Beep Beep! Beep Beep! The alarm bell goes off. It is 6 am on the 1st of August, 2016. First day of tryouts for my school's soccer team. I am inflated and drowning in nervousness. For the past two years of my high school life, I had missed tryouts, both times not knowing when they took place. Finally, with careful planning, the year I claimed my spot on a soccer team had finally come. Born the son of an ambitious and idealistic soccer coach, it didn't take me a long time to kick a soccer ball. From the age I learned to say "mama" and "baba," I had spent hours playing soccer outside on the streets of East Africa. Soccer became my language; I didn't have to talk to make friends. Just put the ball on the ground, and wonderful things would ensue. The creativity it supplied me, the freedom of expression it allowed me, the simplicity it taught me. Soccer was my relief of struggles hard and easy. It became more than a hobby. It became a characteristic. Often is it dangerous to be smitten to a game, a sport, to this level, but it didn't matter. Soccer also
It was a cold brittle day on January 10,2014 at 2:00 p.m in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. My teammates and I and I were warming up for our soccer game. Our team name was called“Rapids and we have three wins, one tie, and four losses. All of a sudden, the referees called us to the sideline to check on our equipment.
But on the day of the semi-finals, my soccer team had a big problem. Due to summer vacations, we were missing a third of our team which left us with only enough kids to play. We didn’t have any subs. It was going to be a tough and hot eighty minutes of running with only a quick half-time break.
Soccer is my life.Every weekend we travel all over Indiana and Ohio. But One Saturday morning my soccer team, my family, and I got up early for a soccer tournament in Ohio. The first game we played was a team called the Celtics at 8:30. The score was 1-0 we won. During the first five minutes of the 2nd half, we scored a goal.Also, the game was very physical people were getting shoved to the ground and kicked. But during the game the ball bounced off the side and almost was a goal for the other team but we saved it and before we saved it my team and I all screamed,” Go to the ball and get the ball out of the box” After, we played a Cincinnati United team at 3:15 at the end of the game the score was 5-1
Being shoved to the ground and coming up with a mouthful of turf and a bloody nose isn’t the ideal way to spend a friday night, but for me, it's something I put blood, sweat, and tears into. Soccer has been a passion of mine since my father dropped me off at the local YMCA when I was at the tender age of four. Spending all of my free days for thirteen years running after a soccer ball is arguably what made me into the person I am today. Unity, tenacity, passion and pride have all been morals that are valued within the sport and in my own philosophy. I have explored places I’d never give a second thought to because my sport took me there. Friends I had made came from the sport I played. I never ended up asking for friends to come over because to me, practice was hanging out with my friends, doing an activity with a purpose.
Months later, the sting of losing still haunted us. Summer came and no one dared to speak of the game, yet you could tell it burned in the back of our minds as we pushed ourselves harder than ever before. Attitudes and efforts changed. There was a sense of urgency inside of every
When the final whistle was blown, I didn’t even know that the match was over and that I won. I figured out that I won when the referee raised my hand. I was so tired at the end of my match, but I was so happy that I
This is the reminiscence of my first soccer game that I refereed. I was volunteering for the local soccer league as they needed assistance. As a fourteen-year old, I did not know what to expect. All I could think about was the roaring of the parents, and how much pressure was on my shoulders to make the right calls. It was ironic since I was refereeing a game for thirteen-year old players.
As an in-coming freshman who hadn’t played on a school team in middle school, I was at a disadvantage because I was behind in skills and didn’t know many of the tricks. Fortunately, the coach saw my potential and I made the varsity team. My coaches and teammates continually pushed me and helped me become an even better player than I was before. Over the course of my four years on the team, I faced several obstacles that made me feel weak and inadequate, but to overcome them I reminded myself that I loved soccer. The biggest obstacle I faced was getting a concussion my junior year.
“Matt,y you will be starting forward now,” Mr. K. said right before I nervously stepped onto the field, sweating like a man in a sauna. The whole summer I practiced soccer with my dad for two hours a day to make the team my sixth grade year. I wasn’t looking to start, I was just looking to make the team. While my friends were at the beach or at friend’s house, I would be playing soccer.
Ever since I was a toddler, I loved sports. Baseball, basketball, it did not matter; I just liked to run. When I was around 4 or 5, I was in the living room watching the Steelers play the Cardinals and saw Santonio Holmes grab a game winning touchdown to win the Superbowl. I was so excited that I jumped up in the air and I told my dad, “Daddy when I grow up I want to play football and I want to score a lot of touchdowns just like 10 does.”
“I learned about life with a ball at my feet.” What do you first think about when you hear the word soccer? Do you think about the coolest goal ever made? Or maybe the best jukes you’ve ever seen? Well there’s more to soccer than scoring goals and juking people. To some people, there’s a meaning to every goal, kick, and pass. Soccer has a meaning. To some people, soccer is just a dumb and , boring sport that is completely useless. But to others it’s a lifestyle because, it revolves around their everyday life. There’s people passionate about this sport, and I’m one of them.
Having only one soccer club in Bend to play competitively on and having a relatively small population put me playing with almost the exact same group of girls in the club as I grew up. This also left me knowing everyone who plays soccer and consequently when I got to high school soccer, I was still with the same girls. We had been playing with each other for 7 plus years and had become an incredibly close unit on and off the field. Some of my closest friends came from playing soccer. Soccer had helped me break out of my shell socially and provided an outlet for stress relief. My life revolved around soccer.
I 'd always tried getting all the goals. I also Tried taking all the freekicks and penalties. One day in a game I had the ball with only one defender on me, so I try to get passed him by running round him as fast as I could with the wind blowing on my face and my jersey flying back and I see a player open nobody on him. At first I
As we were heading for the goal on another break away, the opposing team kicked it out of bounds by the goal. My sister Bailey, who is also on the team, set the ball up for a corner kick. Her kick was a beautiful, high, hard drive to the front of the box. I remember thinking of my trainer’s words, “Anything is possible”. I jumped up at the right moment.