A sport that has remained constant to me throughout my high school journey has been football and as I returned for one last SAISA (South Asian International Schools Association) Girls’ Football, I was nostalgic but eager to play on the pitch one last time as a Gecko. I still remember my very first SAISA in 8th grade, where we traveled to Mumbai and came just 6th place. 4 years later, I returned to the season knowing it was my last.
We started this season, as always, with a new team. Many of our players returned from last year, however, there were still many new players with various talents to offer. We spent a lot of time getting back into the football mentality, as worked with each other to raise the bar high for the geckos this year. The support and strength my team gave me was indescribable. The girls are each so passionate, motivated, dedicated, and inspirational on and off the pitch, which was the driver of my improvement from the season. The competition for a place on the team was intense and pushed me to give every practice my all.
I returned to the season ready to play as my original position: a defender. But, I left as a striker. Now, some may wonder how this happened and in all honesty, I still don’t know. Our coach believed that my comfort as a defender was the only thing preventing me from trying different positions on the pitch and as much as I liked to deny this: it’s true. Playing a new position was me leaving my comfort zone and developing a new skill. At first, I was not keen to have practiced the skills of being a defender for the last four years, only to be a striker in my last year. But, it was a challenge I took as an order, and it turned out better than I had ever expected. I scored in almost every game we played prior to SAISA and worked with the others of my team to improve on my weaknesses.
As I mentioned in my post from last year, some of the main components I wanted to work on were: attitude, collaboration, and my position as a defender. I maintained these goals throughout the season and now seek to improve in different areas of the sport. 3 new goals I have set for this season are speed, partner passing, and communication.
Speed. Speed is an essential part of my new position due to the lack of opportunities there are to shoot a goal and score. Speed allows for a player to get to the baller faster than the opposing team, which for a striker is very important as I need to get past defenders to score. Practicing sprints, keeping good fitness, and having a healthy lifestyle (sleep, diet, etc.) are some of the many things I will do to meet this goal and achieve the level of speed I desire and need to take on my position at it’s best.
Partner Passing (One-Twos). A technique our coaches taught us this season and has been putting a lot of emphasis on is “One-Twos”, which is when one player passes the ball to another (on either side) and they pass it back are a touch or two. This technique is used when a defender/midfielder from the opposing team is approaching the player with the ball and needs to pass the ball but continue moving in the same direction. This way, the strikers or midfielders can continue to move in the same pathway without losing possession of the ball to the other team. This technique is critical for my position since there will be many situations where I will have the ball and a defender will try to take it away from me. Another goal I have for this season is to practice One-Twos and get used to working with them as the player passing the ball out or back to the player who initially had it.
Communication. Finally, my last goal is communication between my team. I like to consider myself an effective communicator on the pitch, however, I am still quite unaware of the calls and signals I need to make to the other player in my team as a striker. The main types of calls are “One-Two” and during corners when I alert to the player taking the corner where to aim by shouting the position in the box. In most cases, I call “penalty spot” and “far/near post”, however, I still need to practice communicating quickly and identifying the type of play I want to make when attacking. The only practice for this is when we do corners in practice, as there are not many other situations I will face where I will have the same circumstances.