For soccer fans attending Carlmont, the school week can be extra stressful to go through.
On Sept. 16, Europe’s top club soccer competition, the UEFA Champions League, kicked off its first round of games, as 32 different teams from all over Europe prepared to do battle over the nine month long tournament. But due to the eight (sometimes nine) hour time difference between the Bay Area and certain regions in Europe, every game, except the final, will be played during school hours.
“It is extremely hard to focus on my schoolwork while I know my favorite soccer team is playing in an important game at the same time,” said junior Matt DeGraff. “I have been caught multiple times on my phone cause I was streaming the game. Plus, sometimes I don’t have the game available on my phone.”
However, for these students, a new option has been presented.
Founded by juniors Sage Shamsai, Kian Karamdashti, and Colley Loum, the Euro Soccer Club gathers soccer fans together at lunch in E6 to watch the tournament.
“This idea is great. We can all come together and watch the games like we would on the weekend,” said senior Fabricio Custodio.
At the beginning, the club did have some issues finding a teacher advisor, before they found european history teacher Jayson Waller.
“It took us about 3 weeks to find an advisor,” said Loum. “We were rejected by two different teachers and we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a room. Luckily, Mr. Waller told me one day that he has started to get into  English soccer league and I decided to ask him right there. Fortunately, he said yes.”
Club president Shamsai is happy with the response the club has received in its first meeting.
“We had almost 20 kids in here for the first game and that is definitely more than we expected. Our goal is to enhance the soccer community at this school and bring all the soccer fans here together. Hopefully after I leave in two years, if anything, I want to know that I helped sparked an interest in the sport for as many people as possible.
