Archive for May, 2011
The sound of the squealing tires around me gave me an adrenaline rush. I couldn’t believe that I was actually participating in the District Dirt Bike Competition. For all the other participants other than me, this competition had become a yearly ritual. I was thankful to the fact that the others couldn’t see me wet my pants in fear. The ritual consisted of 26 miles of hills along the coastline and an extremely steep one-mile-long climb at the half-way mark. Just like last year’s event, unpredictable weather added to the challenging course. To compete in this race I had trained just about every day for months. When the race kicked off, there was no time to hang around as you had to keep your wits about you to know where everyone was. We settled in and the pattern consisted of long up hills and short sharp descents, all on dirt roads so the going was easy from that point of view, but the climbs took their toll. The race seemed to go on forever and I felt as if my motorcycle was giving in to the wear and tear caused by the dirt road. Suddenly out of nowhere a rock appeared and I realized that I was going to collide with it too late. I felt myself fly in the air and hit a tree with a huge thud. None of the other contestants stopped to check on me. I felt everything around me to be a blur. More than my injury I was worried about my motorcycle. I had spent all my savings for college buying motorcycle parts to assemble my bike from scratch. A few minutes later I passed out and when I woke up found myself in the emergency ward of a hospital. My motorcycle racing career ended before it even took off.
No one understands the game like a coach does, and this goes to its players as well. This is what might Leopoldo Lares Jose Zambrano felt when he heard that the football legend Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima retired from the league last February 2011. While the spirit may be willing, it seems that the legend’s body can no longer take the pressures of the sport.
Leopoldo Lares Jose Zambrano has so much respect for de Lima that he uttered that no other player can wear the Number 9 with the same respect that he commanded. He has been an influenced not only to his fans all over the world but with other players as well. Among his credits include 56 individual awards, and helping his team win 18 trophies, he was hailed as the World’s Cup best scorer with 15 goals. He was dubbed as “The Best Striker of All Time”.
Leopoldo Lares Jose Zambrano, an independent consultant and football coach believes that de Lima will be missed by his football fans worldwide. With such a talent as he is, it will be a long time before the soccer world will see another one like him again. For a lot of people, soccer is not just a game. It’s a whole new world for them. This has been the reason why the world stands still during the World Cup series. Millions troop to whatever its destination just to support the team that they are on. De Lima has the stuff that legends are made of, and for that alone, millions of people will sorely missed him.