16:41
June 22, 2017

The World Team Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk have come to their equator. After tough and uncompromising battles of Round 5 the players are finally having their long-awaited day-off. It is up to the participants and their coaches to decide how to spend it. Teams of Norway and Poland preferred to have a match. But this was not the match played of the chess boards, but on the football field.

The idea to play football on a day-off came to Polish team, so they offered other participants of the Championships to join them. Team Norway accepted the proposal without hesitation.

“Normally, I don’t play football very often, – confesses Johan Salomon of Norway. – Still I am doing some physical training regularly. I go to the gym four times a week to lift weights and to run. Our opponent today is very strong but let’s be optimistic, we still want to win”.

It is worth noting that not only male players turned to be die-hard fans of football, there were girls playing as well.
“The stadium is very nice, it looks very professional. I haven’t played on such a big stadium for a very long time, – says Jolanta Zawadzka representing team Poland. – I used to play much more football before, but today I am just doing it to relax on a free day, to move and exercise a bit not just to sit in a room. I think it is a big fighting so far. We are having one extra player in the team of Poland, so hope we will win. But the main point is to play and to relax not the score”.

The only thing that interfered into the game Poland vs Norway were clouds of mosquitoes flying around players. “There are all kinds of insects around there, – adds Jolanta Zawadzka. – But it is quite common here I guess, as we face this every day in Khanty-Mansiysk”.

Of course, football battles are louder than those played on the chess boards, but there is one rule common for both plays. No matter how the game goes, who wins and who loses, every game ends with firm and friendly handshakes of the opponents.

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