Nahush Seecharan 2/28/22

Through Struggle Comes Appreciation

Commentators screaming, players fighting, fans raving- these are the things most people

would think of when prompted with the topic of soccer. Being acquainted with the sport for well

over a few years, I have witnessed all three of these things first-hand more times than I could

recall. However, my perspective on the sport has never defaulted to just these three things.

Growing up in a bad neighborhood, I was taught by my parents to come straight home after

school and to not leave the house as a child under any circumstances. I vividly remember the first

few summers that my family spent in this country as some of the worst on record when it comes

to the heat index, and staying indoors within an apartment lacking any air conditioning at all did

little to remedy the effects of the heatwaves. This, coupled with the pent up energy that I stored

as a child, pushed me to conceive ways to sneak out of the house frequently. Simply to feel the

fresh air against my face or to relish any passing breeze that might have blessed me, if I were to

be so lucky, I would crawl through windows much to the dismay of my parents who worried

endlessly about my safety.

This cycle yielded to my family and I finally moving into a better neighborhood,

allowing me to stay out after school for extended periods of time, without the need to worry

about my safety as much. Naturally, I sought to make the most out of this development by

signing up for all of the programs and extracurriculars that would keep me out of my home for

the most amount of time, as to make up for all the time lost in my previous years. While this only

lasted a year, being the final grade of middle school, just one of these programs translated into

my high school career, being soccer. As piano lessons were dropped due to frustration and

baseball was dropped due to my not knowing how to play (and my lack of willingness to learn),
soccer was different. It was a lot more simpler than other sports- kicking a ball is fairly easy, to

an extent- and growing up in a Caribbean family, I watched soccer all the time and because of

this, knew a fair amount about the sport. While this did give me something to do in high school,

and while it was still extremely enjoyable, there was just one caveat: I wasn’t very good at it.

The thing about going to a relatively small high school is that, if you want to join a sports

team, you’re probably going to get in regardless of how good you are due to the lack of student

population. Joining the school soccer team was as easy as signing a few documents and attending

practice weekly. However, what I had failed to consider before signing my soul away to my

school’s soccer coach was that this was dramatically different from playing soccer in middle

school. Where in middle school, teams were carved out of whoever was on the team within the

school and then pitted against each other for no real stakes during no real tournament, in high

school, we were to play other schools’ teams every weekend in a borough-wide tournament with

a real cash prize. I still reminisce about the first time I showed up for practice. It was in my

school’s multipurpose field, and the first interaction I had with my new coach was him yelling at

me for forgetting my cleats at home that day, resulting in me having to sit on the sidelines,

watching my would-be teammates practice without me.

This ended up being a blessing in disguise for me, however, as I was able to take a

moment, digest, and reflect on what was going on in front of me. I sat on the metal bleachers,

plopping down my backpack and assuming a slouching position as I looked around, with not

much else to do. It was a cool, sunny autumn day. I counted how many trees surrounded our

field, I noted the quality of the fence surrounding our field, and I noted the apparent texture of

the pitch in front of me, as I shifted my focus to the training that was going on. I closed my eyes

and listened to the sounds of the soccer ball being kicked around, with my coach’s once
intimidating voice just minutes before, now likened to a conductor leading his orchestra,

attempting to turn cacophony into harmony. What used to be an outlet to mindlessly funnel my

energy into for the sake of exactly that, eventually started to become a scene where I could relax

and appreciate the game differently, from the sensoric beauty to the satisfaction of playing.

While I didn’t particularly hate my time on the bleachers that day, I made sure to bring

my cleats the following week to take part in practice myself. I decided to arrive to practice early

to acquaint myself with the field, as well as the feel of a soccer ball that I had missed out on

since leaving middle school a summer ago. However, before going on the actual pitch and

putting on my cleats and socks, I did something that I hadn't done before when going onto a

soccer field. I went on the pitch, barefoot, and imposed a sensory trip onto myself. I noted the

feeling of the pitch under my toes, I noted the feeling of being surrounded by hundreds of feet of

artificial grass, and I noted the sounds that I heard around me, all of which ended up quelling my

nerves a lot. Only after this, did I allow myself to actually put on my cleats and other appropriate

wear to start practicing, and this would go on to become somewhat of a routine for myself to

dispel any negative emotions or thoughts going in.

That practice, I played extremely poorly, which is to be expected. I had never played real

soccer with actual players who cared about the sport before, and I was out of my league and

comfort zone. However, an expected feeling of adrenaline and panic on the pitch was replaced by

one of calm and mellow as, every time I got tackled, every time my knee grazed the rough turf,

every time I miskicked the ball and got stick from my coach and teammates, I would make a

mental note to myself to improve a certain thing, and move on. Rather than hating myself or the

game for my shortcomings, I turned all of my negative emotions into appreciation for the sport

and all that came with it. I was playing the game completely differently, and because of this, I
was seeing the sport completely differently. A steady few months followed, which saw me

improve drastically due to my stoicism, and the season ended with us missing out on qualifying

for the next round of the tournament. While the sport was still my source of physical activity and

a way for me to exert energy, it was also my relaxation and what I derived much of much of my

sense of self-satisfaction from, and I ended up sticking with it.

