Despite having decided to cover the Dree Football Tournament 2008 right from the beginning and update about it in the blog, I couldn’t do so. The reason being I came to know about it rather quite late when the tournament was in the midst. Unlike preceding years, perhaps because of ‘Panchayat Polls’ and counting of votes thereafter, this years Dree Football Tournament was not publicized as it were done earlier. Or, may be the Dree Sports Secretary had publicized but I failed to notice it as I was engrossed in Euro 2008. But when I came to know about it, I could have started covering it but for the disruption in broadband connection owing to the landslide due to June 14th torrential rain which cut-off Ziro from rest of the world (more on this in some other post) and still it has not been restored.
This year the total participating teams were the same as that of the last year tournament. However, this tournament saw very interesting ups and downs with ‘Hot Favorites’ being knocked out of the tournament and the ‘underdogs’ making it to the finals.
League Match between HSC and Siiro Sports Club
In the first semi-finals on 25th June, the ‘underdogs’ AHSA drubbed the defending champions HSC by 1-0 while in second semi-finals played on 26th of June, DSC-A beat SLSC by 1-0 to enter the finals. The final would be played on 29th of June.
During the second semi-finals, a tragedy struck. The overcharged crowd, in a zeal to support their teams had climbed up the CGI terrace of nearby building but the CGI terrace collapsed under the weight of 100’s of supporters injuring one seriously and score others with minor injuries.
Going by the performance of AHSA during last year tournament, never in my wilderness I thought that it would reach finals. But this tournament, it was smooth sailing for the team who didn’t even lost a single match till the finals. They even beat their opponent in the finals during the league match. So going by their performance this tournament, my bet is on AHSA.
'The underdogs'-AHSA team warming upUpdate: Below is the building that caved in due to the weight of overcharged crowd (the debris had been removed when I took the snap)
Tanx 4 such a informative article abt d sports area of ziro.Bt i dnt thnk it was good 2 use d word UNDERDOG 4 hija team.I also playd 4 d team n i dnt thnk dat team HIJA is underdog..N infact i would say all teams which participate in dree football tournament has good skill n performs well n put up a standard game 4 audience 2 njoy d match..No team can b underestimatd.In mst of d dree tournament hija fotbal team reachd quarter final or smetimes semifinal.So i dnt thnk team hija is underdog.
anony,
Thanks for visiting and finding the article informative.
When I used the term 'underdog' I didn't meant to undermine the team 'AHSA', what I meant was going by the last years performance, I considered AHSA to be a weaker team than others to enter the finals;) Moreover, doesn't underdog means:
"a person, team, country, etc., that is thought to be in a weaker position than others and therefore not likely to be successful, win a competition"-well, this is what the Oxford Dictionary says:)