It’s not quite on the FIFA scale…

…but there are lots of cheats in youth football.

Two of my favourite quotes are due to Pope John Paul II and Albert Camus. Albert, he said, “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football”. JP2, he said, “Amongst all unimportant subjects, football is by far the most important.”

I remind myself of these whenever I come across cheating in youth football. It is quite common. I remember two teams in our division in Norway being penalised for fielding overage players, and that was in a league for 13-year-olds. One hopes the coaches involved would be embarrassed if confronted with it now, several years later. Was it that important to win (they didn’t anyway). On the other side of the world, in the league in Hanoi there have definitely been issues with players presenting pristine birth certificates, re-registered in a province other than their own. I noticed that all the boys involved were large and muscly.

Until now the international school sports scene has been squeaky clean, to my knowledge. Not even a whiff of suspicion. Indeed UNIS has consistently refused to field underage players that would have boosted the team. I agree: Rules is rules. If you’re born too early or too late, tough luck. The international schools tournaments of both MRISA and APAC have been pretty sporting on the pitch/court and very friendly off it. Then there was April’s girls’ football tournament in Beijing…

It was fun but the whole enterprise was somewhat tainted by the apparent cheating of a school who thought it was OK to field players from their sister school, 3 hours’ drive away. The cheating was obvious to us because the players in question (excellent of course, some picked for the national team) had already played in a friendly against UNIS for their own school. The school is according to their website “characterized by the Gospel ideals” and indeed maybe this generously inclusive team selection was part of the school’s drive “To lead an energetic fight against moral degeneration”. Anyway, it was a pity that the organisers didn’t just boot the team out, given that they knew of the situation before a ball was kicked. I did have faith that the APAC powers that be would use their wisdom after the event to enforce the obvious expectation that players in a school team should, you know, actually go to that school but I hear that no such action will be taken. Instead they are apparently going to introduce a rule saying that all the other rules must be followed. The mind boggles at the ingenuity of the solution. So anyway, I look forward to next year when UNIS Hanoi will be entering joint teams with UNIS New York, not forgetting to add a liberal sprinkling of Vietnamese national squad players.

Even if we accept Karol Józef Wojtyła’s dubious premise that some things in life are more important than football, I understand the frustration of players who travelled 4000 km to find themselves playing a bunch of rule-benders. Thank you to the organisers, the spectators, the coaches, the officials and to all the other teams, and may the Lord forgive anybody who cheated.

 

Beijing fog

After 8 years Jemima and Saskia were going to be playing on the same team for the last time for the foreseeable. The thing was that the tournament was in Beijing. Well, it had to be done so off I went. The UNIS team was inexperienced and error-prone but stuck together well and the girls were a friendly, determined group. The conditions were tough for all-action players: There was smog, sunshine, a sandstorm and constant monitoring of some pollution index. The last game was the most exciting of all, 0-2 with 4 minutes to go, 2-2, and a shootout lost after the 20th penalty, draining for everyone and I was hoarse. It was emotional afterwards to recall the hesitant scuffling around with a football in 2005 on grey gravel outside Nesoddtangen school and how via the Spirit team on KGB and all over Akershus and Oslo, to Gold Star Hanoi, MRISA & APAC, they turned into two fantastic, selfless footballers, spraying the ball about on the big pitch.

Anyway, yes, I was my usual restrained self on the sidelines, sonically booming commands suggestions encouragement in a variety of languages. Afterwards a parent from a rival school said “We couldn’t work out if you were a Norwegian who spoke good English or an Englishman who spoke good Norwegian”. I smiled through gritted teeth and an abrasive tongue. I really have become the Teutonic professor of linguistics who appeared on a game show hosted by Groucho Marx many moons ago.

Marx: It says here that you speak 12 languages

Prof: Yeff, dat es korrekt.

M: Well, which one are you speaking now?

Beijing really was the most difficult place I have ever been to, to get around. The standard script for “Tim in a taxi in Beijing” was approach a driver to explain my destination, whereupon he would turn me down and usher me to an unmarked car with a shark waiting inside who would then proceed to drive me within a kilometre or two of where I was going, turn to me and, with a snarl, demand some Oslo-sized amount of money. Twice in a taxi and once in a cafe I paid bills because of the implied threat of physical violence. One driver came after me and chest-bumped me for money. He had left me at dusk somewhere other than my hotel. I didn’t have many allies amongst the hundreds of passers-by so I paid and wandered through the in-other-circumstances charming 798 art district looking for my hotel. A sandstorm descended as I was on the last lap of my surrealist hunt: “This is not my hotel” etc etc.

