Football match and cultural differences

So today I did have my first football game.

We are running a kinda mini-olympic games in AIT.

I'm the international team, and unfortunately most of the other teams are country-based.



So we were just practicing.

It was probably the most frustrating football practice I've ever had in my life.

To best describe it, I think that I can say that they were playin LIKE they have no will to win or score whatsoever.

I emphasise the "like", because they do want to score and win, it's just that they dont do anything that may let you think that they do.


It's kind of hard to describe.

For example, people do a lot of short, not precise passes when they are in the defense zone.
And in the middle field, they tend to kick the ball away in a doomed attempt to pass it, even more unprecisely to the strickers.


The thing here is that you are not supposed to do any kind of NEGATIVE CRITICS or actually the slightest NEGATIVE REMARK.

And when I say negative, it means everything that is not clearly positive.

It isn't specific to any specific country culture, since almost all the southeast and south asian countries were represented in the field. So I guess it's a commonly shared cultural trait in the region.


Trust me, it was kind of hard to deal with these cultural difference.

Eventually, you say to yourself that it's just a game, no matter what it looks like right?


I'm well aware that any kind of words, that are perceived as negative ( I insist on the "perception" part) can caused unexpected behavior.

The most annoying part(at least for me) is that, if you don't pay a close attention, you probably wont realize it.

You will just notice that the person you are speaking to has changed his/her mood, and sometimes you won't understand why.



I will probably face these kind of situations many times in the future.

I'll let you know how I do.