Around the age of eight I decided I wanted to join a soccer team. I had played soccer at school before and I guess I liked it enough that I wanted to play in a league, so I joined the local community house league. The first team I was ever on was called the spiders, I don't know why though, none of the other house league teams I was on had a name, but the first year it did. Our team jerseys were bright green, you know that well known spider colour. It was mostly just for fun at that age, no one really took it competitively yet. I enjoyed it so I stuck with it next year, which was about the same, this time maroon jerseys and no team name though. A lot of the kids were the same and I actually made a few friends, one of them even invited me to their birthday party that year. I had one more year with this team and this coach, the last one were the blue team. The next year however I was now in middle school and things would be different.
My middle school had a competitive soccer team, that had tryouts, so I thought I'd give it a try. Now I'm not going to lie, I was a fat kid. I remember in the second grade one day they weighed everyone for whatever reason. Everyone before me got their weight and it was all in the area of 30kg, then it was my turn, I weighed 44kg; no one else was in the forties. I could see how this would be embarrassing to some people, but I honestly didn't care. I was big too, so no one ever teased me or bullied me, I never really even thought about it. During this try out though, it became clear it was a problem and it was the first time ever I felt self conscious about it. One of the first trials was an endurance race, and I came in dead last. After the first week the first round of cuts was posted and I wasn't on the list of people that would continue onto the next round. At the time I was pretty upset about it, but it didn't take long for me to get over it. I would just continue with house league soccer and not worry about it again until next year.
This year house league was starting to get competitive. I was eleven now and starting to take soccer more seriously. I knew I wasn't the fastest player so I started practicing my tackling to make up for it, and I was actually starting to get good at it. Up until then I had tried to make my tackles when the ball was farthest away from the player dribbling it, but then I realized the best time was actually to make your move as soon as the ball left their foot. This way it would be moving away from them and towards me, giving me the more time to get to it before the did. This turned out to be quite effective and I started to become significantly good at defense. My other problem was my kicking technique. Now I was actually a pretty powerful kicker, maybe even the most on the team. The year before one of our games was a tie and went to a shootout. I was selected to shoot first because my coach also recognized I could kick pretty hard. I had never practiced penalty shots before so I just decided to blast it as hard as I could and just aim to get it above the goalie. Of course that didn't work, I hit the crossbar, it bounced straight down and it didn't go in. My problem was I kicked with my toe, and not with the laces of my shoe, so I decided this year to fix this and learn to kick with my laces. It was tough, I certainly lost some power, but I could definitely see why it was better. You just have so much more control over where the ball goes. When game day rolled round for the first time ever we had a starting lineup. Every other year we'd just rotate everyone around every break, whoever started on the field didn't really matter you'd be substituted soon after. My coach had seen Id been working hard to improve and so I started every game. I could see other people on my team has also become more serious as well and all that extra work paid off because my team ended up winning the championship that year.
Next year along came the tryouts for my middle school team again. I was confident that I had made big improvements since last year and I had a real shot of making the team. The endurance run came and I finished dead last again. I knew that was going to happen, but I'd make it up in the skills competitions. In the first important one everyone on the offense lined up on one side and everyone on the defense lined up on the other. We took turns doing two on two attacking drills, and in every one of my attempts I successfully tackled the offense and recovered the ball. Now to be fair one time one of the players very obviously accidently kicked the ball right at me, but all the rest were genuine tackles. I felt very confident in my chances, but again after the first week I was not selected. All the hard work I had made had amounted to nothing. I was upset again but I thought you know why do I care I have more fun playing house league soccer anyways let's just keep doing that anyways. This year however house league was going to be very different.
First off I was on a new team, none of my friends or even any of the players from my previous four teams were there; it was a completely new group of players and a new coach. We started practicing and I was doing good again, it looked like it was going to be a similar season to last year. It was not. When the first game day arrived the coach started calling out the starting line up, I was not called. I didn't even play the entire first half. I thought maybe Id get a chance next game but it was the same. They ended up only playing me once the game was already decided and it didn't matter. I didn't give up at first I thought if I worked hard in practice Id get my shot eventually, and I did so the entire season, but it didn't change anything. It became clear to me I was always going to be the fat kid now and that was going to overshadow anything else I would do. I didnt even make any friends on my team this year, which was really the worst part. I decided not to go to end of season pizza party, and that I was done with soccer for good.
The next year I was now in high school and my high school did have a soccer team. I did consider joining as I did actually enjoy team sports, but then another friend of mine wanted to join the football team and I thought what the hell I'll join that instead. I never missed playing soccer on a team, it was kind of fun playing it again in gym class, but after a few years of playing football, my kicking power went way down and it would have just been not practical to even attempting getting back into soccer. I will admit though even as an adult I still have an appreciation for the sport and watch it on tv now and then.
Usually by the end of these I try to have some kind of take away lesson I learned, but in this case it just never went anywhere and I'm fine with that. Sometimes things just don't work out and it's not your fault, maybe I could have done more and persisted, but soccer just wasn't worth it in the long run. I guess it did help me end up in a sport I actually did like and set a good baseline for what to expect from myself to make sure I had the best chance of success in a competitive environment. This is now the second post I've talked about football so I guess I better talk about that soon, if not next.
This post really did not end up having a satisfying ending, which I guess was bound to happen considering I don't plan the content of these out in advance at all. I aim for more of just a constant stream of consciousness, so when I start writing I don't stop until the post is completely finished. I believe this gives me the most authentic portrayal of how I feel about these events, and thats what Im aiming for. The problem with this one was I just didn't know how I feel about soccer anymore, and unlike my previous posts, did not come to an resolution by writing about it. Maybe that's not even a problem, but right now it doesn't feel like I've accomplished anything here, so I'll just have to wait and see how I feel about this. I will say though after the back pain posted I decided to create the titles of my next eight or so posts, including the last three. I can tell you I have pretty strong feelings about the remaining posts, so this shouldn't happen again anytime soon. I just wanted to get all my early life stories out of the way before I start talking about bigger events in my life. More to come soon, bye.
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