Diary Of A Goalkeeper - Part 1 - The Beginning

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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. I will start with me coming out of the youth team into the senior teams and we will go from there. I will divide it into several parts, beginning with my first season and my first disappointments, so stay tuned for this series! 😊

My Position & Background

Let’s start off with explaining what position I am even playing. I began as a Striker but quickly moved the furthest back. Yes, you guessed it I was a goalie for pretty much all the time. I was not the tallest kid on the team but I had some good reflexes and a good game understanding which is why the coaches always preferred me over other kids in goal. Until I was 13 years old I played in the highest possible leagues. We did not win many games but always were able to safe us from relegation and for not a team that has a professional seniors team it was always a big achievement!

The older I got the more I started to realize that I was just not good enough for professional football, which is why I did not focus to much on football anymore. We still played in a decent league but it was nowhere near the top. We had practice two times a week and a game on the weekend. This was about the right amount of football for a young me. I was respected by teammates and tried to get myself better in goal.

In my last youth year the manager of our senior team came up to me. He asked what I am planning to do after this season and that he really wants to see me play for the senior team. At that point I already was practicing with the team and enjoyed it really much. The pace and the intelligence of the players was just different. We were and are playing in the sixth league which is alright for a amateur footballer. Everything higher could be considered semi-professional already.

Learning Phase Starts

This brings me to my first season in the “big league”. Because the team had already a starting goalie I was planned as the back up. I was quite aware that back up goalies are not getting much playing time and that the first season was there to learn. Like I mentioned before, the pace and the physicality of football at this stage was completely different. Additionally, the number one goalkeeper was very experienced and was playing very well at that time. I started to learn some basic “time-wasting” and how you should never lose focus of the game as every mistake will be punished. On top of that our coach at that time was an ex-professional player which was amazing to me! He was always telling stories about how situations should be solved and how the game used to be so brutal.

This definitely formed me and I was enjoying competing in the training games. I did not skip any practice and it was a nice hobby to do next to university. I also started to become friends with some of the experienced players as they saw how much effort I was putting in. Furthermore, I was always humble as I knew at that point that I do not have a great chance of playing.

Harsh Reality

After half a season the “honey moon phase” was over. I started to feel inpatient and wanted to prove myself to the coach. This was the worst time ever! I started doing mistakes during practice and negative thoughts started to get into my head. I was thinking I had everything figured out and started to get into arguments with my defenders which were obviously much more experienced than me. These arguments were nothing worth mentioning but this phase just showed how light headed I took the whole situation.

It was also around the time when we prepared for the second half of the season and I would also get some friendly games in. Like you could already think, I was not able to win the spot after just half a season. This was probably obvious to everybody but it definitely showed me that I needed to work on more things. My fire started to light even more inside me and I was determined that I would get the spot if I work hard enough. This was until my first injury! In one tackling a striker rushed into me.

I injured my knee and the MRI suggested that I had a torn meniscus. This was really a shock to me as I was slowly gaining momentum again. So what do now? Usually such an injury would take around 1-2 months to heal. I decided against an operation and because I had no trouble running or playing I decided to continue to go to training. (A horrible decision as we might later see)

First Games & The Lust For More!

As the first season was coming to an end, our team was secured from relegation with two games to go. This was the time where the coach decided to give me some minutes on the pitch! I was very motivated! Our last two games were against the top teams of the league and so I painted this picture of myself to be the hero in both games. Well, the harsh reality striked again!

In both games I did perform very poorly and we conceded a total of 7 goals! Ouch! This was a hard one to take. The feedback of my coach was horrible but I knew what I had to work on the summer break. Thinking back, these two games really formed me and showed what it takes to make it in this league. After the games I only got encouraging word from my teammates as they probably saw my potential. My team manager also decided to extend my stay in this team and I was looking forward to next season!

Outlook

In the next few articles, I will talk about how I finally took over the position of the goalie and how I was doing. A little spoiler, I was finally able to fight against my first rival. The next few seasons were very interesting ones with amazing battles and a new competitor for my position. We will talk about destiny strikes and how it further changed my game as well as the whole situation around the club. As well as how my career slowly came to an end.

Published by ga38jem on
Sports Talk Social
On 20th July 2022



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Great to see that you have become a nearly a pro footballer. The practice of sporting would surely make you unique and sorry to hear about your injuries ; but doesn’t matter.

Injuries are the by-products,once you heal from it- you would be much more stronger in your own abilities to perform more.
Wishing you further success on the future. 👍

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nearly a pro footballer is really a little bit over the top but I think I tasted some of the professionalism :D

Yeah regarding the injuries I would act more different now than in my yougner years. Thank you for commenting! :)

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That’s a pressure position. People don’t tend to remember what keepers do unless it’s to make a mistake! Bit tough to put you in for the games only against the top teams.

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Yeah it was a bit bad luck but this was unfortunately the calendar for that season. Thank you for commenting! :)

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Being on the bench can be so annoying at times. I am glad you were able to start a match, this will definitely boost your confidence , next time I hope u don’t concede much goals. How is your injury?

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Right now my injuries are alright again, thanks for asking! :)

In the next Parts I will explain more and how they compromised me on the way.

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That’s good to hear.

I will be anticipating for the next part

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