Absolute Pain

Just climbing out of the depths of despair at the moment, and what a plunge it has been. For the actions of 11 men in another continent to be able to inflict so much psychological damage on me is just unfair. You give it your all, you put your heart and soul into it. The team has always been a very important part of my life, but for the last two weeks it had become the center of my universe. I had dreams about it, I woke up sweating at night following a nightmare where we had conceded a goal.

The night before the game I actually had a dream where they scored first from a headed corner, but we equalized in bizzare fashion when our striker nicked the ball from the goalie on a goal kick (the one with the ball on the ground, where its not in play just yet) and I woke up before finding out whether it was disallowed or not. Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it?

We deserved to lose that game because we didn't play well. Any beliefs that we may be able to complain and win a rematch for the disallowed goal are sadly misguided. We've had our (miraculously) large slice of luck against the Uzbeks, and we had to earn the result last night. We didn't.

Time to pick up the shattered pieces and move on with my life.