My Illustrious Career as a Soccer Player

Practice to Not Play

Photo by Tobias Flyckt on Unsplash

My career as a soccer player began on the plains of Ostrobothnia on the West Coast of Finland. The region is currently famous for giving rise to the popular music and comedy group, KAJ. The peculiar dialects of the region mixed with a stoic and self-deprecating sense of humor is often seen battled out on the soccer field in small villages. People here aren’t necessarily introverts, but they’re also not blabbermouths. They speak when they’ve something worth saying.

Sports and physical activities are actions. Ostrobothnians seems to admire people to act instead of speak. So, soccer is admired for that reason. It can also be played during winter, when snow covers the ground. Since I didn’t have a career in ice hockey you must seek out other reports about that sports.

Needless to say, Finland is much stronger in that sport on the world arena than soccer. Finland’s global weakness in soccer is perplexing but real. I will explain how I contributed to that weakness. It began in high school, and we must go back that far to understand the crux of my soccer career.

A women’s soccer team was formed in my village, and my good friends asked me to join. This was an exciting opportunity, I thought. A team sport, fun with friends, great chance to get in better shape — so yes, of course I joined the team with little or not experience except those few hundred meters I ran on the field during P.E. class.

It’s possible I showed up to practice without soccer shoes or shin guards. Since my cousin played for a Division I league, he had a box of old soccer shoes, and it’s possible that I inherited a pair from him.

The next time I went to practice I saw the girls put on shin guards that looked liked reinforced socks. The protection area ran from the front of the foot almost all the way up to the knee. I needed something like this, I quickly realized. I knew a player or two who could easily kick my shin bone in half, or at least bruise it for a month.

This is where my real struggle began. My parents were not particularly enthusiastic about my new sports hobby. They found a roundabout way of expressing that if I needed shin guards that bad then I should buy some. At that time I worked on and off at a supermarket that also sold department store items. I went to the sport section and picked out small plastic shin guards that were inserted into the sock itself. These tiny shin guards were then prevented from moving up and down by taping painters’ tape around the ankles and below the knees. To make everything look more fashionable I turned down the soccer socks over the tape. Now I had a small but potentially effective area of protection on a small part of my shins. It counted!

Next step was playing in an actual soccer game. It was a home game, or maybe it was an away game, I can’t remember. This is when I understood why soccer has so many players on the team. I was not brought out on the field as a starter. I was brought out on the field as a back-up the last ten minutes of the game. When everything was already settled. OK, I thought, I’ll get more play time next time!

Sometimes we crammed everyone into two small cars and drove to an away game in the light spring evenings. Partial referees two counties over in a Finnish speaking area made sure we lost, but we always preserved our sense of humor. It was the most fun part of the entire sport, the team and togetherness. The long drives to and from the games crammed in small cars racing through the Ostrobothnian landscapes.

The team was composed of high school girls and women with families. It was a hilarious combo of innocence and experience, and a great way to better understand other human beings! Our coach was a local man a few years above me in school. I can’t say how effective he was as a coach, but he had us run drills and planned out the team before each game. And I kept waiting for him to give me more play time.

I didn’t. But back then I didn’t think much of it until my dad kept asking me how much play time I got in the game. He kept asking again and again. And each time a sense of escalating shame washed over me. I barely got to play at all.

So I took a look at my soccer skills. I was quite fast. I played left field. My dribble skills were medium. I wasn’t great, not horrible, I was medium. But was everyone else on the team so much better? At that time I thought so. I was the weakest player and that is why the coach only gave me a few minutes on the field each game. I was doing more harm than good so best to have me warm the bench on the sideline.

But what about those times I was on the field, and got hold of the ball, and ran fast with it and heard my home supporters scream encouragements? I remember a specific home game when that happened and that is my fondest soccer memory. A group of older boys were yelling my name and encouraging me. I felt myself run faster and playing better. I knew I could be better. I was just not given enough time on the field, in the actual game itself.

So, driving a couple of hours into the Finnish countryside and only getting 15 minutes on the field began to get on my nerves. Sure, it was fun to support my team but this was not playing soccer. This was spectating soccer.

Before the last game of the season my dad spoke to the coach and told him he better put me on the field — and this is where the record scratch sound comes in and the movie stops for a moment, because I need to tell you something else.

I was not the popular kid. That was the reason I got so little play time on the field. That is still embarrassing to spell out here but this happens in soccer teams all of the world today. Some kids just get to play more. It’s reality. Wait, they get to play more because they’ve got parents who demand play time. I was not strong enough to speak up for myself, and my parents were not breathing down the coach’s neck every game. It didn’t work like that in Finland back then. But instead it worked like that in a more invisible way. And the coach knew it. An invisible pecking order.

— so my dad finally had enough and demanded more play time for me. I was so proud of him! I think I might have got 20 minutes in that final game. At the very end.

Soon after that I went to college and retired from my illustrious soccer career.

---

This is my submission for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. We are a group of creatives and writers who share ideas and companionship. Each month, STSC members create something around a theme, this month's theme being “Sports”. I also used to take modern dance classes in high school, and should probably write a piece about that one day!

Get your copy of my brand new book AUBADE here!

Free with KindleUnlimited!