Soccer isn't an easy sport. The hardest thing abut it is the amount of practice that it takes. And that takes years. For example, I practice 5 times a week, each week. That adds up to 31,200 minutes I spend with my yeam. That doesn't count the time away from my team I spend playing. Yes, it is a lot to do, but the reward is a lot greater than the amount of stress put into it. Soccer is the definition of a team sport. If you are on a team with only one special player, you will not be sucessful. That player is probably not good enough to beat an entire offesnsive line, then a whole, strong midfield, and then shut down a huge defense, then get past the goalie. He or She will need help. They will need support. Someone always covering them, always having their back, always alert and aware of where they are.
I played on one soccer team ever since I was 7 years old. That team is called North East United,
NEU Website or "NEU." I started when I was very young, and I played all the way until early 6th grade. Let me take you on that journey.
I started out in rec soccer when I was 7. I was playing on a very loose soccer team, one that did not care about how many practices you make, or how many games you play, or even how good you are, because the whole purpouse of it was simply to have fun. Fun was the goal. Fun was the prize. If we lost, we had fun doing it. At this time, I was playing forward/center mid. Every time before a game, I wouldn't care how bad or good I played, because I was 7. I wasn't thinking about the quality of the game, or my pass completion rate, because, like I said, I was 7. That only lasted for about 2 years.
When I was 9, in 3rd grade, the objective was to get at least a little bit better, not just have fun, although fun was still 80% of the goal. Durring this time, instead of learning how to kick the ball with our laces instead of out toes, we learned how to do give-and-goes, how to chip the ball, and how to hit hard, straight balls on the ground. Our team back then was called "Sisu", which means "go" in finnish. To this day, I don't know why my coach, Shawn, decided to name us that, but I couldn't change that. At this time, our competition was very similar to us. They were local teams looking to kickstart their players' soccer skills and passtion, pushing them to get better, while still keeping in mind their age and skillset. Before each game, I thought about how I wanted to encorperate what we practiced in training. Maybe throw in a couple maradonnas, and try to nutmeg someone. This stage of my soccer journey only lasted one year.
The next year, In U10, (under 10 years old), things stepped up a couple levels. Having fun was only 75% percent of the game, and getting better and pushing yourself was 25% the goal. I clearly remember my new coach, James, saying "It's not U9 anymore". By this, I think he meant that instead of bringing our happy spirit and joyful presence, we needed to bring a little bit more to each training session. We needed to bring our focus, awareness, and need to get better. Trainings looked more like a set warm up, including lots of stretching, and then running lots of the same drills over and over agian, to try and get them printed into our minds. Before a game, I would think about the things I didn't want to happen. The things I wanted to prevent, such as letting my man get passed me, and making bad passes. Ultimatley, I wanted to make my coach proud. This only lasted a year.
In U11-U13, I really noticed a change in the atmosphere. We started running and doing a lot more conditioning, a sign that other teams would become faster and stronger and ready to compete, not just have fun. We also got a new coach, Andy, the father of 2 twins, Liv and Elle. Andy was a big guy, short but large, full of muscle as mass. He looked like he just walked out of a barbeque commercial. He always wore a big, blue, puffy coat, and a back nike golf hat. He was a tough coach. At around this time, I switched to playign goalkeeper. Our team didn't have a goalie, so I decided to give it a try, and I fell in love with it. But it still wasn't at the level that I wanted it to be at.Before games, I would think to myself,
Don't let in any easy goals. Remember to look as big as possible. Just play the game to the best of your abilites.
After that, I decied to switch teams. I made a huge change.
ECNL Website) team, and I made the team as a goalkeeper. The whole thing was so different. If felt like I was playing a whole new game. A whole new sport. My clubs motto is, "You earn the right to play" That was a big step up from "You have the right to play". Every player has to fight for their spot. Fight for their minutes on the pitch. And by no means will each player get equal playing time. This is a whole new experience. The competition is the best in the game. I'm talking some teams that could beat club teams 3 years older than them, male or female, without a struggle. Teams that can connect 30 concecutive passes up the field, then hammer a shot from the 18 that drives right past the keeper, and buries right in the back of the net like a fist to the gut. These teams are the definition of elite. We also started to travel. Our first trip with the team was in January, where we went to compete in the ECNL Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona.
I decided to try out for the FC Portland ECNL (Elite Clubs National League)
I was chosen out of the 26 players on my team into 16 player squad to compete. We will also be traveling to Idaho, Colorado, Texas and California in the future to compete against the some of the best teams in the world. Specifically the best team in the world. 7 time world champions, South California. Each of the players on that team have been hand picked from the best section of the best team in the best league from the best parts of the state, and then narrowed down to the strongest, fastest, most skilled, best 16 players in the world. Before a game at that level, you cannot over think. In fact, you dont want to think at all, because if you do, you will start to think about the fact that you have never beaten this team, the changes of you beating this team are 1 in a billion, and these girls are twice the size of most of the players on your team, and all 3 of their forwards were selected to play for the U15 US national team, and you have almost no chance of saving any of their shots. So instead, you keep your mind totally blank until the ref blows the starting whistle. They you turn on that switch. The switch that makes you have machine like acuracy with every kick, the agressivness of a grissly bear, and the soccer brain of Lionel Messi.
After I joined that team, I noticed a lot. I noticed a lot. I noticed that the goal pretty much the same the whole time, from NEU to ECNL. The goal was to have fun. The only difference was during early NEU, all you had to do was play to have fun. But in ECNL, having fun means that you have to be playing your best. Doing everything you can to stop them from getting the ball in your net. Thinking before you make every pass. That was how you had fun. Becuase if you didn't do that, the worst that could happen was you would have the best team in the world coming down your throats, putting all of your hard work at risk, while in NEU, the worst that could happen is you getting the ball kicked away from you for a second.
Having fun is the game goal for both of the teams, but the difference is what you need to do to have fun.
