Chess football tournament

Some weeks back S came to E to ask him to join the team for the upcoming chess football tournament. Actually it wasn’t a question, more of an announcement that E was part of the team. A day just for fun. With football and chess. And it’s an official national championship :-D

Short version of the rules: you play a game of chess (8 versus 8 individual players). After that the teams play a game of football (5 versus 5, with substitutes) against each other. Each chess point is added to the number of goals scored. The team with the highest score wins the match.

With the football match E can’t join off course, so the team has one less substitute. But nobody seems to think that is a problem. The opponents played also with 1 substitute less to make it fair. No one asked, it just happened spontaneously every match…
It’s so normal for everyone (so it seems) E is part of this crazy tournament, and just that gives me goosebumps. Just because it’s not so normal for most people in his situation. E is a very lucky guy.