I want to grow both individually as a player, and I want to grow with my teammates as a team throughout the season. I want to improve my leadership and collaboration skills.
GRADE 11
This year the football season was very different because we weren’t allowed to play against other school teams so we could only just play against our own team. I think it was harder to consistently go to the training because we weren’t training for any football games; However, we received a technology that we have never used before to further improve the team. We had trackers on our feet that can track who we pass to, how many touches we are using or even the amount of shots we take. These types of things wouldn’t be possible without the trackers so it was very easy to see what we need to improve on individually. After every training session, I was able to know what I needed to improve on for the next training session so that I can improve. For example, my passing could be off and I can see how many times I miss passing the ball so I know that for the next training, I need to improve on my passing. There are a lot of statistics that I wouldn’t know without the Playermaker technology, for example, I am one of the fastest players on the team and I take a lot of touches for a goalkeeper.
I am not sure how this season of football will be because we can’t play against other schools so I am assuming that it will just be training with no external matches for the whole season which is a little disappointing because I was very excited to face against other schools which is a little bit demotivating. We could still make the most of this short season though by having good training sessions and being ready for next year where we hopefully can have SEASAC and go against other schools in the league.
After having a couple training sessions, I think that I am really improving by being more conscious on my passing and touches because after every training session I can see how many failed passes I did and how many touches I took so being aware helps me a lot. I can also see the usage of my weaker foot, which got better over time because I was aware that I didn’t use my weak foot that much and I would only use my dominant foot. Even though my weaker foot isn’t as good as my dominant foot, I still tried using my weaker foot much more to get a higher ratio between my right and my left at the end of the training session. I think that there are certain stuff I can still improve on for the rest of the season such as completing most of my passes.
GRADE 12
After one year, the football season started again, and I made the A team again. The same technology for counting football stats is being used again, and after one year, I think that it is really helpful using this technology again. Something that is done differently this year is that every player in the A team is doing speed tests to see the speed difference at the end of the season. Last year there were no football games against other schools. However, this year it is really exciting to play against other schools on an eleven-a-side pitch and finally have competitive games. Last year it was very demotivating because there was no competitive football matches but I am excited to play football against other teams and I feel motivated to train as well.
In the past two weeks, we have had two different school tournaments with other international schools such as Singapore American School, Tangling Trust School, UWC over and Stanford American International School. In the first tournament we, unfortunately, lost our games however, the games were very close. I broke my finger during the games so I could not continue playing as a goalkeeper but I managed to play outfield as a winger. The following weekend we learned from our past mistakes and we managed to play a lot better. We had managed to defeat a team 2-0 which we had lost to the previous week. As a goalkeeper playing outfield, I like to believe that I have done pretty well-making chances and helping the team. However, just like the previous week I had received another injury but will try my best to get back in the pitch.