In my time, I have been known as an appreciator of the beautiful game…also known as an insane soccer fan. I mean, have you ever heard of a club at a college that consists of meeting weekly and discussing soccer? If you haven’t — now you have! In the fall of 2015 I began a club at my university just for that. It was me and about 10–20 guys sitting in a room discussing soccer once a week…and we also added playing together on weekends, playing FIFA, having watch parties, etc. I never for a second thought that I would help create friendships and relationships over something so simple, yet so wonderful.
The club still exists today, I believe, and I cannot wait to visit during the week and maybe one day, pop in on a meeting. Maybe they would never believe that someone like me would be the one to begin a club like that, but I’m quite proud of myself.
Now, here’s the hard truth. I took a hiatus from watching soccer games (diving back in and seeing who’s been relegated and promoted in the past few years will be awfully overwhelming, but exciting!). I’ve still got a Chelsea sticker on my car, but it’s been almost two years since I’ve seen a match. It’s a bit shameful, but the good news is that I could never fall out of love with soccer.
But I had to take a break. In grad school I barely had time to watch our university’s soccer games (due to almost never being home), and we also only had women’s soccer, which was tough because it’s so different from men’s soccer (both great, but very different). I was always working on Saturdays and Sundays during game times, and being 7 hours behind UK time was simply awful. I just lost touch. I stopped scouring the internet for live streams and figuring out what network to watch it on. I honestly stopped watching all sports on TV, and became disgruntled about crazy sports fans who only wanted to yell at refs and kids barely out of high school.
Recently, however, things have changed. Suddenly I am very interested in understanding skill acquisition — how do we learn, how do we maintain, what is the underlying neuroscience? How do our brains work, how do we process being wrong, are some people simply more optimally wired? I think part of it has come about due to my new job as a strength coach, but I also have realized I have always been this way. I love practicing. I absolutely adored the drills at water polo practice, and the dry-land exercises that served to demonstrate our overall fitness (or so I felt). Similarly, I enjoyed practicing athletic-training related things. Yet, when it came to real performance — I would choke. I would simply just falter, fail, fret, fear, in any order.
I mean, I imagine my “choking” came of a fear of failure. I did well in practice simply because I knew it wouldn’t matter if I failed — and in drills and practices, someone else is control of the situation, in a way. The thing in your way was imaginary, it was a challenge to figure out how to solve the problem, but you had time, you knew generally what was coming. But the instant I knew that everything mattered and anything could happen — it threw me, and that was that.
I was listening to a podcast with a strength coach who works at the first American soccer club I became a fan of — the Pittsburgh Riverhounds! And he talked about how his passion for sports performance came about because he genuinely appreciated the process of skill development (I’m completely paraphrasing, it was a fantastic set of sentences but that was the gist of it). It clicked for me. It made so much sense. I always said I hated going through the process of something but the truth is — that is where most of our joy in life comes from. When we see our growth, no matter how small, it is wonderful to know that we did it all by ourselves.
Coach Kara Lawson, with Duke women’s basketball, once spoke about working hard versus competing, in the wake of the COVID news — or rather, the lack of news! When she gave this little speech, absolutely no one knew when sports would resume, especially winter athletes (her team, obviously), and that had to be so incredibly tough. The plan was (and still is) to continue training and just get better. However, she said that anyone can work hard and put forth effort —
Hard work is I give you a task. I give you constraints on said task. I say, “You have to do this, in this amount of time, with this much weight, with this much load.” Whatever it is, I give you these constraints, and then I force you to do it. I can force you to work hard, just by what I ask you to do. You can force someone to work hard. You can’t force someone to compete.
It seems that competing does require hard work — but it also means that you are doing every little thing you can to be better. You could practice perfect, stand-alone 3-pointers all day long, but if you don’t put them in context of a game (which has an incredible number of unknown demands or potential contingencies), and don’t do things directly related to improvement — it isn’t going to make you the best you can be.
Reading that just now made me understand. I absolutely love hard work, but in easier circumstances when there is less at risk. It is always easier to sit in that comfort zone. But putting it in an unpredictable context (also known as life in general) is horrifying, risky, and generally dreadful. However, it’s also necessary. I’m still obsessed with understanding skill acquisition since I am working on my shooting skills and have thought about competing for just a second — but now that I am operating as a strength coach, I’m so excited to be someone who can urge my athletes to adore skill acquisition AND want to compete. I get to prepare them physically for the unpredictability of sport, but I know that I also want to be part of their mental preparation.
So, now, how did all of this help me rediscover my love for soccer — and a new love for baseball and football? Aside from now living in Georgia where football is king, I also have started working club soccer games and I get to see some of the most talented young players. Today I got to witness the top level of Georgia club soccer and it was truly incredible. I was reminded of the patience, discipline, passion, intensity, aggression, and art that goes into the game, among many other things. I was reminded of the constant thinking that must occur. Sure, there are throw-ins and slight interruptions with fouls and injuries, but — even then, you’re still trying to figure out how to frame passes and create positive situations for yourself and your team. It’s a different type of skill compared to baseball and football, which I’ve started watching again.