Do not get into a car with this man.

Given this background, even more kudos to the director at the Western Academy of Beijing for lending me his driver to take me back to my hotel so that I didn’t have to cause any more trouble for the Beijing taxi drivers by, you know, asking them to drive a customer to a destination for less than a ransom. Actually, a staff member at the Beijing school solved part of the mystery for me. He said that Beijing folk go by landmarks not addresses. When I told the hotel receptionist how difficult it was to get back to it by taxi she said, yes, that’s why I normally give out this piece of paper with directions with landmarks. Doh. In fact, all the staff on the pleasant WAB campus were super hosts, helping us unhouse-trained visitors. Thank you.

So, what to make of China? I had access to BBC on my phone but not NRK (are they still grumpy about the Peace Prize thing?!) There was no Google, no Facebook, and is in fact probably run by L*t*n fans because there was no access to the Watford Observer either. And the lack of Google shows how tied we are to the monster. No maps, no Gmail. Oh, I’ll just look up what search engine they use here. Doh. Oh, I’ll just write to someone to ask. Doh.

After the last match I had a fabulous and hilarious meal with Trinh, then followed Watford on the web all the way to the top of the table and the next day made my way home to Hanoi.

By train.

Why oh why? I will have to plead “rich tapestry of life” or “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” but I accept that it is likely that the court might well conclude insanity anyway. In itself, buying the ticket was a pain in the neck an adventure. A blog had spun an improbable story about how to buy tickets for Hanoi, just that it turned out to be correct in every detail. Don’t go to the railway station. Go to a little ticket office miles away where they will take you to a backroom and chest-bump you issue a ticket in Russian and German. It wasn’t until the Sunday I read the ticket and saw that it said the destination was GIL International Train. Hmmm, that may or may not be Hanoi. Worry worry.

Beijing West station was bustling but not crowded. I was prepared for any standard of train from TGV to British Rail Lincolnshire Chugger. It was much closer to the good end of that scale and I had four beds to myself. Actually, I had the whole carriage to myself. I was Mr First Class. There was limitless hot water for noodles, a bit of muzak to make you long for tinnitus, but it was clean. I sat down for a clear stretch to catch up on reading. No internet, no map (digital or paper), still not absolutely sure it was the right train. I’m sure during the 3 minutes of research I did for this trip I read that the journey was supposed to be spectacular. I didn’t really agree. The first afternoon it was gridlocked traffic, hideous apartment blocks, then grey fields. Some Ha Long-like formations the next day but no sweeping panoramas. Flat is rarely spectacular. But it was comfortable, calm, punctual and unlike me, the time actually flew.

After a mere 23 hours we pulled into Nanning. I wandered towards the exit and a member of railway staff ran after me and told me to follow her. “Excellent,” I thought, “more first class treatment”. We got to the waiting room and she poured me into it. It was full of second-class people. “Wait until 6”. I tried asking whether GIL was actually a Communist joke meaning Hanoi but got nowhere. Everything will be fine, I told myself. If they can’t promise me the thing is going to Vietnam I won’t get on. I’ll just get a taxi to the airport and fly home. (The alert reader may be able to spot at least one weakness with that plan.)

At 5.30 they fetched me (lucky that, I couldn’t hold my breath for much longer) and escorted me to a train that had “Hà Nội (Gia Lâm)” on the side. I was like a GI in reverse. I was almost home. Only 13 hours to go. Again I was the only one in First Class. I loved the solitude. At about 10 pm a train guy told me to get my stuff and go through customs. Luggage was X-rayed and passport checked with about 50 others who gasped in awe at being in the same room as me. There were soldiers with guns and helmets and everything. It was not the time for joking around. Then we clambered back on and waited for an hour with the engine thumping. Frustrating. Especially because soon after we got going, we stopped again and train guy comes on to tell me to get my stuff and go and let the Vietnamese rummage through it. Then we sit there until 2 in the morning turning the engine over before finally setting off for the City of Fair Taxi Drivers. Two border checks, four hours, well done guys. I had a celebratory beer and woke up on the outskirts of Hanoi. The nice taxi driver from the railway station tried to agree a fee off-meter but soon sniffed that I had been around the Hanoi block before and relented. Better luck tomorrow buddy, you might get yourself a first-timer.

