Playing with Heart

by John Assounga
(South Africa)

Well, my story isn't 1 that stems from great skill or whatever, but from pure heart. It starts off with my high school 1st team going to a national tournament here in SA (South Africa). I'd barely made it into the team because my form this year was really bad for some reason, but there I was very happy to be in the squad but still knowing that I was not high up in the pecking order.

We didn't do well at all, losing a lot of our games and the attitude in the squad was bad. We had a couple of guys who thought a bit too much of themselves and guys like me who'd not been with the squad weren't too sure how to handle them.

We went as far as totally rebelling against the coach 3 hours before one of our games. What ended up happening was that to teach those guys a lesson the coach made the decision to leave them out of the starting line.

The substitutions that took the benched players positions had never played the tournament before. I guess you can say that the "underdogs" were spurred on by their selection, but we knew it would be tough because the team we were playing against were the champions in their part of the country.

Despite this, we put in a MONUMENTAL effort, with guys running themselves into the ground and putting their bodies on the line and we managed to snatch a goal, scored by a player who is about 1.20m tall! We ended up winning that game 1 - 0, which many considered to be biggest shock of the tournament!

Basically, what I'm trying to say with my story is that most soccer players have the skills, fitness and all the rest, but to have that edge, to have that extra bit of heart, can really overcome any opponent!