Soccer Confidence

by Kate
(Texas)

As a teenager playing club soccer, I have felt many different kinds of pressure. Pressure to be stronger, pressure to be faster, pressure to learn more moves, but I've also felt the pressure to quit. Some of my team mates didn't like me, and it was hard to feel valuable on the field while I had girls laughing at every mistake I made. The funny thing is, I was already captain of my team. I should have felt great, right? Wrong. Even I feel down sometimes.

But this time was different. I really thought that this is the end for me. Despite the urge to quit, I told myself that this summer I was going to get better. I took private lessons with an old trainer. I thought it wouldn't help, but something he said made me realize that I'm just going to have to persevere. He said to me "Coaches in America these days don't always know what they are doing".

They think soccer is drill after drill after drill. How often does that stuff happen in games? Almost never. What do you want to learn? Tell me what you feel you are doing wrong, and I will show you many ways that you can fix it. But that is all I can do. I will show you what I know, and it's up to you to put it into your game and make the decision when the time comes.

I'm afraid that many kids these days quit when they feel bad about not doing a drill right in practice. They don't realize that just seeing and trying the technique will help them. They learn what they can do in a game, or maybe they learn what they shouldn't do. But they are learning something, which will help them whether they know it or not. Let me just tell you now, don't ever give up." He doesn't know it, but he changed my perspective that day. I'm not a quitter anymore.