NOTCHING up eight goals in a Berlin soccer tournament helped Ng Ka-ming to experience - in person rather than through television - the tough tackling of European players.
The midfielder-cum-striker Ah Ming, as his team-mates call him, told Young Post that the Puma Street Soccer World Cup in Berlin taught him the physical side to the game.
'They [European players] were very physical in matches. That's very different from Hong Kong where the rules are very strict.
'Here, foul play will be called whenever physical contact is made,' said the Form Three student.
After defeating 23 other teams in the local preliminary street soccer rounds, Ka-ming's 'Hong Kong Teenagers' team got the tickets to Berlin and confronted their European counterparts.
In the matches his four-member team played against Holland, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Switzerland, Ka-ming got 'cornered' in the walled soccer field with his shins ending up black and blue.
Even though his debut European soccer tour added eight strikes to his credibility, his team failed to make it to the final.
