2026-05-16, 01:37 AM - Word count:
Meeting a new group of people is rarely easy. Despite his relatively short time on Earth, Joe was someone who understood this well. Having grown up mostly on the outskirts of Bangkok, “on the other side of the river”, the Chao Phraya, he’d had much the same friends from the time he was really young. The kids in the neighbourhood had grown up together. They’d played together, they’d eaten together, and their parents had kept an eye on each other’s kids. They were split across a couple of different schools, sure, but Joe had always had a few of his local friends be part of his class. When the time came for him to enter middle school, however, his father had insisted on him attending school on the opposite side of the river. Closer towards the centre of the city, where the farangs came. And not only them, the wealthy Thais were there too. Joe’s friends had let him know as much when he had shared the news with them. For the first time, none of them would be by his side. And he dreaded it.
Just a few years later, Joe had entered the canteen of the Victoria Falls Eagles academy for the first time while the other players were around. The manager, perhaps suspecting that the new boy might be a little overwhelmed, got up from his table and walked over towards him, arms opening until he put one of his hands on Joe’s shoulders as some sort of greeting. Guided by his manager’s arm, Joe went over to the closest round wooden table where his manager introduced him to some of his new teammates with a few words: “Guys, this is Joe, the latest addition to the team. He’s come all the way from Thailand. Take good care of him.” This prompted a choir of greetings from the youngsters sitting around the table, before Joe took the word, “Hello everyone! I am Joe Mormor from Bangkok. I like football, fruits, food, and movies. If you want to know good Thailand movies, uh.. come to me!" English still wasn’t his forte, but he was mostly over the awkwardness of meeting new people. After all, everybody else must have gone through the exact same thing when they arrived. Even if he still hadn’t quite felt like he was there. In a sense, that also made things like this easier.
Although Joe had started attending school a fair distance away from home, he had tried to hold on to his friendships at home, never really trying much to bond with his new classmates. People on that side of the river are different to us, he’d been told. Being a child, he hadn’t made too much of it, except the intuitive understanding that exchanging his friends from the kids at school wouldn’t be the most popular choice. In fairness, his first encounters at school did little to diminish that presumption. Everybody wearing nice uniforms, opening their textbooks almost in unison, conversations halting as the teachers entered the classroom and took centre stage. They may all have been there to study, but something about the way the others went about things just felt a little off to Joe. A little different. And so, he mostly stuck to himself at school, steered clear of extra-curricular activities and other after-school appointments with his new classmates, instead opting to hurry home to his old friends.
Things, however, were slowly beginning to change. They were no longer little kids, and a certain loss of innocence was inevitable. Of course, his old friends were largely glad whenever he joined them, it was just that they would obviously share moments together that he wasn’t quite in on. Things that had happened at school. Even things that had happened after school, before he made it home, or in the late evening, when his dad Tok had already made sure that Joe was in bed, having to get up early to make the commute. Eventually, as Joe’s friends were turning into ever so slightly distant existences, he began to realise that they were also developing new interests. The shenanigans they’d all get up to weren’t quite the same as they had been. A similar trajectory had likely been ongoing for years, only he had once been aboard the train whose tracks he now had to traverse on foot. Until that one evening. The evening that changed everything.
The lads were all jumping around McAllister, shouting as he tried to wrap an arm around Joe to show appreciation. A few moments earlier, a long ball up the pitch from goalkeeper Yupanqui had made it to Joe on the flank. Joe’s first touch had been eminent, and it’d allowed him to run into space, leaving his marker behind. He made a couple of dribbles, moving into the field, before squaring the ball for McAllister to slot it home with a sweet shot. The moment was all about the Scotsman, who’d already snatched an excellent assist for himself when Kusora brought the Eagles in front against Sydney City. Some twenty minutes later, the Scottish youth decided it was time to do it all on his own, as he dribbled past a few opponents and fired the ball into the net not too long after their opponents had reduced the VFE-lead. Kusora ended up getting another goal which, in combination with Vietnamese Tang’s first of the season, meant that the Victoria Falls Eagles were once again victorious despite the excellent fighting spirit shown by the Australians who had scored another two goals, leading to the final result of the match being 5-3.
