I first got into soccer when I was about 3 years old because my grandfather taught me about it. He liked a Spanish team called Barcelona and we watched all of the teams games together and we also played it in my backyard. He lived in Spain and I lived in Chile so I didn’t see him very often but when I did we had a lot of fun playing soccer, watching soccer and having fun together. In 2014 he died of skin cancer but because of him I still enjoy everything about soccer to this day and my favourite team is still Barcelona. Over the years my hobbies have changed quite a lot but soccer always remained in there, be it soccer video games (FIFA), playing soccer in real life or even watching Barcelona play. I like soccer so much that my grandmother sends me the Barcelona uniform every year. Right now I’m in a soccer team as a right back and every time I play I think of him.
I like soccer because of the team building, the feeling that your teammates got your back and you got theirs, the feeling that no matter what you always remain together. In the highs and in the lowes no matter if you win or lose, you always support each other. This feeling is also there when you watch a game with your family, I remember watching Chile play against Argentina, my whole family was there and the game was very intense. Chile scores Argentina scores and there is 1 minute left and out of nowhere someone in Argentina scores and my whole family started screaming in anger. Luckily the referee says that it didn’t count so we all cheered pretty loudly. After that the time passed so they had to go to penalties. Someone from Argentina started and got it in, then someone from Chile went and got it in. That happened for a long time until someone in Argentina missed so if s0meone from Chile scored they won the game. It was Alexis Sancheze’s turn (one of my favorite players) all the pressure was on him. He kicked it and… It went in. Everyone in my house screamed their heads off but we weren’t the only ones, we heard other people screaming from their homes. It was so important that the announcer from Chile actually started crying and people in their cars were honking their horns in celebration. I think this story represents how strong this feeling is, it unites the whole country just for a game of soccer. The other thing I like is the sport itself, the running, the shooting and the scoring but the main thing I like is the sense of community.
The rules of soccer are pretty simple. There are eleven players on each side of the court and their objectives are to get the ball in opposite teams net. The positions in soccer are goalkeeper who stops the ball from going into the net using his whole body (he is the only player that can use his hands), right back and left back which are supposed to stay on the sides of the court and defend the net. Centre back which does the same thing the right and leftback do but stays in the middle, then comes the defensive midfielder who defends but is in the middle of the court, the central midfielder who gives it to the striker, attacking midfielder, forward or winger who all try to get the ball into the enemies net. No one can touch the ball except for the goal keeper and if you do you get a yellow card and the other team either gets a free kick or a penalty shot (which I will explain later). If a player kicks or hurts someone in any way he gets a yellow or red card depending on how bad the thing he did was, the players can also get cards if they disrespect the referee. If the ball goes out of the court the team that didn’t touch the ball the last gets to throw the ball from where the ball went out but when you do that your both feet must remain on the ground. If the ball comes out the side of the court where the net is, there is a corner but only if the team who’s goalkeeper is in that net touches it last, i that case it is a corner for the other team. If the other team touches it last the goalkeeper gets to kick it from the net. Finally there is the penalty kick which happens when the other team hurts someone in the opposite teams area (the area that goes around the net) the penalty kick consists on kicking the ball from slightly outside the area and no one can intervene but the goal keeper who must stay in the net while this happens.
I have soccer practice on Mondays and games on Wednesdays, there I play as a right back, but my coach sometimes puts me as a midfielder which I don’t really like. I enjoy being a right back because I know exactly what to do, I stay on the right side of the court a par of the left back, I defend my goal by taking the ball from the other team, if they come close to the goal and if the ball comes close to me I give it to someone in my team. this position also offers a lot of action because my team isn’t that good so the ball is mostly close to our goal. I don’t like midfielder because I have to stay in the middle and wait until the defence gives the ball to me and I find it incredibly boring to just wait there. Playing soccer isn’t the only soccer related activity I do, I also play FIFA with my friends. Which is very fun because we each choose are favourite team, we trashtalk eachother (which is pretty fun to do) and we try our best to win. But I stopped doing this because of the pandemic (my friend didn’t have the game at his house and we always played it together at my house so now that we couldn’t be with eachother we just played other games). When the pandemic slowed down I started playing it again but the problem is that I can’t really play the game if my friend and I live in different country’s and he doesn’t have the game. I still play this game alone but I don’t do it that often because its not as fun to play it alone. The last thing soccer related thing I do is watch it with my family. I don’t do this as much as I use to do because after a while watching felt like a chore and I stopped enjoying it. My favourite player (Messi) left Barcelona and the team wasn’t doing to good. I still love the team and watch some of their games by I haven’t done that in a while. Currently my family and I watch Chile’s games whenever we can and we still cheer as always. Barcelona may not be the best team anymore and my favourite player may have left but I will never ever stop supporting my team.