It was through chance that I became interested in football. I was lounging in front of the TV on a peaceful afternoon, looking for something to watch. As I surfed through the channels, I found a sports channel with a football game going on. I wasn’t a fan back then, but since I had nothing better to do, I kept on watching. The match was between Manchester United (MU) and Tottenham (TOT), with TOT leading two to nothing at halftime. However, the red devils of MU had no plans to lose. The score at the end of the game was 5-2, with MU in the lead. That match from 2009 is my oldest experience of the game. Ever since that day, I’ve been enamored with both football and Manchester. Cheering on as Ronaldo and Rooney maneuvered their way to a winning shot and looking in awe as Ferguson led the team to win after win are memories I always cherish. 

I wasn’t exceptionally good at playing football, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. Every day after school, I rushed back home to play with my friends. When I reached home, dirty and exhausted, my mother would be waiting with a freshly cooked batch of samosas. Euphoria, for me, is eating a steaming samosa after a brilliant game of soccer. I wasn’t able to play as much in college, but my excitement for the game never waned. I never missed a Manchester United game. The only change was that my mother’s homemade samosas were substituted by store-bought ones. I resumed playing football again, but that was later when I started a new chapter of my life at Mitsogo. 

Mitsogo is nothing like I imagined. We don’t have corporate dress codes, so on match days, you can find people wearing their favorite team jerseys walking around the office. In fact, there are so many football fanatics here that our management decided to rent out a turf every day so that we could play. That’s where I started playing again. I still haven’t improved much, but the rush I get from the game is still as fresh as ever. Even our CEO is a fan and often joins us on the field. At Mitsogo, people follow the rule ‘work hard, play hard’. We are lucky to have a management team that recognizes that happy and satisfied employees are actually better at their jobs. In that regard, they make a significant effort to support our hobbies. In a couple of months, Mitsogo is even planning to host the first Hexnode football league. 

Our hobbies and interests help shape us into who we are as individuals. Football taught me a great deal. It made me realize the importance of teamwork, discipline and time management. Also, being a Manchester United supporter, I’ve learned that failure is a part of life, but it shouldn’t bring us down. Manchester instilled in me the importance of persistence, and I’ve always tried to live up to that standard.