It taught me…

Soccer, sports in general, take us on different paths. Sure we all begin the same way – some type of youth league, on the streets or grassy fields with our closest friends and family. Though, as we grow older, this so called path begins to split and form forks in different directions. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have the skills and athleticism move on to make a career out of soccer, while those of us who don’t have the genetics, didn’t have the opportunity to join camps, or just didn’t practice enough are the in stands watching those who did make it.

I’m not bitter about where the game has taken me. Of course I would’ve loved to play at the highest level, as would many others in love with the game, but soccer has given me a different route to be proud of. While the game has been used as a void for some who have lost friends and family, a way to keep close with friends, or a form of freedom from reality, soccer has taught me valuable life lessons.

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Check out rocker Pete Doherty repping his beloved QPR at the Soccer Six celebrity soccer match at Millwall.

Maybe Soccer Will Save His Life.

Even his buddy Amy Winehouse made an “appearance”, although she didn’t make it into her kit or on the field.

images via Dlisted

Beans and I were laughing our asses off yesterday remembering a very painful day of mine back in 1998. Back when I was just a young-in, playing with the New England Revolution and making $774.78 every two weeks ($800 of that going to rent per month).

I had this girlfriend see, one who I thought I was going to spend my life with. A girl that I’d been together with for years and that meant buying her love by means of plane tickets from LA to Boston, along with dinners and whatever else I could afford (not much).

Back in those days MLS would send all of their young P-40 players overseas for 3 months worth of training. That meant throughout my first three years in the league I would spend time at Glasgow Rangers, Bayer Leverkusen and playing matches around Lisbon with the P-40 team. By far some of the best experiences I ever had, hands down.

The dark side of that is trying to have a relationship with your girlfriend, one that realistically wasn’t going to happen with success. Phone bills, letters (no real e-mail at that time) and gifts were the only way to try and stay on top of things considering your other half is at college while you’re on the road.

The off-season of 1998 was taking me to Bayer Leverkusen, home of Frankie Hejduk (Landon wasn’t there yet). I was given four days off before the flight from Los Angeles to Cologne, so I did what every young kid in love would do, I headed out to see my girl.

I should have known instantly where this one was going, the shadiness apparent (Love isn’t blind, only we are is what I realized afterwards). We headed out to a club, had some drinks and did some dancing, headed back to the house to do what a lot of us did, but something horrible happened. Mid-coital, she called me Chris……..

Now I’ve been called a bunch of names before, but Chris has never been one of them.

Shocked, I walked straight into the shower, scrubbed myself as if I was Forest Whitaker in the Crying Game and headed home without a word. I didn’t really sleep much that night, made my way to LAX in the morning and I was off to Germany for three months.

I was at Leverkusen with Matt Napoleon and Chad McCarty during that time and it turned out to be the second (being at Rangers was legit) best trip I’d take. Nights at Uncle Sam’s that turned into mornings, jumping on the train to Amsterdam and exploring the country with guys from Germany that I wouldn’t see again until the U-23 US v Germany friendly in Jacksonville three years later.

See, Soccer Saved My Life that trip. Even though I’d go back for another bite of the apple, I learned the most important lesson I would ever learn while I was gone.

People come and go, but the game will always be there for me no matter what. Even if it’s not always on my terms.

dunny

image via Valesti

We talk about soccer A LOT around here. If it has to do with soccer, we talk about it. It’s always been like that for us. One of the topics that comes up a lot is about how much soccer has given us and the incredible journey it has taken us on. We have been to some amazing places, met incredible people and had our lives forever changed because of the sport.

Then Joe wrote in about the aches and pains he is feeling from being 30+ and still playing, but that it was the best feeling because of how much he loves the sport. We talk about stories like this all the time, joke about being sore, make sacrifices to get out and play and so on.

This got us to thinking. Every soccer fan has stories about how soccer has influenced their lives, changed it, introduced us to life long friends, and so on. Each individual story is as unique and personal as anything else that we can imagine. So we have decided to create a category on this site for all of you (and us) to write in and share our experiences about how soccer has shaped, changed and saved all of our lives.

We can’t think that anything like this has ever existed, so we are very excited to put it out there and see the life that it takes on. So send in your stories, a picture of yourself if you want us to post that, and maybe what city you are representing. We’ll get the stories up and we can collectively start sharing our soccer experiences.

