On October 26th 2018 I played my final match for the 2018 football season. Although the league hasn’t quite finished for all teams, the UWC team has already played all of its competitive matches. I have to admit, this season was quite fun, if not successful. Our team this year got along really well with each other, and I have befriended some students in grade 12 thanks to all the training sessions and matches we participated in together.

While the season was certainly enjoyable, our team only had one win this season, where we beat our rivals Dover. The rest of our matches were often hard-fought only to finish with defeat. We worked really hard together as a team in the matches and it was disappointing to see all our effort achieve so little. We used our wish for success as a drive to work hard in our training sessions. I often pushed myself far beyond what I thought I could do during these sessions, and I believe it has paid off with my goalkeeping skills improving.

I believe I had achieved learning outcome 5 in this activity. Learning outcome 5 states: Students are able to identify, demonstrate and critically discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration gained through CAS experiences. In order for me to play well within the team, I had to work well with my teammates. In the initial matches, me and my defenders seemed to lack chemistry and we could not work out an effective system of communicating to each other while the ball was in play. This resulted in some unnecessary goals conceded or forced me to make difficult saves. In the following matches, we discussed with each other on how to improve our collective defence and agreed that as I was the goalkeeper, I should be in charge of coordinating the defenders. Although we still conceded some goals with this system, they were because the opposition’s attackers deserved it and not because we could not coordinate.

I have really enjoyed this football season despite it’s toughness and defeats, and look forward to playing again next year.