Soccer @ MindSay 
football
Soccer training goes beyond the pitch
3 June 2008Budapest, Hungary — All the soccer players were young – between 10 and 14 years of age – but at a recent match, the opposing team was fierce in its verbal taunting of the Black Stars Juniors Football Club.
“Most of the time when children play football, they swear a lot,” explains Nabil Switzer, 15, a player in a different league who helps mentor the Black Stars. “It’s very normal.”
But in some ways the Black Stars are not “normal.” For one thing, other than playing all the harder, they didn’t respond to the goading at the recent match. Not a word. Afterwards, some of the parents of the opposing players were heard scolding their sons for mouthing such abusive words.
Gabor Farkas, the 31-year-old Black Stars coach, was pleased with his boys’ behavior but said it is what he expected of them. His goal, he says, is “nurturing good human beings, not only good soccer players.”
That he is serious about this is reflected in the dual nature of his program – football practice twice a week, a Saturday class twice a month.
The boys – there are about 20 of them – have named the class the Forro Csoki Klub (Hot Chocolate Club), and while there they do talk about football. But that’s not all.
“We evaluate how the training went,” the coach says of the class. “We look at what made it possible that we played more unitedly or what happened if we were not so attentive towards each other. We also discuss topics related to our behavior, what it means to be good, one’s responsibility towards others and society….”
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Every other Saturday, the boys meet for reading, discussion, service projects, and other activities. Here, a boy named Attila shows a picture he made for a… »
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The Black Stars, in blue, and their opponents get ready for the start of a match.
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Coach Farkas is a certified youth coach but has taken his current team in a new direction.
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Black Stars players have become good friends and here had gone out together to see a new film.
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The boys like the Saturday class, where they talk about their games but also other issues.
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Zoli is one of about 20 youngsters who belong to the Black Stars Juniors Football Club.
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Black Stars players pose with one of their favorite professional players from a local team.
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Team members, who range from 10 to 14 years of age, practice football twice a week and meet for a class twice a month.
Mr. Farkas receives financial support for the project from a Baha’i-inspired nonprofit organization in Hungary called the Unity in Diversity Foundation.
The director of the foundation, Mrs. Furugh Switzer, said the boys in the soccer program are from disadvantaged families who normally cannot afford this type of sports training. The program, she said, is provided free of charge to participants and not only offers quality instruction but also helps keep the youngsters away from things like drugs and alcohol.
Coach Farkas, who is a Baha’i, previously worked for six years as a certified youth football trainer and said he used to be concerned only about winning.
He signed up for a moral education training program run by the Baha’is that would allow him to be what they call a youth “animator.” It gave him the idea for the new football club, which he launched last September.
“In starting this club I wasn’t looking for a career again as a soccer trainer,” he said. “I wanted to help boys find respect for themselves and for the society. I also wanted to help them see that not everything is about winning.”
Mark Molnar, 10, is one of the Black Stars and says his football club is different from others. On most teams, he says, “they laugh at people when they make mistakes.”
Coach Farkas says that at the beginning, some of the parents seemed suspicious of the motives – both his and that of the Unity in Diversity Foundation. But after the parents came to some of the training sessions, they warmed up, both to the football practice and to the Hot Chocolate Club.
He proudly quoted from a letter he received from one of the mothers: “Our friends who came to the training this Saturday for the first time could hardly believe this group. … The atmosphere of the training is so good.”
Original article:
So my day started off like this; I woke up at 9, and then my friend called( I have a feeling she's anorexic, but I'm not going to say anything about it) to say that we weren't going to be able to meet bc one of my other friends has to do something family related.
OH SHOOT! I just remembered..my g-mas coming over for dinner, with easter candy, and I don't know how I'm going to manage to not eat. Anyway, I'll figure it out.
So then I woke up and had a 1)capoccino. about 100 calories.
2) about 2 bowls of shredded wheat. dammit. 550 calories.
soooo..about 650 calories. But then I have soccer practice this afternoon..always an intense workout,
Although I am afraid that if I lost weight too fast, I'll be too weak to play. Plus if I get mal-nurished. hmmm..
can't be helped.
I'm hoping to get my calorie intake down to 500 calories a day, with fasting in between. I can do it, because I have done it before. I know it.
So today I'm hoping to read this book "Cry the beloved country", and do homework, then go to soccer, then start on this huge history project. I'd also like to get in some core violin practincing, and piano practicing, and clean my room, and start writing a hymn for a contest( prize: 250 dollars; think about all the clothes I could buy with that! Of course, after I get down to 100 lbs.)
11:50 pm
Dammit. Shit. Stupid fucking grandmas and their stupid fucking Easter candy.
Group photo of last day of History before mock exams.
*By the way, my team won 4-3 against WAB yesterday. A little bit frustrated by the amount of goals conceded, but couldn't really do anything about them, as the coach hailed my performance as a "none of the goals were your fault."
Highlights of the game for me (in chronological order) was:
3-0 up when no.12 from the other team scored a spectacular top corner goal against me outside the box, think only Kahn or Cech could reach that, lol.
Clear offside not called by referee and I was beaten one on one by no.12, yet again.
Striker from the right flank (my left side) shoots from point blank range, I get my full right palm on the ball to stop it, but was powerless against the second shot as it bounced away from me, but another striker blasted the shot on the crossbar instead of tapping an easy goal in, got to thank luck and God for that one, lol.