The team seemed to grow into form as the players were getting increasingly familiar with one another on and off the pitch. From the first moments, Joe had been quite happy to see another Southeast Asian player at the academy, but it didn’t take long before he felt quite comfortable that he was on good terms with the entire squad. Not all of them were equally vocal, which likely had as much to do with linguistic barriers as it did with the distance most of the players had to their respective homes. Although he had initially speculated that there might be rivalries in his first proper locker room full of hopeful, aspiring young professionals, any such thoughts were quickly dispelled once Joe got to meet his new teammates. If feelings of rivalry existed, he was oblivious to them. One of the things Joe had long recognised is that taking a bubbly, outwardly naïve approach to people can often divert troublesome situations elsewhere. Most people like the happy-go-lucky people, so long as they don’t overdo it. Most people will choose to aim their frustrations elsewhere.
Tok, Joe’s father, had practically ordered that he start getting up earlier to help Tok set up the fruit stall in Sathorn, and that he come help out shutting it down after school. To Joe, it felt like nothing but punishment, as it effectively kept him trapped in the city, far from his old friends. Still, this was something he could hardly question Tok about. Whenever he’d tried asking about why Tok suddenly needed assistance, he’d simply answer that he was getting older, and the sales, and thereby also the deliveries, bigger.
After a few weeks of boring stall-watching as Tok would be drinking whiskey and soda with the owners of the other stalls, Joe had decided to join his school’s football team. He had always been a decent player, technically gifted and with plenty of athletic experience, both from his previous school team, and from countless hours of kicking balls around in the heat with his friends, running around the neighbourhood, climbing trees and walls to explore abandoned buildings, access the cool shade of the roofed courtyards used as food courts on weekdays when they were closed on weekends.
Joining the school’s football team taught Joe something very important about socialising: being good at something really helps making people like you. And he was good at football. It took little time before he was made a starter on the school team, and although he did go through a rough period where some of the other kids clearly were not too fond of the new guy coming in and almost immediately stealing away a spot on the team, he eventually crossed that sea through a man of the match-performance in one of his first matches, scoring the decider to put the team through the School Cup. And that was sort of the moment for Joe. It not only got him on his teammates’ good side, but also put him in good graces with many of the other students.
Match by match, the team were getting better. Cohesion was up, confidence was up, goalscoring was up – straight through the clouds in which Joe had felt encapsulated a few weeks prior. The manager’s advice also proved true; Joe’s body felt lighter than ever as he sprinted past the Port Royale defensive unit to meet a through ball with a perfect first touch permitting him to lob it over the on-storming keeper on his second. The team had already been 4-1 up, so it was hardly the most important goal, but to Joe it was like the manager’s hammer knocking the emphasis on physical improvement another inch into Joe’s brain. A little later, Joe delivered a hard cross into the box, which Kusora, already a hattrick in the bag, jumped over to leave it for Peña to fire in for a 6-1 lead, before Joe once again felt the righteous hammer of his manager’s advice as the roles were reversed with him battling and moving past the Port Royale-defenders to slot home one of Peña’s trademark crosses to round off the scoring.
After the next round of matches, the players were once again cheering and dancing in the locker room. Faces that had looked entirely unfamiliar and honestly a little incomprehensive just a few weeks earlier were now the jubilant smiles of friends. The lads were spraying water at each other, dancing, and chanting for pizza as the manager entered the room and quickly was absorbed by the atmosphere.