 

Hanoian geography, part 2

It is easy to spend time (days) gazing over West Lake

I have a favourite phở place nearby, where the noodle soup is unsurpassed and the quảy (dogbone-shaped rice fritters?) are always fresh and firm (but not crunchy).

Just up the road there is a calorific snack place. Mushroom and pork fritters, handmade in front of your eyes, passed from one wok of oil to another, served in a small plastic bowl with sweet chutney&chili sauce and thinly-sliced vegetables, eaten with a long metal spoon. And it tastes much better than my description would lead you to expect. Cost for, ooh, about 150 kCal = 12 000 VND

Then there is the charming area near Trúc Bạch lake where all the phở cuốn restaurants are. It is reminiscent of Rue des Bouchers in Brussels with young men trying to cajole you into their hostelry, only here done in a friendly way. Phở cuốn is a pile of fresh spring rolls stuffed with beef and herbs: Delicious. They are made there and then, and can be eaten with fried chipped sweet potatoes dipped in a viscous, translucent red sauce of indeterminate composition, washed down with unsweetened, indeed bitter, iced tea (not selling this very well, am I?).  Also try the fried pillows of rice with rau muống xào.

Three of us in the family have spent inordinate amounts of time on artifical football pitches dotted around Hanoi and two have spent lots of time cheering and cartwheeling on the sidelines. Goals have been scored, injuries sustained, balls shielded, balls put through, boys put on their backsides, ridiculous saves made, lessons learned, 2-4-1 explained, sometimes hair torn out, but in sum, lots of magical moments. The main pitches were at Au Co, Co Nhue, Dang Thai Mai, Xuan La and My Dinh (Apologies to any Vietnamese readers: I have deliberately left off the diacritics here because we foreigners write and pronounce these names without any recourse to your fancy show-off tones. The worst attempt at pronouncing a Hanoi street name I have heard was “Hoo-Ann Doo” for Xuân Diệu: Good luck finding it, mate!)

Here are the pitches on Dang Thai Mai and Au Co, the last picture in tribute to the lady always being late to open the damn gate.

Rebecca is driven three times a week to a bunker where she does gymnastics. Coaches coax and bend and push down on and correct for a couple of hours at a time. I think they would call it character-building. The ride back home is also a challenge: Crawling through rush hour traffic in the dark, motorbikes swarming on to the pavement, buses dropping off their passengers in the middle of the road, lorry horns screeching, an exhausted girl leaning on my back. Tough girl, as she is, she comes home, eats, showers and goes to bed to read.

And how did I get to all of these places? On this beauty:

My companion for 35000+ km, it will be a sad day when I sell it. It says something about the honesty of the Vietnamese and the general level of safety in this country that I have left it in all sorts of places and never had a problem. Many cafés and eateries have a system of down-to-earth chaperone parking where you give your bike to a teenager who wheels it off to park it around the corner, and it does cross your mind that you may never see it again. But you always do. Even out in the remote countryside where people are poor and you obviously have a couple of months’ (or more) of their salary on your person, not once have I felt an oppressive “let’s-get-him” vibe. In fact even rural locals are surprisingly uninterested in you or your motorbike. And apart from the taxi drivers at Saigon airport and the flower sellers on Âu Cơ in Hanoi, the Vietnamese are remarkably poor at marking up prices for foreigners (or maybe I am so rich I don’t notice?).

 

World Cup jetlag in Asia

During the World Cup, the procedure for football fans in Asia was to set the alarm for 10 to 2, or 10 to 5, or some other comatose hour. However, in the middle of the night, it is easy to sleep through the alarm, to incorporate it into one’s dream, and even when one wakes up one is stiff in body, and most of all, dull in the head. Wander upstairs to the television. Fiddle with the remotes. Press “arrow”, then “Component” then go to wake up the daughters… a conflicting experience: She said that I must wake her up, but now she is muttering and failing to get up. What should I do? Until the final, I only gave each girl one chance per night: If I woke her and she went back to sleep, bad luck. Of course, even when they successfully crawled to the lounge, they often fell asleep again on the sofa. There is no point telling them now but the girls think that Spain beat Holland 1-0 and that England got a draw against Italy.

