Last few football practices
I’ve been practicing football with the OSC football team since 9th grade, I haven’t traveled for any tournaments due to costs but I developed a lot in football, especially with understanding and taking decisions. Every year in football my goals have been linked to showing commitment, identifying my own strengths and develop areas for growth, and demonstrating skills and benefits of working collaboratively. This is my final year of high school and I’m focusing on the same goals. In my final year of high school there were a lot of work pressure so I couldn’t attend all 3 days of practice but I managed to play twice a week.
2019-20 football season at OSC was very short because schools got closed due to corona virus. In those few practices I was able to perform on the field and develop my skills in dribbling, ball control, defense, and shooting. During all of the training sessions I attended, we practiced the basic drills in football such as passing, shooting, etc. however within the next practice we began practicing some set game pieces. According to our coach, the set pieces we were playing were used by professionals in Premier League football for which I was very excited to learn more advance game set pieces. It gave me an opportunity to involve in a game play which we watch on televisions. During these sessions I was able to demonstrate my skills by engaging in these set pieces by playing at different positions on the field. I demonstrated my skills of playing at a defender position, then moved forward to a mid-fielder position, and eventually a striker position during practices. In all these positions I identified that different skills are required to succeed in certain positions in football. Such as at defender I required more passing techniques than dribbling where else at a mid-fielder position I had to acquire crossing techniques to cross the ball into the goal box.
The last football session which I played ended with a game against Gateway in which I was able to execute my learning from training sessions into action. During that game the travelling students were the priority but I was able to play in the last portion of the game. The game was a challenge but I was able to communicate with other teammates and get involved with the game set pieces we performed. I think that game was much required for me to understand the practical use of the learning from the training’s sessions. Other than that the game against Gateway also showed me that taking instant decisions is a big part of football because there were many occasions throughout the game where I had to change my thinking of the game and performance due to the sudden breakdown of our set plays or opposition pressure. These experiences are very valuable for me because I learned a lot from it, and developed myself on the field.
Images weren’t taken due to the unexpected closure of the soccer sessions.