Tuesday, May 19, 2009

TBS eFM Mini World Cup 2009

This morning I received an e-mail entirely in Korean from my 'coach,' or the Spitfires' manager, Sun Uk. With my limited Hangul abilities, I was able only to make out the title, 'TBS eFM Mini World Cup.' This sounded interesting. . .tell me more?

I shot a quick note back to Sun reminding him that if the aforementioned e-mail pertained to me at all that it would be better if someone could simply paraphrase it for me in English. I did give Yahoo's babblefish a shot at decoding the text but Korean to English doesn't quite work out like I'm used to with other languages, comprede?

A few minutes later I got a phone call from Sun, eager to inform me about this weekend's upcoming international tournament hosted by Korean media giant, TBS. Apparently, eight countries are participating in a single elimination Mini World Cup: Brazil, Mexico, France, China, Russia, Korea, Uzbekistan and the good ole' USofA.

Now, this I didn't quite grasp, the Han River Spitfires were chosen (I believe it might have been random but if so, I have no clue how) to represent Dae Han Min Gook, 대한 민국, better known to the outside world as simply South Korea. What I find funny here is that our Spitfire team is technically a foreign team as it exists within what I am led to believe is a foreigner league. Even so, we certainly have enough Korean players to field a solid squad of locals. Well, almost locals, sure one kid is actually Japanese and well, the twins were born in Germany, but hey, they sure look more Korean than I do!

Here's the kicker, Sun decided that the team would best represent Korea composed primarily of Koreans but decided to invite two waygookin, or foreigners, along for the ride. Apparently Sun saw something in me that Nick Archer never did and subsequently extended an invitation for me to represent Korea this Sunday. Hmm, what a deal!

Other than having to be in Daechi-dong (an hour away) at 8:00am Sunday morning, this sounds like an awesome opportunity! Heck, if we win the first game against Uzbekistan then we might even face off against my fellow countrymen wearing the tried and true red white and blue! But of course you'll be rooting for Korea!

Don't forget to tune in Sunday morning to your local TBS eFM station. . .that is, if you're on the peninsula!

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