Our general mode was boggle-eyed, feeling hungover though not having drunk alcohol, not hungry, not thirsty, not chatty, get on with it, stop diving and score some goals, please. One questioned one’s sanity even more because of the wobbles in the TV broadcast. Intermittently the screen froze for 7 seconds. Come on, come on. By some fluke we didn’t miss any goals. I only gave up on one match at half-time – Holland v Costa Rica – very glad with the decision seeing that it went to penalties with hardly any shots on goal.

We were in Norway for a couple of rounds of matches, watched while jetlagged there before coming back to Asia, not aiding the recovery from double-crossover jetlag by continuing to get up in the middle of the night. Ten days later we found ourselves at the top of a mountain in Myanmar. The agreement was that we would watch the Brazil semifinal in our own rooms. The match exploded. Germany couldn’t stop scoring. I had a horrible feeling that the girls would be sleeping through. No functioning mobile phones. Look for the phone in the room. There wasn’t one. I went out in my pyjamas into the raincloud in the open-air corridor to bang on their door. A member of staff appeared stage right through the mist. “Good evening”. “Ah, yes, hello, I can explain everything”. No-one opened the door so I returned to my room. Soon: Oh god, 5-0, it’s too late to wake them up now. Maybe just pretend I missed it too? At 7-0, I had to have another go. Thump, thump, thump. Still no reply. Can’t hang around here all night with Germany in this form. Ah well, maybe there’ll be another game like it in their lifetimes…

Germany deserved to win the whole thing, building on their excellent youth-dominated performances in 2010, and now Europe have won the last three World Cups. So what of Latin America? Those who watched Chile steamroller Spain or Costa Rica shock Italy or Colombia be brilliant saw that the Latin American magic is still alive and well. Fantastic teams, such togetherness, close control and awareness. Argentina were watchable and were worth their place in the final. Messi is the best player in the world, and no-one from any era is clearly better than him, even though Maradona has a point when he says that making him player of the tournament this time was a marketing gimmick.

How about Brazil and Uruguay? They did play some OK football but overall were an embarrassment. The pressure on Brazil transferred directly to the appalling Japanese referee in the first match: Croatia were ripped off, big-time. Neymar should have been sent off for a deliberate elbow to Modric’s head in the first half. Fred should have been banned for a ridiculous dive and Croatia had a goal wrongly disallowed. With fair refereeing in some matches and less luck against Chile, Brazil would have been spared the collapsao against Germany. It was the single most pathetic disappearing act in sporting history (with the possible exception of Watford’s defence versus Nottingham Forest in April 1984). And even in the 3^rd place playoff their captain should have been sent off in the second minute: The disaster would and should have been even more ginormous. The Brazil team was a ham sandwich that thought it was a 5-course 5-star meal. At least as a nation they more or less kept their dignity. The fans stayed to the end, they clapped Germany, they didn’t riot. They love football and seemed despite the horror shows to manage to keep things in perspective. Which brings us to Uruguay, who didn’t. Luis Suarez is a fantastic footballer but he did bite the Italian defender. We all saw the footage, we all saw the bite marks. So barring a conspiracy theory on the scale of the Apollo astronauts killing Elvis and knocking down the Twin Towers, you, Luis, are a disturbed masticator. But of course, just such self-delusion is what many in Uruguay plumped for. The country’s president declared that he didn’t see a bite and that the ban was fascist, and dissenters from this line were mocked. An embarrassment.

England were not good enough. Expectations were low, but too many people then added, “maybe this is the year they will do well, because expectations are low”. Well, how’d that work out for you? Next time, let the expectations remain at rock bottom (and then just maybe… AAAAAAARGHHH!!!!). No: England fans, give up. No other country has so few players it can pick in its own domestic league. Can you kick the ball straight and run for say 70 minutes without getting puffed out? You’re in the squad, son. No other country has so many managers at the top end who don’t give a damn about the national team. And the Premier League has strength in depth, so there are fewer dead matches where top players can relax a bit. If a top team relaxes it lets in goals (Palace vs Liverpool anyone?). Compare this to the Bayern Munich players who had wrapped up the league by March.

Anyway, we’re European now and so there are things to smile about. The last six World Cup finalists consist of Argentina plus 5 different European countries. Europe rules. See you in Russia, where I will be attempting to watch from a more convenient time zone.

 

Moving the goalposts

Long time, no write. We are well into the second year of our stay and all is well. The school year and football season are underway and we enter the second cycle of seasons. It’s a great temperature at the moment, perhaps for one more month, then grey, grey, grey and cold for a few months, if last year is anything to go by.

