SIFE World Cup 2009 DAY 2: League Competition

5th October 2009

Critical morning. Today, we HAVE to make it into the Top 16.

Is 10.35am an auspicious time?

Superstition aside, this is our first attempt to wow them. This is what we are here for. And this banner confirms it.

The 7th flag from the top in the first column. The 19th country by alphabetical order.

It really gives one a sense of pride and achievement to see that not-so-big print.

Strategy-wise, our strongest opponent in League 7 is South Africa as African countries always have very strong community-humanitarian projects. We are confident of the strength of our projects too. Nevertheless, it's always a must to seek some divine assistance.

As usual, we have our multi-faith prayers session.

I actually like this part a lot because I usually feel this very strong bond among the team. And I love listening to the prayers of different faiths in different languages. And although I'm not a very spiritual person in nature, I always have this undescribable emotional wave thingie during these sessions.

Our turn came and we entered this small, long room for our presentation. Hearts thudding, still trying to smile. 24 minutes to show the judges why we were there and to convince them that we deserve to proceed to the next round.

Kinon even got his own seat!

That evening, the results were announced. League after league, they announced the two semi-finalists, the third-placer, and the recipient of the Spirit Award. Can you imagine? Having to sit through six league announcements, the suspense almost killed us. When they called us to go up on the stage we were partially relieved.

But did we manage to make it into the next round of competition?

SIFE Dr. Jose Matias Delgado University from El Salvador got the Spirit of SIFE Award.

SIFE Auckland University of Technology from New Zealand was awarded Third Place.

Which means SIFE University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and

SIFE University of Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia made it into THE SEMI-FINALS!!!

For the Semi-Finals, teams are divided into four leagues with four teams each, competing for that one place in the Finals. League drawing time again and this time, we kinda lucked-out. We drew number 15 which made us the second last to choose our league and presentation time.

We had absolutely NO CHOICE at all. Hello toughest league. Hello league with last year's World Cup Champs. SIFE UMS will be competing in League 4 at 10.25am the next day with
SIFE University of Tirana, Albania;
SIFE Maseno University, Kenya and
SIFE Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

Can we do another miraculous job?

Stay tuned,