Send your stories to

submit@theoriginalwinger.com

Photo via this guy

Have you ever felt that you were destined to do something bigger, but don’t know how to get there? About four months ago I was working at a soccer shop in Salt Lake City, Utah playing soccer in a men’s league feeling exactly that way. I knew I was supposed to be playing at the next level. However, I hadn’t taken the usual steps to make it there. I was at a point were I was about to give up on my dream of playing in the MLS.

I am now living in Los Angeles playing with some of the best players in the US under a coach who had received the coach of the year award the previous year. I had made it with Chivas USA. I had taken an unlikely path to making it to the MLS. A path that not too many take.

Most would agree that in order to make it to the MLS you have to play for an elite club team, play ODP, and then play for a division 1 college program. This is how I thought it worked so when I looked at my soccer path I thought there was no chance of me making it. I hadn’t played for an elite club team. I had actually played for an independent team in Utah that wore t-shirts for jerseys from u-16 to u-18. It was just a group of talented guys that loved to play soccer. The team didn’t travel to any major tournaments. Many of the kids couldn’t afford it and the team didn’t get any recognition from those types of tournaments. There was no chance of me getting seen by any colleges. I had done my best coming out of high school to send tapes of my self to colleges I was interested in. Not one school was willing to give me a chance. I was turned down one by one and it ended up being at least 10 different schools, but felt like more.

I decided to stay in Salt Lake and play for the club team at Salt Lake Community college. It was the only option I had if I wanted to continue playing soccer. At this point I had come to the realization that my dream might not come true. What MLS team is going to pick up a kid that only had the experience of playing on a club team at a junior college?

For the next three years (from 2005-2007) I played with the college club team in the fall, played indoor at a local place in the winter, and in the spring played for a local men’s league team. During this time I tried multiple times to get in with Real Salt Lake. I knew I would be able to play at that level and all I wanted was to be given a chance. Unfortunately I was never given that chance.

In fall of 2007 when it came time to transfer to a University, I tried once again to play for a division 1 program and saw exactly the same results as the first time. Coaches weren’t willing to take a risk with me. They all felt I didn’t have what it takes to play at that level.

It was after these second set of rejections that I had accepted the fact that my dream since the age of four wasn’t going to become a reality. I ended up transferring to the University of Utah where there was no school team, so I had no chance of playing. I would focus on obtaining a degree in finance while continuing to play with the men’s league team two or three times a week. I was just trying to have fun with soccer at this point and that’s when I began playing with the Utah state select team.

In January of 2008 (at the age of 20) I traveled with the State team to play in the George F. Donnely cup tournament. The tournament was being hosted at the practice fields around the Home Depot Center and I knew this was going to be my last competitive soccer competition I was going to play in. Or so I thought.

Little did I know the opportunity of a lifetime was about to present itself. After the last game of the tournament I was approached by a man who introduced himself as Preki, head coach of Chivas USA. At this moment I was in shock. Is this really happening to me? I spent the next couple minutes talking with him and in the end he offered me a chance to come into pre-season camp to have a trial. I was finally going to be given my chance.

I dropped all of my classes at the University, packed up some clothes and was off to LA, all in the span of two weeks. I was about to start a new journey in life and I went into pr-season not knowing what to expect. I was just going to work hard every day and try to prove myself to the coaching staff.

Two weeks into pre-season I was called into Preki’s office where he offered me a developmental contract. My dream had come true. I had made it.

The season is now seven weeks in and I have played in all but one game, starting two of them. One of those starts came against the LA Galaxy in the Super Classico where I was playing in front of 30,000 screaming fans. I was also lucky enough to score my first career goal last weekend against New England.

Four months ago I was playing in front of no one in a men’s league in Salt Lake City and fields where you took your dog for a walk.

Now my goal is to continue playing and improving everyday. I have been given this opportunity and am going to do all I can to make the best of it

Justin Braun

Image via Chivas-USA.Blogspot.com

Let me start by saying I don’t really tell anyone this story…..

With tears streaming down my 12yr old face I lunge forward, slide tackle the left back and dribbled the ball over the goal line for the game winning goal. As I look up and see every single one of my teammates running towards me to celebrate, I realized all of us were crying.