The following school year proved to be fruitful for both my team and I, as well over a

year had passed since I started practicing and my improvements were appa-rent, yet still not

enough to earn myself a starting spot on the team- not that this was my goal at any point.

Furthermore, we ended up qualifying for the next round of the tournament. I didn’t pay too much

mind to this development, as I knew that I wouldn’t be playing so much as a single minute of

these games, seeing as though they were high stakes games, and I still wasn’t good enough to be

starting for the team. However, this train of thought was quickly scrapped when one of our best

players, our central defensive midfielder, was set to miss the final game of this round of the

tournament with an injury. We needed to win this game to move on to the final rounds of the

tournament, and with not many people to fall back on, my coach decided to include me in the

starting line-up for that match.

If my soccer career thus far was a television show, then this game was definitely a season

finale of sorts for me. I had been improving steadily, and if I played this game well, it would

cause the coach to want to play me in more games from there on out. I decided to view this

mishap as an opportunity for me, and I gratefully spent the days following this match practicing

relentlessly. The day quickly came around, and as I entered the modest but well-kept field, I felt

the soft breeze brush against my face as I was liberated from the real world and beckoned into

my safe space, of sorts. As always, I follow my pre-game routine. Before putting on my cleats
and socks and joining my team for warm-ups, I walk barefoot onto the soccer field and relish the

pitch beneath my feet, every step I take allowing the turf to envelop the tool that I would later

use to defend my school and community. Hundreds of strands of artificial grass tickle my heel, a

feeling that, by this point, I’m all too familiar with but still enjoy all the more. However, my

trance is soon shaken by inward dialogue of inadequacies and anxiety. Eventually, the breeze

against my face became uncomfortable and brisk, and the fake grass tickling my feet became

needles jabbing my wellbeing. The very thing that my routine was supposed to dispel was now,

for the first time, taking the wheel: nervousness. Eventually, my now malicious trance is shaken

by the gravelly bellows of my coach ordering me to return to the other side of the pitch for

practice. With movement as shaky as my breath following my bout of panic, my body meanders

towards my teammates with my mind elsewhere.

The match went underway, and for most of it, I did my part fairly well. I assumed a

mostly defensive role, as this was the role of the person who I was replacing, so most of my

contributions came in the form of tackles, or simple short passes. It was winding down to the last

ten minutes of the match, and we were already a goal in the lead thanks to an early shot my

teammate had scored in the opening half. We needed a win to progress, and a win is what we had

at the time. However, with just a few minutes to go, the ball fell to my feet. With a teammate

running beside me calling for the pass, and a teammate running far past me also calling for a

pass, my mind shut off. The sounds of my teammates’ conflicting shouts reawakened some of

the pre-match anxiety that I was feeling, and I froze, falling into a panic attack of sorts.

Eventually, I did force myself to pass the ball, but it was extremely wayward and fell to a player

of the opposition team. My heart sank as one pass led to another, and we were scored on. With
the score now at 1-1, the referee blew the whistle signifying the end of the game, and with a

draw not giving us enough points, we were knocked out of the tournament.

I was devastated after the match, overwhelmed by the feeling of letting my teammates

down. Despite my mistake, my teammates were all very supportive of me and even took me out

to ice-cream after the game was done, knowing I’d be downtrodden. Although I had known that I

learned a lesson that day, later, I would realize that what I had taken away from that day was far

from what I had initially thought. Although at the time, I was appreciative of my teammates for

not being harsh on me and my coach not being disappointed in me in the slightest, the main

takeaway from this has little to do with the reactions from my surrounding team and everything

to do with what happened in the following months. I did stop playing soccer for a while, but

quickly resumed the following school year, back to my usual routine on my school’s soccer team.

In reality, this “season finale” of sorts is no different than what I had done everyday throughout

the journey of my soccer career thus far. I fell, I kept my cool, I got back up, and I improved.

This is what I had been doing with my self-imposed stoicism at every failure during practice, and

this is what I had executed on a larger scale following my blunder. To me, this is what soccer is

about. The commentators screaming, the fans raving, and the players fighting are all core

elements of soccer culture, sure, but in reality, soccer is all about failure and how we react to

failure. The sport is symbolic of determination, work ethic, and how much you’re able to

dedicate yourself to the sport above all. Because of my experience in soccer, I am now able to

face failure in unique ways and turn a process of struggle into an appreciation for something,

likening it to the beautiful sport that I had the privilege of acquainting myself with during high

school.