I often ask myself “what will I be when I grow up?” or “what am I doing with my life?” I never really liked anything else besides soccer. I’ve always told myself I wanted to be a lawyer, a teacher or even a doctor. But isn’t that what every lost teenager says? We all have something that helps us relieve stress and just lets us get away from our problems for a little while. Well my little get away was always soccer. It’s always there and it’s not something I have to look for and wait around for.
A lot of people play their sport just because one day they want to make money for it. Half of the teens that are playing their sport I guarantee wouldn’t be playing it if it wasn’t for the money. You see on social media all the time, kids always taking selfies at the gym or taking pictures of the basketball court. But are they really working? So many of us just do it for the looks and some likes. I play soccer because I want to. It’s a part of me and I don’t know what my life would be without it. I play for the love of the game not for the money. I mean becoming pro would be cool and all but that’s not why I am doing this.
I remember when I was about 9 years old and I played for a mini rec team my dad’s friend made. At that time I only played because my mom didn’t want me to get addicted to Facebook and other social media websites. I remember the first time I kicked that soccer ball at my first official practice. It gave me such a rush and at that moment I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I played on the rec team for a couple years and my dad realized I actually had something I looked forward to in life and he had signed me up for a real select team. I had to tryout obviously. So far in my almost 7 years of playing soccer I’ve tried out multiple times for multiple teams and I’ve always made the team I wanted. But yet to this day I get so nervous and scared every time I put that tag with my number on my leg. I always tell myself that if you can believe you can achieve and that’s how I get by in tryouts. Because if you tell yourself you can do it then you really can, you just need to trust yourself and work for it.
A lot of people play their sport just because one day they want to make money for it. Half of the teens that are playing their sport I guarantee wouldn’t be playing it if it wasn’t for the money. You see on social media all the time, kids always taking selfies at the gym or taking pictures of the basketball court. But are they really working? So many of us just do it for the looks and some likes. I play soccer because I want to. It’s a part of me and I don’t know what my life would be without it. I play for the love of the game not for the money. I mean becoming pro would be cool and all but that’s not why I am doing this.
I remember when I was about 9 years old and I played for a mini rec team my dad’s friend made. At that time I only played because my mom didn’t want me to get addicted to Facebook and other social media websites. I remember the first time I kicked that soccer ball at my first official practice. It gave me such a rush and at that moment I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I played on the rec team for a couple years and my dad realized I actually had something I looked forward to in life and he had signed me up for a real select team. I had to tryout obviously. So far in my almost 7 years of playing soccer I’ve tried out multiple times for multiple teams and I’ve always made the team I wanted. But yet to this day I get so nervous and scared every time I put that tag with my number on my leg. I always tell myself that if you can believe you can achieve and that’s how I get by in tryouts. Because if you tell yourself you can do it then you really can, you just need to trust yourself and work for it.
I’ll never forget the summer when I went to Bosnia for a month to visit family and during that short period of time I only saw my grandparents because every morning I would wake up and eat breakfast and run down to the school and play soccer with all the other guys in the village. My dad would tell me to come home when the street light turned on and about every day for one month I would leave the house at 8 am in the morning and come home at about 9;30 pm. I knew that when I came back to America I would be way better than I had ever been because I spent my entire vacation playing soccer. We played on the empty courtyard in front of the school and it was all concrete and the goals were just 2 poles someone had put on the cement. My foot skills had improved a ton and I never was so excited to play the sport that I loved!
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Only thing I dread about soccer is the nasty smell of my cleats and shin guards. There is nothing worse than coming home from a hot game and taking off your socks and your sweaty shin guards. Once your shin guards smell bad they will never ever smell good ever again. I always tell myself that it doesn’t matter the type of cleats I get it just matters of how hard I play in those cleats so my cleats aren’t anything special. And I’m totally okay with that. As long as I can play soccer I’ll be happy.
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