It has been great fun to write the blog and to get reactions, public and private, but now I am allowing the sun to set on it.

This was from our half-term holiday last week on an island in the south of the country. A fantastic, rustic resort.

Internet access here is not entirely reliable. Not only can it be entirely down for hours, some websites can mysteriously become unavailable, like this gentle, innocent blog last week. Perhaps something to do with http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/24/vietnam-bloggers-go-on-trial

That doesn’t make it easier to blog but the main reason for stopping now is that my life is being taken over by youth football. I’m running the Hanoi Youth Football League, www.hyfl.org, which has been somewhat demanding as we get 4 age groups up and running for the season.

I’ve ended up in some unusual situations in the course of my duties too. One of the most surreal was supervising the moving of some goalposts between pitches. It had to be done at night in order to avoid the traffic and the league’s administrator texted me at 9 to say that they were on their way. I rushed to the pitch in time to see the approaching headlights and the goalposts almost tear down an awning.

It turned out that the driver and his assistants were rolling drunk. The driver leapt out of the van and ran over to remonstrate with the car park attendant (for some unknown reason), giving off the international male signals for “Do what I say or I’ll slap you”. Watching them unload the goalposts was like watching newborn foals trying to pole vault. “Clumsy” doesn’t even cover it halfway. The posts wobbled wildly and were dropped off the van then lifted over the fence, as your brave photographer kept his distance.

And of course by then they had turned off the floodlights…

Anyway, after no apparently serious injuries, the goals could be slid into place and are now used by the league.

The driver (who had not sobered up) approached us to say that the job had been considerably more dangerous than he had anticipated. Yes, well, crossing town with two unsecured goalposts after a skinful is like that. He demanded to renegotiate the price and his crowning argument was that “the police might have stopped me!” He had his goons with him and I didn’t fancy a physical contest so we coughed up more money. (Yup, that’s what your registration fee is going on, HYFL parents :p )

Bye for now

Tim

 

End of year 1

Wow, that went quickly. Everything breaking up next week, some friends have already left and others are in the final spasms of leaving, plans for next year are half-made.

Over the year, the amazing has become the normal. An incredible cloudburst the other day led to puddles bigger than swimming pools (not sure it qualified as flooding around these parts though) and motorbike chaos: I didn’t even mention it to the family. Insects twice the size of ones that previously would have caused a violent panic now get beaten to death by hand. And we laugh at how in the first week we were rather concerned when we found a gecko in our hotel room. Now we are just pleased for the company as the fish have proved rather flimsy and indeed short-lived.

We are looking forward to spending the summer touring Vietnam, moving house and then trekking around Norway and England. And so when we come back it will be to a place with a pool and a cat. Maybe the cat will get the geckos; we certainly hope she will get the rats.

And so what am I going to do? Well, I think being the new chairman of the Hanoi Youth Football League might take up some of my time… Click here and here to see two cracking videos of what the League is about. The mix is incredible: There are teams from an orphanage, teams from a charity for ex-street children, Vietnamese schools, and a dazzling array of international teams.

Anyway, I am permanently jetlagged at the moment due to watching the tennis which is on late at night but this is just practice for the Euros, where matches will kick off at 11 pm and 1.45 am…. and the girls want to be woken up for the three England disasters. Poor inexperienced things.

 

Excuse the break. Normal football service will now be resumed

I have got out of the rhythm of writing the blog. I suppose that’s because life in Hanoi is becoming more routine now, and the bleeding weather is still grey…. I have settled into a pattern of writing manuscripts and other psychology-related work, learning Vietnamese, playing tennis, drinking beer, but more than all of that I have been watching children’s football, coaching children’s football, and talking about children’s football.

Take a look at these pictures from last weekend’s international tournament in Hanoi.

Jemima’s team before the first match:

Look carefully below and you will see a great Saskian save. On to the post and out! Match ended 0-0.

Gold Star Hanoi North U-13s get organised

The tournament consisted of a clutch of school and club teams from Hanoi, plus elite teams from Vietnam and Singapore (my stomach turned as a phalanx of boys in Arsenal kit wandered by. Is it wrong to still be glad that they lost on penalties in the final?), but by far the most delightful, special, cheerful (and at time of writing, incongruous) teams were the two girls’ teams from Hue in central Vietnam. They laughed, smiled and encouraged. They warmed up in a ring on the pitch and got other children to join in. When playing, they crunched into fair tackles and then went to pick the opposing player up as gently as a nurse would do. The adults, substitutes and even the players on the pitch clapped when the opposition scored. In theory, I am all for a Scandinavian approach to fair play but I have yet to squeeze out a warm smile as the ball hits the back of my team’s net. These girls managed it.