Another attack from the right flank, another superb one hand save from point blank range, but this time, the defence were sleeping yet again and failed to catch up with the attack, and they tapped the ball in.
PSV drew, I still can't believe it. Farfan the man scored in the second half, and just when we thought PSV would withstand the pressure to win again, Roda JC scored an equaliser on the 92nd minute. So disappointing, because although Roda JC pulled everyone up for the corner kick (yes, that includes the goalkeeper as well), it was the defence's fault of not being able to clear the ball quick enough out of the box that costed PSV two points. PSV now only have a 4 point lead, and we're playing Ajax on the 20th O_o
Recently I've re-ignited my interested in lucid dreaming, and for a few occasions, I did realise I was dreaming in my dream. Failed in all the occasions to control my dreams as I did before (well actually I only managed to do that once, but it was a short lived lucid dream as the dream world crumbled under light of reality). It be cool if I can start to control my dreams soon, cause then I'd be able to extend my "working hours" while I sleep, since in my dreams, I, am the owner of my 4 dimensional world, being able to alter every single part of the dream, and have the ability to control time.
Went to the orphanage yesterday, was a fun trip as usual. Its great to know that the kids know know me, cause I get random whacks and smiles from the kids at the place. Yue Yue is still as jolly and chubby. We crashed the Korean restaurant after the trip, and I got my Vitamin B drinks :D It was also fun in another way, cause MC was with us as well. One interesting thing I saw during our trip was MC without her glasses. Last time me and MC were at the orphanage together, her glasses were off for a brief moment of time when a kid took it off, but she quickly re-gained possession, so I didn't get to see a clearer view. This time, it was kids instead of a kid, so she was kind of fighting for the glasses while having fun, and its probably the first time I saw her properly without glasses.
Its always weird to see people who wear glasses all the time to take their glasses off, cause in your memory you only treasure the image of them wearing the glasses. I guess I was a little bit shocked when I saw her without glasses, but nevertheless, she looked beautiful to me even without the glasses.
I think I'm out of gas and motivation to continue writing this entry :/ One thing I have to add, is that the last time when I was enlightened by Ms N during Regen, she mentioned that God wanted me to look up things related to "me" in the Bible so I could fully understand what God wants to tell me. Ms N showed me the passages where the name "Stephen" appears, and apparently, in the Acts, Stephen was a holy man who was filled with the Holy Spirit, but he ended up getting stoned by criticising those who condemned him for blaspheming with stories of the Bible, even though he didn't commit the act of blaspheming. It kind of gives me the creeps, cause is God telling me that I would have to sacrifice myself for something "big"?
I don't really fear death, but I'm not quite sure if I'm able to digest what I learned and actually become ready for what's coming up for me. Maybe that's why we are humans, cause we aren't actually afraid of the process of death and what comes up after we die, but it is the ties and bonds with the modern world that cause us to fear death, as we lose "everything" and cause people around us to suffer and cry.
Its been such a hectic week, with an all out Physics test coming up tomorrow, a science test on Monday, a 6-4 win against BISS on Monday ( was a fun game, did an Oliver Kahn diving save, Van Der Sar reflex save against a point blank shot, and a couple of other fancy shizzle), essays, poetry analysis, being Stefen... you know, all the typical stuff that doesn't look like things that would actually make you busy.
Its funny how things are playing out with me and MC. We don't really actually talk that much, cause I seriously don't like using the phone, its like talking to a wall that talks back to you because your hallucinated or something. Once your done with talking to the wall and get all pumped up and sh*t, you end up suffering from post telephone depression because you simply don't talk that much once your back home. One thing I seriously don't enjoy doing, is probably talking to MC when satellites are orbiting around her. Maybe its an act of being selfish, but to some extent, all I want is just her, not accompanied with any satellites, debris, space junk, twin planets or what so ever. So now that I don't get many "chances" to talk to MC, she seems to be the one thats creating all the chances to talk. Every time I see MC walking by when I go to ICT while she gets out of Chinese (that rhymes :D), I usually only greet her when I see eye contact and when she's alone, but today when she was with her friends talking, I was like "yeah whatever", just to hear her greet me. Looks like I can't run away with the disguise of the people, lol.
Been receiving weird compliments recently, and the other one to join the party is probably "L" saying I should be a rapper. A rapper? For real? I'm not quite I would want to walk down that road even if I do actually have good rapping skills. One of my favourite rap song lyric lines from The Unknown by Mark B & Blade is "the industry is full of cut throats, false hopes, money controls, killing of many souls, anything goes", that pretty much answers why I don't want to join the entertainment industry. Another things is, my all time favourite rapper Eminem ran out of fuel after only a few years of stardom, and now the sh*t he's rapping about is the same sh*t he's been rapping about since the album Infinite came out, and sometimes I think he's rapping stuff that he pulled out of his ass just to earn some bug bucks. I don't want to be like that, so if I was to be commited, I'd rather make sure I have enough fuel to bring me into a path where I can constantly replenish fuel.
That being said, PSV knocked Tottenham Hotspurs out of the UEFA Cup after a thrilling 1-0 loss at PSV Stadion, followed by a penlaty shootout. Just a note before I get into the penalty shootout, is that Gomes did a fabulous OMFG save in the dying moments of extra time, when a shot that was doomed to go into the top corners of Gomes' goal was denied by Gomes himself as he accelerated off the ground to make that finger tip save.
Pretty cool week so far, let's just hope I bang that A* for Physics tomorrow :P
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