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AGE – 13
This day was another one I will never forget.
Coming 3rd place was not very impressive.
But coming 3rd place whilst playing for a school’s soccer team
that had never won any tournament.
I was with them for 9 years.
And it was our last year at that school.
When the first game started, It started like every other match.
I was the captain, I was the center forward, and I was running
after the opposition all the way down to our defense area.
I knew we had another 3 games coming up today, so I had to
reserve my energy a bit. The second I stopped running up and down, I
turned my back to our goals, everyone was shocked, and everyone stopped.
They must have thought something is wrong, why is the center forward going forward? So the opposition tapped the ball towards our goalie. And our goalie let the ball slowly roll into the goals. It was no surprise for my team, I just shrugged my shoulders and walked toward the center of the field to start the next kick off. In The end we lost the first game 0-1. I should never have turned away from the play, but I mean come-on what is the center forward doing at his own goal post, defending. We were never going to progress with that strategy. I think the team did improve a bit during the game, without me at our goals, this woke up some defenders and some back players. So the second game started, it was against one of the best German soccer teams. We never really expected to beat that team. It wasn’t very long until they scored their 1st goal. 0-1. By the way, we were the only soccer team with a girls in our team. The ball was heading straight for her breasts, so she had no option but to protect herself with her hands. And thus, this lead to a penalty which they scored. Then something strange happened, something that turned around our whole losing streak. They actually gave us a 2 minutes time-out. Maybe it was because the soccer ball had hit a girl, maybe our coach was very convincing, I don’t know. During the quick meeting, all they were talking about, is it wasn’t her fault it wasn’t avoidable, don’t worry, don’t feel upset.
Unfortunately for my whole life I was not very out spoken, I was basically quiet unless I knew the crowd and felt comfortable. Since I was the captain, I felt like I had to speak out of turn. I interrupted everyone, quickly commented it was not the girls fault. And quickly came up with a plan. I was going to pass the ball to the center back, the right wing was going to run straight down, the center back was going to run directly to the right, pass it up to the wing, the wing is going to run forward, and kick the ball across the opposition’s goal posts. They looked fairly surprised at me, when I explained, I’m going to shout and scream, pass the ball, pass, pass, but my own aim is to distract the opposition and take the pressure off their first attack. It was actually very humorous, the way I was jumping up and down, screaming ‘pass the ball to me’. Most of the opposition forwards were blocking me. After my back forward passed to our wing player, I slowly started creeping towards the opposition’s goal posts. In the end, I was quite amazed that those 2 players did manage to achieve that, and they really did manage to kick the ball across the opposition’s goal post. I kicked it straight in. 1-1. After some time it was half time. We switched sides; very soon the German team scored another goal. 1-2. After about 10 minutes, I was hanging around at the half way line. Since our players realized that, they managed to pass the ball to me instead of just kicking it forward to no-man’s land. Since I was already at the half way line, there was only 2 times that they actually managed to get the ball to me, and luckily I managed to score another 2 goals, since I didn’t have to tackle and run across the entire field. So in the end we won 3-2. The whole team was so happy for a change, and the coach even mentioned that we have an easy game coming up.
The next game we won 5-0.
I actually saw the team pushing forward, so I stayed back as the
only defender and the only back player.
But the team really needed to know, that they can play, they
needed the confidence.
I
could easily have stayed in the front and scored a couple of goals to
apply for the highest scorer.
But it was good for my team to raise their confidence.
But after our team had won their second game, my team was motivated. It was a hard game but for the first time I felt like I was in a real team in a real game. First half, it was 1-1. Second half it was 3-3. Then came the penalties. My first 4 kickers had all scored their goals. The opposition; one of their grade 8 players actually missed the entire goal post by kicking too hard. So in the end, the entire tournament depended on my next penalty. If I scored we win, If I miss, the other team has the chance to even the score. I approached the ball, I looked to the left, I then gazed at the right for some time. And then I kicked the ball to the left, not too hard, not too soft, my aim was to make the goalie think I’m going to kick to the right. And boom, we won. The whole team lifted me up and carried me off the field. I had never felt so good before.
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