Chasing the Dream of Football Pro – The Diary of a Teen trying to make it

Found this from an article which summarised a book by Dale Carnegie – How to win friends and influence people. It’s about leadership.

“Like everything in life, the beginning is always the hardest part. But then you adapt.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

So, It’s about 30 minutes past midnight, about to go to bed seeing I have the FootballCV trial with West Ham tomorrow. I’ve had a decent week. Started off well in Monday’s game where my team won 6 – 1. The good thing is that I scored two goals and assisted two goals. One goal was a penalty, the second was a shot into the bottom corner from about 16 yards out. Best assist is when I did a blazing run up the wing and passed it in the box for a player to finish. Although I know I could of played better, it probably shows that I’m improving. On Saturday, I went up to Milton Keynes for the first of my FootballCV trials. I did.. hm.. ok. I reflect on in more detail below but one key thing I realised, is that if I talk to the players and show that I’m a leader before the match starts, I feel much better and play better on the field. I think it’s because I get intimidated too much, and if I talk the player’s that “look good” from the outside don’t really anymore and it settles my nerves I guess. A man before the match on Saturday, told the group just to do the basics right and scouts will notice you. Just pass and control, it sounds too easy, I mean if you just do that who will notice you, is it possible to get a trial just by doing that all the time? Maybe I’ll just keep doing that and see what happens..

This Week

Game Analyse Notes Top 5:

• Stay 1m away from the attacker if you are defending, that way he can’t use your body and bam! you can intercept him easier (nikefootball)
• In the penalty area, cut inside and across the defender to get a shot in.
• Dribble away from the defender before passing.
• I said two weeks ago, and I’ll say again, just looking at messi, he is not at an level that I can’t get to one day.. he just is very smart, knows where he is on the pitch, what he wants to do and he does it. He knows how to find space and how to get space and will execute what he wants to do very quickly.
• To get inside the penalty box, Messi always seems pass to a player at edge of the box, make a run in and the player passes to him to score.

I am really unsure whether any scouts will take my details from Saturday’s game. I think it’s a 40/60 chance that someone has, but seeing as I live in Hungary it might make it more difficult as apparently they prefer only to take details of those who live in the UK. Oh well, these trials still give me a lot of experience and a chance to see where I’m at. I think I’ve certainly improved since the last. I think the last three weeks now of analysing games has worked well too. Putting yourself in the position of what would Messi or Ronaldo do? Really helps alot. So my football brain is.. well improving I guess. As the world cup is nearing, I am deficiently going to be writing down all the things I see and as there’s a potential of 64 games I can watch, that’s like 100 hours right there! Summer will for sure be a football summer for me.

Next Week

So I have to say first that I haven’t done by 20 hours this week. Just a little dis-organisation, more sleep to recover vs. playing and this trip to London were some issues. I think I only did about 12 hours to be honest. I’m setting consequences for myself now, so from now on, If I do not complete the hours on my schedule for what I set, the hours I did not complete, will have to be tripled. So if I miss two hours, I have to do six hours the next week. And if I get injured it’s no excuse, I can still watch and analyse. I’m also going to try to get to training 45 minutes earlier now, so I can train before training and do my time then, instead of when I get home and am tired.

Another week of training passes by. It’s been around 8 whole months since I started writing in this football diary of mine and in that time I’ve developed a whole lot as a footballer. I’ve attended two English scout trials and one for AFC Wimbledon, become “the best” player in training (not consistently yet), been told by my coach I can be a footballer (only if I develop a football brain), kept believing and succeeding more. I think I’ve come a long way towards my dream. But not yet have I reached it. I wonder what I’ll be saying this time next year once I finish school.. will I be wanted by other clubs? Will my left foot be as good as my right? Will I be signed to a professional club? I’m already thinking of playing in Japan one day! I have two more chances to go one step further with two more footballcv trials this weekend when I go back to England and trial at MK Dons and West Ham United’s Upton Park stadium. Scouts from Chelsea, West Ham, Brentford, etc are already expected to be there. I need to prove that the 20 hours of training each week is valuable and that my failure’s will turn into success. In fact I deserve to be given a proffesional contract more than anyone else because I can and I am willing to change the world through football.

This week has been a fairly ordinary week. More of analysing games, more training and most of all, more improvement even though this week was one of my down in form weeks one could say. This is what I learnt through videos this week:

• If there is no immediate clear option in front of you or to the side, either pass it back or put it up for a long ball.
• To beat a player one on one, make sure you turn and face him
• A player is trapped on the sideline by about two or three defenders, his teammate makes a run up the sideline and brings a defender with him and results in the once trapped player now having much more space to attack. Off the ball runs are important!
• Rooney gets all the way back in defence to win the ball and that’s what “show me that you want to be on the pitch!” really means. Determination!
• Checking, blocking players for run on.

Next Week