The Sour Taste of Defeat

Nathan Chand

Less than 48 hours and already taking 3 “L’s”. The Dalat varsity teams stepped onto a brand new ISKL campus to play the ISKL varsity and JV teams, putting a spotlight on a massive gymnasium with two full courts along with two new turf fields. Nobody could even believe the size of that campus without having visited it in person. Bethany Davis (12) said, “this place feels like an airport.”

The Dalat varsity football boys have never beat the ISKL varsity team. They have played them time and time again but to no avail. ISKL always seems to beat them, whether they dominated the game and obliterated the score line, or even if they simply got lucky with a chance goal and a good call from the ref. This year, it was going to be different. The team was so hyped. They met in many team meetings preparing mentally. They worked hard in many practices preparing physically. They even prayed before the game to prepare emotionally/spiritually. The tagline that was repeated and spread through many Snapchat stories was “why not us?” (credits to Ruben Nyul (12))

All twenty-two brothers stepped onto that pitch and kicked off the game at a fantastic speed. They worked harder than ISKL, played better than ISKL, and were in the game more than ISKL. But, somehow, from one mistake and the one chance that ISKL got, they were able to convert it into a goal, making the score 1-0. The team was devastated but they weren’t ready to give up. They pushed harder, creating more chances, but they could never put the ball in the net. The second half was no better; it was worse, in fact. By the end of the game, ISKL converted all of their chances and punished us for the mistakes we made, however few they were. The final score was 4-0.

Throughout the entire weekend, we worked hard, getting better after each game, after each goal. In their final game, they played against the ISKL JV and dominated the game. The JV, however, like their varsity counterparts, were able to convert the two chances they got. And the Dalat varsity team had extremely unlucky calls from the ref. The ref somehow managed to disallow two goals by Ruben Nyul (12), which were almost undebatable completely legal goals. John Kim (10) said, “even the other team admitted that they were goals.” The Dalat varsity football team left KL without a single win.

Looking back at the weekend, the results managed to do two things: 1.) they managed to show the team how they were not unstoppable, as they felt the taste of defeat. 2.) But it was the taste of defeat that was able to push this team to an entirely new level. It pumped adrenaline into the team giving it a spirit to strive for a win and to fear losing, that fear and humiliation that comes with a big fat L.

It will undoubtedly make this a better team. Seong Min Kim (12) said, “this is the result that allows us to bounce back even stronger.”