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Rediscovering an old friend

Written by rere_mus

This article is about friendship, about rediscovery, about the joy of playing "Hattrick" even after almost 20 years.

It was in the fall of 1990 when, after completing mandatory military service, every soldier returned to their home. Obviously with the promise to keep in touch and meet whenever life allows. More than 30 years have passed since then and I can tell you that life has not allowed me to see my former comrades-in-arms again. With one exception, "S", whom I saw again after 25 years.

And that's thanks to "Hattrick".

I had a pretty weird military internship. When we joined, Romania was a communist country, and when we left the army, we found a democratic Romania. There was also the revolution in the meantime, a revolution that caught us in the middle of events.
No matter how democratic Romania was, at that time there was no internet or mobile phones. Some had a home phone but I don't know why we didn't exchange phone numbers at out last army meeting.
Although there were only 100 km between our localities, "S" and I never saw each other again, and more than that, we lost any connection.

I decided to write the article in English for the "Global Newsletter" because I emigrated in the 2000s and the 100 km turned into almost 8000 km. And yet this distance did not prevent us from seeing each other again after 25 years.

It was the summer of 2014 when I found an article on a website about a former military colleague who had been injured during the December 1990 revolution. I wrote a comment about me and the fact that I was a military colleague, but he didn't remember me. I was not upset, but after that I did not enter the site to see if there are other comments. "S" had also seen the article and realized that it was me who wrote the previous comment. He kept writing to me there in the comments section, but I never read them again.

And here "Hattrick" enters into play
I wake up one day in 2014, ready to set up my team for a cup match, and I saw a message in "Hattrick" mailbox from someone who said he think we were colleagues in the army back in the 90'es.
It was "S", my old army-buddy, but the one I had lost touch with. He said that he saw the article about our injured colleague, and that he wrote to me in the comment section, only I did not see the comments. And in desperation, he thought that a football fan like me would play "Hattrick", he searched among the users in my county "Mures" for one that somewhat resembled my name and wrote the greeting message. I really don't know how many people he wrote to, I just hope not too many. Maybe the fact that I don't have a common first name, helped him. But it's certain that the message eventually found its recipient.
It was an indescribable joy, we exchanged phone numbers and e-mails, we corresponded for months until we managed to find out what happened to each other in the last 25 years. He has been playing "Hattrick" since 2006, I started the game a little earlier, at the end of 2004. I played with the same passion as at the beginning. I can say that he is more experienced, he managed in time to understand the game much better than me. He also founded a federation very well seen by the community of "Hattrick" players in Romania. We have played dozens of matches since then, both friendly and official. For a while we were acting in the same series for a few seasons. Right at the time of writing this article, I scheduled a "ladder" match with his team. So far in the matches between us he has 4 victories more than me, but in a few hours I will recover one more, because I will clearly win this match.

Thank you "Hattrick" for your huge community.
Thank you "Hattrick" for the fact that it is not just a simple "Football Manager" game, but it is also a place where you can meet people who can become close friends, or as in my case, you can see old friends with whom you lost touch. Because yes, we finally managed to met face to face with 'S". The first time in January 2015 when I went to Romania and I made a detour to Cluj Napoca just to meet him. The 25 years have left their mark on us, but sincere friendship has remained the same. Then a few years later, we saw each other again, when he was passing through Targu Mures, and I was visiting my relatives. Back in 2019 on my last visit to Romania, we saw each other again. Until our next meeting, we will keep in touch here, between other players...sorry...managers. Because we are all managers, aren't we ?

Thank you again, "Hattrick" for smashing the 8000 km between us.

Thank you for reading my article. "R"