NEEDS REVISION

SOCCER AND LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

Playing in High School and club has significant differences and I believe that comparing life before college with life after college should have common differences due to different attributes that add up the difference. Playing in both High school and club teams, I’ve experienced unique attributes to both which add up to be valid differences. Significant differences like that of expectations and commitment are unique to both programs. Even though there are huge differences between the two, there are a couple similar traits in both. Both have dedicated players who love and or enjoy playing the sport, the only place they differ is the amount of commitment and passion for different players towards the beautiful game.

This post is mostly going to focus on my personal experience in order t send across the message I want you guys to receive. I will like to strictly advice that every player’s experience is unique in their own ways, and yours is probably different from mine or someone you know. I grew up living with people who are very passionate about soccer. I started playing when I was around 3 years old and still playing to this day. Since when I was a kid, the goal was to be a professional soccer player in the future but I had never for once stopped to think about steps necessary to take to be a professional. The one thing I knew was that I am going to be so good that I am going to play for the national team at a very young age. I know you are saying that it is an absolutely ridiculous idea but it was what I grew up with. Even though it was a ridiculous idea, it was still a great goal enough for me to be motivated to be the best I can ever be. The bad thing about this idea was that I thought it would be extremely easy because I am very talented at what I do. Again, keep in my mind that I didn’t have any idea about what it takes to make it to the pros.           

I have played in a lot of different soccer academies and I really enjoyed it. Some of my friends had told me that in order to make it to the pros, I have to work my ass off day and night. I been a regular hard headed little kid didn’t believe them because I thought that it would be very easy to make it to the pros because I was naturally gifted. In the community I lived in, I was without a doubt the best player so I thought that hat will be true for the professional league too. My apparently incorrect assertion of what it takes to be a professional player began to unravel the higher level I got.

At the age of 11 I joined a travel club team called FC Fusion united. Since it is a travel team, we get to travel all around the state of Iowa and outside of the state like Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Colorado, etc. Going into numerous tournaments made me meet a lot of different talented teams with extremely good players over the years I’ve been on the team. I started question myself as been the best player my age in the country when I meet all of the great players from far and wide. When y team made it to the state tournament in the U18 boys division, K meet so many good players that I believed that I will never make it pass high school professional soccer wise. I almost quit playing the sport because I thought I wasn’t good enough compared to other players. Fortunately, my team won the state championship and had the honor to represent Iowa in the region 2 regionals championship. We played really good teams and obviously good players. Playing with good players from different states made me think that my chances were even lower to even making it into a good division 1 college team. After a heartbreaking defeat in the regionals final, I went home saying that I was quitting soccer because I wasn’t close to being good enough.

After a couple days of quitting soccer, I got contacted by a couple coaches who had seen me play at regionals, and they offered me roster spots for my graduating class. This was a major turning point in my life because it made me what I am today. Seeing that a lot of coaches were interested in me made me once again believe that I can make it really far in the beautiful game. This time, I knew that it was not even going to be close to been easy even though I am talented because of the hundreds of thousands of players competing for the same spot. I also took a different step by talking to different coaches who have seen me player, and ask them about the areas I need to work on to increase my chances of getting recruited. I watch hundreds of YouTube videos that talk about what it takes to be a player that every team wants.

You might already know where I am going with this but I am just going to explain in case you do not know.  The moral of this story is simply that, “nothing comes easy.” I grew up believing that everything will come easy because of my natural talent, but I have realized that is not the case.

My advice to all of you guys is to know that nothing comes easy no matter how good you are. Been naturally talented is very beneficial and gives you a bit of an edge over players, but you need to work hard to make your dreams come true and be the best you can ever be.

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