a part of. Our team played a total of 6 games, beginning in the group stages (coming out 2nd in our group after tying England), and then successfully beating Italy and North Korea to make it into the final Championship game against Spain. Unfortunately we were too tired and couldn't put on quite as strong of a performance against the Spaniards to take the 1st place trophy home, as we lost 0-1, but 2nd is nothing to complain about! After the tournament, we went to Latina (the brazilian restaurant that sponsors the Lions and paid for those awesome jerseys that we wore) for the trophy ceremonies, lots of beer, and some food.

Overall, the day was a pretty sweet deal: great soccer, a free tournament polo (with the SPL tournament logo printed on the back, pictured above), our team captain bought beers for the entire team the whole time we were at Latina, and everybody was a ton of fun. They gave us all South Africa 2010 World Cup Vuvuzelas (those small horns that you hear being blown during the world cup games by all the fans) to blow during the trophy ceremony...super annoying, but a ton of fun to play with.

We also filled up our team trophies and passed them around, taking turns chugging some kind of alcoholic beverages from the them :-) (Apparently a norm in various parts of the world for soccer players to do after tournaments...cool with me!)

Soccer continues to prove that it is a great sport which can bring together people from all walks of life and all parts of the world. I don't know of any other place on earth, aside from the actual World Cup, that you can take guys from over 25 different countries and give them a chance to compete in some very high caliber, highly competitive, and incredibly fun soccer...Shanghai seems to be a city of many opportunities! I can't wait to see what else is in store for this adventure.

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PMM