“Alright start the dynamic warm up” my coach yells. We formed up into two lines and started warming up our stiff muscles, this was our 4th game in two days so we did not want to risk anything.

It was a cold morning and the dew had not been dried by the sun yet, and it felt like we were standing in a puddle.
There was a slight breeze that made it sound as if the trees were breathing. This weather takes me back to the first time I played soccer in the fall of 2007. I had played on my friends team that was coached by his dad, we had done awful because we did not know what we were doing, but it was fun.

The coaches order came back to me and I joined the warm up. After we warmed up and stretched, the referee came to check everyone in before the game started. They called us up by name and number which seemed to take a long time to accomplish.
“Now captains come to the middle” the ref said to our team.
Coach Dillon had us huddle up to tell us the starting positions for the game.

“Defence, Ned and Kyle, center backs with Justin and Avery out wide, center mids will be Andrew at the eight, and Joel at the six, and Logan at the ten, the forward will be Noah at striker and Ryan and Adam at the wings, now do keep away until the game starts.”

“Okay coach.” we all replied

That was the moment the team split up into 2 teams and started passing the ball around to avoid the opposing side of our team. We kept this until the refs blew the whistle to signal that the game will soon begin. We all moved to our spots on the field, and the ref checked with the keeper to make sure they were ready.

The ref blew his whistle again to signal the game has begun. A sudden pass was made back to Joel and I made a J shaped run to the outside and ran along the line, I yelled for the ball, I turned away for a moment to make sure that I was in the right spot and was not going to run into something. That was when I looked back up and realized the ball was flying towards me. I thought about things that I would have to do, “good settle, good first touch away from any defender.” This raced through my head as the ball was coming towards me. The opposing defence was not ready for the sudden offencive movement. This is some reasons I found I love to play soccer, the rush of adrenaline when you might score a goal, making the defenders look silly, it all build up to an amazing game. As the ball flyes through the air I cut in slightly toward the goal and when the ball comes to be, I flick it over the right back's head out of the air. A sudden roar of “OHHH” comes from our bench as I race past the defender taking a touch up the line progressively make my way towards the goal. I probably would not have been able to do that a month ago, but I had been practicing and practicing, demanding my own perfection to get the small things mastered. The center back comes at me to fast and I simply cut forward then toward him fast kicking the ball between his legs. Another “OHHH” from the sideline.

These are the kinds of moments that I love. You realize you do something amazing, you feel a pride and confidence in yourself. Now after that day I keep practicing and keep improving so I can keep living those moments of awe in my own ability. This was something I had gotten good at when taking special soccer training at Aaron Byrd to get better at doing skills on the ball. We are close to the goal and Noah and Adam were in the box. But there was nobody around to stop me at the moment and I raced for the goal. I was at the edge of the box and the other center back rushed to cut me off, but by doing this he had open the center of the field and I passed the ball to Noah and called for a one two and he played the ball at a slight angle behind the defender back to me. This was it the moment of truth, only the keeper stood in the way of me and the goal. He stated to rush to get the ball from me, but I anticipated this and faked a shot to the right, he got low and started to move that way, that was my chance, I hit the ball lower than an average shooting spot, getting under the ball and chipping it over the keepers head. Goal.