Baseball: short sequences of split-second thinking with many, many breaks in between. Football: short sequences of split-second thinking with breaks in between — and a coach who tells you almost exactly what to do (I’m not knocking football players, they still have to think for themselves and perform the skill at hand, it’s just different). Both these sports actually have coaches call pitches and plays before they occur, with obvious contingency plans for variations that pop up.
But if we look at soccer: longer sequences, with an occasional ability to think slower and make time/space for yourself — and you’re often thinking much further ahead. Where and how do I move to create triangles and diagonal passes? Coaches will shout and direct, but it’s often when you’re already thinking on your own or partway through a motion. There are variances to the game philosophy as well.
So, yes — it’s all about strategy. But the amount that players versus coaches make the decisions vary quite a bit. I would say that baseball and football are guessing games — you’re guessing what type of pitch they’ll use, or what kind of defense or offense they’ll use, and reacting accordingly. It’s still completely a strategy game at this point, but there are pauses for thinking — and the major decision is almost entirely based on a coach. Soccer is a free-flowing and dynamic game that requires you to think on your feet (literally), for basically 45 minutes straight (I absolutely love that media timeouts do not exist). You know how they say “slow is smooth and smooth is fast”? That’s soccer.
So how does someone like me, someone so regimented and strict — fall in love with such a free-flowing, quick yet slow game? Opposites attract, simple as that. It is everything that I am not. So then, how does someone like me — who is so obsessed with the flow of soccer — start to appreciate football and baseball again? I think I love the fact that even though coaches are more heavily involved with the game play — there is a certain amount of discipline it takes to carry out exactly what is being asked of you. In soccer, mistakes happen, but you can very quickly make things up with your next touch. In football or baseball, each decision you make seems to be more costly in the big picture. There is more risk. There are more chances to fail because if one piece falls out of place, the team must absolutely scramble to pick up the slack and it usually fails (if the receiver isn’t there, or if an outfielder drops the ball — that can destroy everything). Yet in soccer, one piece falling out of place seems to contribute to the natural ebb and flow of the game.
I also think the way that coaches have to trust their players is incredible. In soccer, there is a general game philosophy each coach latches onto. Players must deeply understand the philosophy in order to carry out what’s asked of them. The coaches must trust the players to do their jobs, and the players must trust that their coaches…trust them. In football and baseball, the demands are almost simpler. Granted, you have to know all the pitch signs, and you have to know all the crazy dance moves the QB coaches (and the QBs on the sidelines) are using. So that part is incredibly complex, but it’s like a quick “plug it in your brain and go” — it should be an almost unconscious action if you’ve trained it enough. Whereas soccer doesn’t necessarily have specific plays (except for set pieces, of course), but you have to inundate yourself with your team’s philosophy and operate as a team that chooses to respond (slow, thought-out, simple) as opposed to react (fast, messy, split-second).
So where does this leave me? I’ve realized that I love watching with people and being able to comment on objective happenings on a TV screen as opposed to guessing about politics and science and the like. I mean, obviously emotions show up if you’re a fan, but I absolutely love being calm about things now — gently disappointed, but maintaining stern expectations, hoping for success, and believing in people. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of doubt (as I do it to myself), so I maintain this begrudging positive outlook, if that makes sense. As a fan and/or as an athletic trainer who is worried about player safety more than anything (depends on what I am attending as), I enjoy listening to fans lose their minds while I stay calm and smile. I‘m not attempting to sound cocky, and I don’t intend to feel holier-than-thou, but I love that I have the option to be objective as I usually wear most or all of my emotions on my sleeves.
Plus, I just love watching because there is drama! I mean, I am absolutely holding my breath every single pitch wondering (1) what does the sign mean? (2) what kind of pitch was it? (3) did he do it right? and (4) if he messes this up is he going to psych himself out and suck? and (5) when will the coach decide that “enough is enough”? Similarly, with football, I wonder if it’ll be a pass, I wonder if they’ll try to run the ball, if the O-line can do their job, if the DBs are going to try and intercept a ball and risk pass interference? (My favorite position, those guys have a soft spot in my heart because they’re generally the smallest, like me). But I get to take breaks with those sports! I get to pause, breathe out, and comment on a decision. In soccer — there are quite a lot of gasps, “wow”s, and a mixture of curse words muttered by coaches, refs, teammates, parents, and even sometimes athletic trainers. It’s constant and if you comment on a great pass, the team is already halfway down the field and you’re onto the next great decision. The entire thing really is an art form.
This was potentially the longest thing I have ever written. But oh boy, do I feel fired up! It all makes sense now, why I have a mindset that is geared heavily towards performance — working on even the smallest things to perfect skills for ultimate performance and helping athletes become more resilient and mentally prepared. You can conduct more objective tests without too much fancy equipment (using a Vertec jump tester is sort of objective to everyone, and a pain scale is subjective to the athlete) and even though you are preparing athletes for the unpredictability of sport — you are able to frame things more objectively and heavily treat it as a science without involving as many emotions and nuances as medicine. Both involve critical thinking, but the factors that contribute to that process differ.
I have never fallen out of love with soccer, but today I was reminded of just how much I’ve changed…and how much I absolutely love it. So when people ask me what soccer means to me…it’s all of this and then some, and it’s wonderful.
