The Ball is Round

Coaching is not easy. It's also not ridiculously difficult either. It requires patience, knowledge, discipline, and a creative attitude. Apart from working with FCC, I've started helping out the town U-14 boys team. The team is comprised of 18 local boys between the ages of 13 and 14. This particular age group brings a lot of challenges to the table. There are small players who weigh about 90 lbs. and are around 4'6" and then there are bigger players who are about 135 lbs. and 5'6". Apart from the obvious physical differences, there are the less obvious difference in ability and understanding of the game. Some players can use both feet, play one touch soccer, and are coachable. Others have problems with taking simple directions, only can use their dominant foot, and hold onto the ball too long. Apart from all this we're in Latin America, so a practice that should start at 8, starts around 8:30. This obvious neglect of punctuality was to be expected, although over the next year I hope to curtail this allergy to being on time by replacing it with a team mentality of discipline which includes arriving to trainings on time. 

When I was 14 years old, I was just entering high school and I had ambitions of playing sports for the competitive nature of it all, and never thought of it as something that was going to pay the bills one day. I never played soccer with the false pretense that one day I was going to be a professional. However, many of the players I currently coach see soccer as a way out. Eduardo, a player who I've grown close to and the one who put me in contact with his coach, asks me every time we talk if I think that he can play professionally.  His confidence in my opinion is a blessing and a curse, yet 

 I find myself at a loss of words. I'm enthralled that he sees me as someone qualified enough to make that kind of a judgement and also that he feels comfortable enough, even after such a short time, to talk to me about his future as a player, etc. Although, I find myself in a bind.

It's hard for me, a kid who's grown up in a country where you're told from a very young age that you can do anything like be an astronaut, doctor, lawyer, or even president, not to tell him that if he works hard anything is possible. Yet, is that just what he WANTS to hear and not what he NEEDS to hear? Or, is it simply what I was groomed to believe as a child and so it's what I WANT to tell him regardless of what he may NEED to hear. The first time he asked me whether I thought he could be a professional player, I had all of these thoughts racing through my head simultaneously. A part of me wanted to give him a Kevin Garnett tagline of "anything is possible" and that he should shoot for the moon and if he misses, he'll land among the stars . The other half of me wanted to tell him that he should see soccer as an enjoyable activity and that putting more of an emphasis on his studies will be better in the long run. Unfortunately, from what I've seen and heard in the short time that I've been here, Colombia has a poor to non-existent youth player development program which more often than not leaves young players with decent potential, like Eduardo, by the wayside without ever letting their skill develop through proper coaching, trainings, and tactical sessions. In the end, I promise him that I will do as much as I can to see that he personally becomes a better player by improving his overall level of play and technical ability through trainings with his U-14 team. 

After my first week of working with the U-14 La Playa team, two things have become more than apparent. One, none of the players have ever played for a disciplined coach before. Two, and most importantly, there is an abundance of raw and natural talent that exists in this small group of 18 players that should make the next year a challenge and a joy all at the same time. There are 4 or 5 players whose soccer knowledge and overall player potential is well beyond their years. As to whether or not any of them will ever make it to the bright lights of the professional stadium here in Barranquilla is yet to be seen. With time and hard work "anything is possible", but that could just be Kevin Garnett's most famous words and my U.S. upbringing clouding the reality of life in La Playa.  For now, it's sunny in Barranquilla.