To cap it all, they starred at the awards ceremony with a traditional dance.

The Arsenal boys then got up and sang “One Tony Adams”. No, OK, they didn’t.

So, well done Hue girls, and thank you for lighting up the tournament. It turns out that the project that they are part of is funded by Norway and has a heavy emphasis on developing social and practical skills, and other ways to help these underprivileged children.

 

Girls’ football in Hanoi

When I tell locals that my daughters play football, I am usually greeted with a patronising smile. “No”, I protest, “They are really quite good too”. The negative attitudes towards girls’ and women’s sport that were prevalent when I was growing up are well-rooted here too. Of course, sexist attitudes towards girls’ sport are still easy to find in the West, but there are growing pockets of enlightenment.

In the Under-13 division of the Hanoi Youth Football League, the only girls I have seen are the five on Jemima and Saskia’s teams. And unsurprisingly, these five are all on the UNIS Middle School girls’ team too. In preparation for a tournament, the school arranged a concentrated afternoon of girls’ football, inviting another international school in Hanoi, and, what’s this, a couple of Vietnamese teams too? Have they ever kicked a ball before? Go easy on them, girls…

It turns out that that the boot was on the other foot, so to speak. These Vietnamese girls were part of an elite programme where they have a fulltime football education, and they were scarily good.

By the end of the warm-up I don’t think I was the only one who had given up hope of keeping the scoreline respectable, but we were wrong. Our girls held their own magnificently. The school coach got his tactics spot-on, and they led at half-time in the first two matches, ending up winning one and losing the other. The matches were cracking, and played in a sporting yet full-blooded spirit. I didn’t really take any pictures of the actual games, owing to my customary over-involvement as a spectator, but got some that capture how organised and well-presented the Vietnamese teams were.

The school coach talks tictacs.

Half-time drinks,

and then shake hands after beating an elite team

The school captain picks up the trophy for second place.

So what is one to make of the elite teams? It is surely a slightly strange existence, to be plucked out at an early age to play so much football, but they are good-to-very good footballers and comported themselves in an exemplary fashion. What is more puzzling, in the light of the existence of these teams, is why there are so few girls in Hanoi that play football. What this city needs is a girls’ league.

 

An interview with Jemima

Jemima has spent a few days at home feeling rotten, with the aforementioned skin infection. She is now back at school for a half day, to see how it goes. While she was weak and floppy, I took the opportunity of bombarding her with some questions (upon reflection it might have been this that led her to drag herself back to school). Anyway, happy reading.

*******

What was your first impression of Hanoi?

Hot!

*******

Are you enjoying your new life?

Yeah, so far so good

*******

What are you missing about Norway?

The fresh air and my friends

*******

What is the best bit about Hanoi?

The scooter rides

*******

Favourite new food?

Phở maybe

*******

Best moment?

Scoring the only goal of the final in the preseason football tournament.

*******

Funniest thing that has happened?

When we were in Nha Trang and we drove the small karts, and while I was driving I waved to another kart and the driver (a guy on my team) drove into a tree.

*******

Best subject at school?

Spanish is fun

*******

Looking forward to snow and ice at Christmas? (There won’t be air conditioning…)

I hate snow so much, but Christmas isn’t Christmas without snow.

*******

Isn’t it great having Dad at home?

Yeah, and Jerry Seinfeld is a great actor.

 

Pre-season get-together

The Hanoi Youth Football League starts next week. There has been some “blood-and-guts” training, a pre-season tournament in 40+ degrees and to cap it off the players and parents of Gold Star Hanoi – South are spending the weekend at a glorious resort appropriately enough part owned by Luis Figo.

What a place this is. We are being pampered and are having a super time. The views are incredible, the food delicious. We had a little adventure on the way over the lake to get here, with the boat’s engine overheating and us drifting offshore for a short while, before transferring to another boat.

Only one more day here, before we go back to “the harsh reality of Hanoi”.

The children were taken fishing, and taught a lesson: They caught nothing :p

The place is stylish yet understated

Idyllic

Your trusty photographer finding the angles…

Spoilt? Moi?

Then a storm brewed…

and then it hit…