Weekly Review 8th – 14th November 2010 “The Penalty Miss”

Penalty Miss

Our team reached the final. 0-0 after extra time. Hundreds of people watching and this game was a chance to show everyone that I’m “the player”. Another guy in the team who wants to be pro stole the spotlight deservedly.
I was 2nd to take a penalty, in the four penalties I’ve taken in my playing career for various teams, I’ve scored all. And while i was walking up to take this, I was confident, as captain. I told my players beforehand just relax and visualise. I didn’t stress, stood tall, knew where i wanted to kick it and…………. what the f*** I missed! I held my head in shock, I was devastated, ruining the chances of what we had to win this tournament that me and my friends had been anticipating since summer. The other team won. Fuck.

Why was it this tournament I played so bad? Why were most of my dribbles taken away by crap players.

On the first day this is what I wrote: Had a crappy first day. Although I did score 3 goals from 3 games, I’m just so pissed about a few things. I mean, these guys are shit, there’s hardly ever a time where a team can string more than 5 passes without someone messing up. It’s sad, but that’s the reality of this European schools league. That’s why when I lose the ball even just once in the match I get so bloody angry, “how the f*** did that piece of crap get the ball off me! Or what the hell was that shit touch” I tell myself. And when people know on your team that your the big star who has the scholarships, I hate the thought they might start thinking that they deserve scholarships. I work roughly 3 hours a day, twice , three, four times as much as anyone else. This is why when I’m not the best on that pitch by a mile and people are not praising my performance, I want to cry.

Anyway, biggest problem was awareness of other players and first touch. Gotta have a good nights rest tonight, because if I don’t I can’t concentrate and I’ll lose the ball.

The last day: It’s been a crap tournament. Shit. I wasn’t the best player, I wasn’t confident getting the ball and making runs, I kept losing the ball. With my performance, there’s no way that if someone said oh “that guy has scholarship offers”, that they would be believe them.

So now that I’ve had a day to think, and I think I put too much pressure on myself to perform. I mean I set the expectations of myself really high, I wanted to score 10 goals in this tournament, I scored 3.. I wanted to be the best player on the pitch every game.. there was probably just one game where I played well out of the seven we played. I started getting nervous, “If I screw up, what will all my friends think of me”, they’ll say “Nick will never go pro, just look at him losing the ball.” Whatever, it didn’t work out, I didn’t play to have fun. I wasn’t smiling. And my own pressure got to me.. -_- Not the first time I’ve messed up, looking back to the trials game in the FootballCV camp back in April – I had the same thinking, or even a year ago. Here is a vid of the final

College Offers, Europe

So as it stands I basically got 8 or 9 offers here, but just maybe two or three who are “really interested.” I didn’t really have time to investigate because of the tournament, next week I’ll look more, the problem is they are not the best colleges in the country (which is what I want), so I’ve tried contacting the top schools, but they seem to have no interest, or just can’t be bothered replying to their emails. They probably get quite a few I’m guessing. A couple asked for full match videos, and my Dad took the footage of the final on Saturday but it was terrible (as in quality of filming), so I can’t use it. Anyway, what I’ve decided on is to pick a college as a fallback in case by July next year I don’t get into a pro team for whatever reason, injury, sick, or just didn’t work hard enough 😀

I talked to Janos about my offers, he said that I should use it as a fallback, and he said next year (I’m guessing in April holidays), he can arrange trials for me in Belgium, his English contact is kind of not helpful anymore. We’ll see what happens from there. But I think maybe the Fifa agent will be a bigger help on this one. So my Dad’s reading over the contract and I think I’m going to sign with him and the ZSEM company.

Next Week

20 Hours. Work on my left. Running. Dribbling. Shoot. Get my confidence back up and put everything in the past. Pick a college. Get trials. I’m 17. The future is ahead of me and it’s looking good 🙂

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Morning
Lunch		Personal Session (1:00)	(1:00 Personal Session)	Personal Session (1:30)	Personal Session (1:00)	Personal Session (0:50)
Afternoon	Personal Session (1:30)	Personal Session (1:00)	Personal Session (1:00)			Club Training (1:40)	Personal Session (2:30)
Evening		Club Training (1:40)	Club Training (1:40)	Club Training (1:40)	Personal Session (0:50)	Personal Session (1:10)
Late Evening

P.S. Josh McEachran, is going to be a fantastic player, he already is!