Although the match had been quite the challenge for a good long while, with scores at 2-2 almost an hour into the game, excellent performances by Kusora and McAllister eventually were too much for Atletico Medellin, with two goals by each of them putting the Eagles up 4-2 before Joe joined the list of players with goal involvements. First, he crossed a free kick to the back post where Kusora picked up another hattrick. Next, Joe ran to the bench to celebrate with the manager and fitness coaches, as he won an aerial duel to score off another fabulous Peña cross, before double high-fiving Tang as his cutback led to Joe’s second goal of the match, and the final score of 7-2.
The Eagles were well and truly flying.
Just a few years later, Joe had entered the canteen of the Victoria Falls Eagles academy for the first time while the other players were around. The manager, perhaps suspecting that the new boy might be a little overwhelmed, got up from his table and walked over towards him, arms opening until he put one of his hands on Joe’s shoulders as some sort of greeting. Guided by his manager’s arm, Joe went over to the closest round wooden table where his manager introduced him to some of his new teammates with a few words: “Guys, this is Joe, the latest addition to the team. He’s come all the way from Thailand. Take good care of him.” This prompted a choir of greetings from the youngsters sitting around the table, before Joe took the word, “Hello everyone! I am Joe Mormor from Bangkok. I like football, fruits, food, and movies. If you want to know good Thailand movies, uh.. come to me!" English still wasn’t his forte, but he was mostly over the awkwardness of meeting new people. After all, everybody else must have gone through the exact same thing when they arrived. Even if he still hadn’t quite felt like he was there. In a sense, that also made things like this easier.
Although Joe had started attending school a fair distance away from home, he had tried to hold on to his friendships at home, never really trying much to bond with his new classmates. People on that side of the river are different to us, he’d been told. Being a child, he hadn’t made too much of it, except the intuitive understanding that exchanging his friends from the kids at school wouldn’t be the most popular choice. In fairness, his first encounters at school did little to diminish that presumption. Everybody wearing nice uniforms, opening their textbooks almost in unison, conversations halting as the teachers entered the classroom and took centre stage. They may all have been there to study, but something about the way the others went about things just felt a little off to Joe. A little different. And so, he mostly stuck to himself at school, steered clear of extra-curricular activities and other after-school appointments with his new classmates, instead opting to hurry home to his old friends.
Things, however, were slowly beginning to change. They were no longer little kids, and a certain loss of innocence was inevitable. Of course, his old friends were largely glad whenever he joined them, it was just that they would obviously share moments together that he wasn’t quite in on. Things that had happened at school. Even things that had happened after school, before he made it home, or in the late evening, when his dad Tok had already made sure that Joe was in bed, having to get up early to make the commute. Eventually, as Joe’s friends were turning into ever so slightly distant existences, he began to realise that they were also developing new interests. The shenanigans they’d all get up to weren’t quite the same as they had been. A similar trajectory had likely been ongoing for years, only he had once been aboard the train whose tracks he now had to traverse on foot. Until that one evening. The evening that changed everything.
The lads were all jumping around McAllister, shouting as he tried to wrap an arm around Joe to show appreciation. A few moments earlier, a long ball up the pitch from goalkeeper Yupanqui had made it to Joe on the flank. Joe’s first touch had been eminent, and it’d allowed him to run into space, leaving his marker behind. He made a couple of dribbles, moving into the field, before squaring the ball for McAllister to slot it home with a sweet shot. The moment was all about the Scotsman, who’d already snatched an excellent assist for himself when Kusora brought the Eagles in front against Sydney City. Some twenty minutes later, the Scottish youth decided it was time to do it all on his own, as he dribbled past a few opponents and fired the ball into the net not too long after their opponents had reduced the VFE-lead. Kusora ended up getting another goal which, in combination with Vietnamese Tang’s first of the season, meant that the Victoria Falls Eagles were once again victorious despite the excellent fighting spirit shown by the Australians who had scored another two goals, leading to the final result of the match being 5-3.
