Hello Tribe! Now that the season is slowly getting started again I wanted to talk about my personal “career” in football. I was playing for quite some time now and I wanted to share with you some stories that I experienced along the way. Today is the next episode of my football path and we start off right where we left last time! It was the end of the season and it was announced that I will get two new competitors. I will talk you trough the next season as well as how my mental and physical conditions changed. We will talk about the season in general and what roller coaster ride this next season would be for me and my team. With a small sneak peak, let’s get started!
New Season – New Competitors
Like mentioned above, the new season had some surprises for me in store. The first one being that I did not only get one new competitor but a second one as well. We started into the pre-season with two new goalkeepers. The first one was a very tall and athletic goalie. He was not very experienced but very cocky and because I am not the tallest goalie he was a hundred percent certain that he will get the starting sport. The other goalkeeper was the son of our sponsor. He was very young and talented but it was quickly clear that he only got into the team because of his connections. Don’t get me wrong, he was at a very good level but it was just too early for him to start in this team.
The pre-season went well and I had some good games in there. The pressure was high because the cocky competitor tried to play some mind games. My big advantage was that I was playing in this team for fun. I never had a big pressure because I had other things in life to focus on as well. Nevertheless, whenever I was on the pitch I made sure to give it my all and consistently improve. This is also what my coach saw and because he already had history with me he trusted me to play the first few games. This was completely against the belief of the cocky goalie which is why he immediately wanted to transfer out of our club. In the end he was successful and left a more than bad standing in our club.
Great Start To The Season
After this turbulent pre-season, we started very well into my third season. Because we were historically fighting against relegation, we were very happy with our 10 points out of the first 4 games. It was almost the maximum and we played against two championship contenders. After this we played a very solid first half and were sitting in fifth spot with around 8 points to a place which would allow us to participate in play-offs to the next higher league. Pretty thrilling for a team that was always fighting against relegation.
For me it was a very cool experience as we had a very solid attack and were always capable of scoring goals. I was able to contribute to this great position with a few great games and I started to command more from the back. Knowing that the coach and the team is having your back, gives you a lot more confidence and allows you to play without the fear of making mistakes. With my competitor being not at a competitive level it also requires you to push yourself all the time which is why the self-motivation game in this season was very important.
Shock in the Middle Of The Season
Going into the winter break we suffered a big shock! The person that was running our team, our manager so to speak, suffered a hearth attack. He died with the age of only 45 and it was very surprising as he was one of the fittest people I ever saw. Because our team is a big family, this hit very hard. The whole club was at his funeral and the coach was even considering to retire. After a long discussion and a big effort by the team the main consensus was that the show must go on.
The problem with that was, that such a loss is very hard to compensate. We bottled the first few games after the restart and were out of ranged for this play-off spot. This is when we had a big team meeting. We all agreed to put everything aside and focus on just this one thing: Getting to the play-offs! We wanted to make our friend proud and very playing very emotionally from this point on.
Real Winning Rush
We managed to get ourselves into a rush. From the next 10 games we were able to win all of them and we played some great football. We were definitely the hottest team in this league and we even had a realistic chance of getting the title at some point. Unfortunately for us, there were two other teams that were equally playing well. In order to understand the scenario, I have to explain the ruling in our league. From the 18 teams that are playing in this division, only one team is getting promoted. The second place will play play-offs and the last 4 teams are getting relegated.
Before the last 3 games, we had a big chance to get the title. We just needed to win against the first place. Unfortunately, we did not make it and lost this game, which was fair. This team deserved to get promoted because of their individual class. On the other hand we still had the fight going on with the other team for second place. With just 2 games to play, we were tied on points and already played against each other twice. Because we had the better goal difference by a mile we just needed to win the two games.
K.O. In Last Second
Both of the teams won the penultimate game which left us with one game to go. We knew that if we win this game, we will be in the play offs. The pressure was high and everybody was excited for this game. It was an away game almost three hours from home. This was the longest bus ride we ever had and coming there, there were already hundreds of fans. Now, to put this into perspective, our home games have usually something like 50 to hundred watchers. This was a completely different thing. The reason was that our opponent was the only team that was playing very high in this area which is why they had pretty much the monopoly on fans.
Our team was very nervous and we had the worst start to this game that you could imagine: After five minutes we conceded a very dumb corner kick which had us on the back foot. But because this time around we were always able to score goals, we quickly turned it around to make it 3-1 to half time. When sitting in the dressing room we got the message that our main competitor won their game. This meant for us that we needed to win our game as well. It was just 45 minutes left and everybody was confident in themselves.
The second half started very promising. We missed some sitters to make it 4-1 and then the troubles began for us. It was a game with very little highlights but with the 80th minute the opponent got a penalty. Due to my game-prep I knew where there main penalty scorer is going. I was even able to safe the penalty! But unfortunately the rebound was only a sidenote for their striker. The score was now 3-2 and our team started panicking. Instead of staying calm and keep the ball we kicked it up the field and gave away position very easily. The fans around us knew that there is something to get from us here and our opponents knew as well.
It was minute 90 plus 5: The game was almost over now when their goalkeeper pounded a last long ball into our box. Somehow the ball got to the wing and a cross reached their striker. I can still remember this scene like it was yesterday. He headed the ball to my right and I made two side steps and dived after it. I was able to deflect it to the post from where the ball jumped against my back. The ball was now laying on the goal line and because their striker had the better positioning he was able to push it over the line. Goal. Final Whistle. All Dreams Are Crushed. It was one of the hardest games in my entire career and I would consider this game the most dramatic one.
After this disappointing finale our team grew together even more and we decided to give it another try in the next season. This is also when my competitor got very impassionate with his role as second goalkeeper and tried everything to get my spot away from me. This is what we will talk about in the next episode then! 😊
Published by ga38jem on
Sports Talk Social
On 3rd August 2022
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