The
GIFA cup was a magnificent initiative taken by the well-known newspaper of
India-Hindustan Times. It was a ginormous cup, one for Delhi and one for
Gurgaon. I participated in the Gurgaon tournament, where a whopping 78 teams
participated. Our team was a debutant in the cup. The organizers had done a
pretty fine job in terms of the venue, the match and management. Hosted at
Ansal University, there were four pitches where we played. It was a tremendous
experience for me and the rest of the team. HT had done a pretty good job. We
got past through the group stages and made it to knockouts round at over to the
round of 16 and then to the Quarters, where we suffered a loss. I felt really
good at our decent progress in the cup, even though we lost the quarter finals.
But nonetheless, we had a stunning time in the tournament, which was inevitably
my best performance ever in a tournament. Hats off to HT for bringing joy to
all the Football-crazy fans in Gurgaon, and hosting a platform for us to
develop in our Football skills. But getting to the last 8 out of 78 is pretty
good. It was more of a football festival than a tournament where it
commemorated joy, fun and football.GIFA was disciplined flawlessly and HT receives a thunderous applause for this event.