The team seemed to grow into form as the players were getting increasingly familiar with one another on and off the pitch. From the first moments, Joe had been quite happy to see another Southeast Asian player at the academy, but it didn’t take long before he felt quite comfortable that he was on good terms with the entire squad. Not all of them were equally vocal, which likely had as much to do with linguistic barriers as it did with the distance most of the players had to their respective homes. Although he had initially speculated that there might be rivalries in his first proper locker room full of hopeful, aspiring young professionals, any such thoughts were quickly dispelled once Joe got to meet his new teammates. If feelings of rivalry existed, he was oblivious to them. One of the things Joe had long recognised is that taking a bubbly, outwardly naïve approach to people can often divert troublesome situations elsewhere. Most people like the happy-go-lucky people, so long as they don’t overdo it. Most people will choose to aim their frustrations elsewhere.
Tok, Joe’s father, had practically ordered that he start getting up earlier to help Tok set up the fruit stall in Sathorn, and that he come help out shutting it down after school. To Joe, it felt like nothing but punishment, as it effectively kept him trapped in the city, far from his old friends. Still, this was something he could hardly question Tok about. Whenever he’d tried asking about why Tok suddenly needed assistance, he’d simply answer that he was getting older, and the sales, and thereby also the deliveries, bigger.
After a few weeks of boring stall-watching as Tok would be drinking whiskey and soda with the owners of the other stalls, Joe had decided to join his school’s football team. He had always been a decent player, technically gifted and with plenty of athletic experience, both from his previous school team, and from countless hours of kicking balls around in the heat with his friends, running around the neighbourhood, climbing trees and walls to explore abandoned buildings, access the cool shade of the roofed courtyards used as food courts on weekdays when they were closed on weekends.
Joining the school’s football team taught Joe something very important about socialising: being good at something really helps making people like you. And he was good at football. It took little time before he was made a starter on the school team, and although he did go through a rough period where some of the other kids clearly were not too fond of the new guy coming in and almost immediately stealing away a spot on the team, he eventually crossed that sea through a man of the match-performance in one of his first matches, scoring the decider to put the team through the School Cup. And that was sort of the moment for Joe. It not only got him on his teammates’ good side, but also put him in good graces with many of the other students.
Match by match, the team were getting better. Cohesion was up, confidence was up, goalscoring was up – straight through the clouds in which Joe had felt encapsulated a few weeks prior. The manager’s advice also proved true; Joe’s body felt lighter than ever as he sprinted past the Port Royale defensive unit to meet a through ball with a perfect first touch permitting him to lob it over the on-storming keeper on his second. The team had already been 4-1 up, so it was hardly the most important goal, but to Joe it was like the manager’s hammer knocking the emphasis on physical improvement another inch into Joe’s brain. A little later, Joe delivered a hard cross into the box, which Kusora, already a hattrick in the bag, jumped over to leave it for Peña to fire in for a 6-1 lead, before Joe once again felt the righteous hammer of his manager’s advice as the roles were reversed with him battling and moving past the Port Royale-defenders to slot home one of Peña’s trademark crosses to round off the scoring.
After the next round of matches, the players were once again cheering and dancing in the locker room. Faces that had looked entirely unfamiliar and honestly a little incomprehensive just a few weeks earlier were now the jubilant smiles of friends. The lads were spraying water at each other, dancing, and chanting for pizza as the manager entered the room and quickly was absorbed by the atmosphere.
Although the match had been quite the challenge for a good long while, with scores at 2-2 almost an hour into the game, excellent performances by Kusora and McAllister eventually were too much for Atletico Medellin, with two goals by each of them putting the Eagles up 4-2 before Joe joined the list of players with goal involvements. First, he crossed a free kick to the back post where Kusora picked up another hattrick. Next, Joe ran to the bench to celebrate with the manager and fitness coaches, as he won an aerial duel to score off another fabulous Peña cross, before double high-fiving Tang as his cutback led to Joe’s second goal of the match, and the final score of 7-2.
The Eagles were well and truly flying.
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