Just 10 hours earlier, my best friend and teammate was killed by his mother, who then killed herself. My parents asked me out right “Are you sure you want to play in this game today?” and out came my reply without an ounce of hesitation was “I have to!!”

Soccer saved me — the game gave me the catharsis I needed. It gave me someone to lean on when no one else could possibly fill the void of the loss of my best friend.

As we pulled into the soccer field parking lot my parents let me know that not all of the other kids knew of their deaths yet. I looked at them and told them I would tell the other players.

I had to as it was my job as his best friend.

Can you imagine a 12 year old boy gathering his teammates before kick off and letting them know that one of their players won’t be there today because he was murdered by his own mother??

As I delivered the news and the tears began to drop to the grass, I realized my only salvation would be my 70 minutes on this field. The same field where I spent countless hours with my best friend and teammate, knowing at that moment there was nothing more in life that I wanted.

I needed to play soccer.

I needed the feeling of love, the feeling that I wouldn’t be let down, the feeling that for that split second I could feel my best friend there on that field with me. I needed to know that life would continue with some ounce of normalcy.

When people talk about emotion and sports–there will never be anything more emotionally and physically draining than this game. Not this day.

We played the entire game with tears in our eyes and at least twice I had to walk off the field because I could barely breathe as the tears choked my air away. As the final whistle blew, many of us fell to the ground with our parents rushing onto the field to embrace us and give us whatever support they could.

I can’t even fathom what it must feel like to look into the eyes of your oldest son and see that pain.

As we walked off the field I felt relieved, knowing that nothing in my life will ever be the same, but realizing at this moment that SOCCER SAVED MY LIFE.

Soccer will be there when I need to release stress, anger, or devastation. Soccer will always be there for me to call upon when I need a best friend. Just the ball, some grass and I can be ripped away from the reality of life for a countless amount of time.

I can always take my soccer ball, walk outside and just juggle…and juggle….and the next thing I know my mind is blank. I have forgotten everything for those precious few moments that I have the ball at my feet. The only thing I hear is the steady rhythm of the ball as it bounces off my feet, thighs and head.

My mind is clear—and when I lunge for the ball, miss and it hits the ground, my mind snaps back to reality. I pick up my ball and walk inside.

I know it will always be there for me, right there in my room, on the floor.

Thank you soccer, you saved me, and I love you.

Anonymous

I know Beans and I just put this up, but this could be one of the most heart wrenching stories I’ve read. Thank You Anonymous for allowing us the opportunity to share this with you.

I felt like he was my best friend as well.

My sprained ankle from 8 weeks ago is still not fully recovered as I have been playing on it every Monday and Thursday. As I limped off the field of my indoor soccer game last night and into my car, I nearly began to cry. Not from pain, or anger–but from the sheer love I have for the game! We had just completed 50 minutes of all out intense soccer. It was the type of game that you love to play in! Everyone running through balls, tackling hard, and overcome with desire. If you have ever played in a game like this, then you know what I was feeling. Here I am 30 yrs old, with a swollen ankle, playing through pain for really what boils down to an organized pick up game! Why would I do this?

Because it is games and moments like these that make me utterly miss my youthful “competitive” playing days. When I was in high school I took for granted those games…knowing that college lay ahead. When I was in college….I took those games for granted hoping that someday I may have a professional career. As my collegiate days faded and the reality that I would not be playing in the MLS took hold, my heart couldn’t let go. My mind won’t let go. Soccer has given me some of the greatest moments of my life. In fact if I were to make a quick list of some of the best days of my life, I can assure you that a soccer game would show up in that list several times. No feeling in life, compares to the feeling of competition. Nothing can bring emotions out of me like soccer can. Nothing stirs up such love, frustration, and intensity like soccer does to me.

I live the sport of soccer, I love it for everything it has given me and will give me in the future. It has taken me to countries around the world, and given me friends for life (yes, Dunseth that includes you). Soccer is just a game to many but to me it made me who I am. It instilled in me passion, love, desire, camaraderie, friendship, dedication…the list continues.

So as I limp to work each morning I can feel that pain in my foot. You would think I would despise that twinge in each step….but it reminds of my past and why soccer will always be who I am.

Joe