Match Day 11

Up against top ranked, 9 and 1, U of A and we have something to prove since they beat us 4-1 when we were up in Edmonton playing them. We know who their strong players are; a few players in the mid and a big guy on their back line can win in the air. Before the game I told my coach that I had him, and he didn't win one header in our third. I don't know what it is with most of the guys on the team when they get on the field with talking. They can talk for hours off the field and then when we get on the field they can't even say "man on". I'm not saying I'm perfect and am always talking but I try my best to see everything and give direction, but some guys don't say a word for 90 minutes. Or there are the guys who talk but it's so quiet that you can't hear them and then they try and get mad because you weren't listening. And then there are those guys who get mad at you when you yell at them. It's almost like playing with 12 year olds in that aspect. We all need pull our socks up and start playing like men; we are the men's soccer team, not the boys. Start getting angry and play like you have something to prove. Show the coaches and other players that you should be out there. Stick someone when it's appropriate and if you need to take a card then so be it. Run your ass off for every ball and in every play. Everything I just talked about, we haven't been doing this year. Well there was one game and that was against UBC, and in that game all 11 players on our side came to play. We had communication, intensity, urgency, and most of all we wanted to win. We gave it everything we had and we left it all out on the field. Today however, there were maybe 5 or 6 guys ready to do whatever it took to win and that was in the first half, by the time the game was coming to an end there was about 3 or 4 that still wanted it. And this is why we ended up losing 3-0. Tomorrow is our rematch against U of S and when we were there they beat us 8-0, if this doesn't set a fire up our asses for a win then I don't know what will. More on tomorrow's game to come....

I want to start off my saying that I have been trying to keep up with the blog entries but I get busy and it doesn't come a top priority but I am going to be done my season in a couple weeks and can focus more on my training and school and get more done on this.

I am still getting my ankle taped which makes me mad because I just want to be healthy again with no set backs. I want to be able to run as hard as I could before. I want to be able to just go for a run without having to worry about it. I want and need to run because I am starting to get in worse shape; still probably one of the top on the team but it's not good for me. I hate when I am tired and feel fatigued in a game, that's why I stay as fit as I can. There is an upside to being injured though on a competitive team; you realize what is at stake and you realize that you have to train harder to be better than that guy who took your spot. You have to work your ass off to get to the top again. You have to work to be the best out on that field. I'll tell you something too, as I'm writing this I am realizing that I have been slacking and I need to step my game up and get as fit as I possibly can and get as strong as I can for the rest of this season and for next season. I have a total program ready for when my season is over and I plan on putting on about 10-15 lbs of lean muscle and then increase my speed and agility too. I found this program on www.permanentmuscle.com and it is awesome. I don't think there is much I need to change except a few exercises that I refuse to do, like goodmornings for example. If you have a chance you should check out the website, it has nutrition, supplements, 28 week program and tons of other stuff in it. There is a major thing I hate about wanting to put on some size, I can't do the long runs that I like to do. This is something else I want to do in my life is compete in distance runs and maybe move into triathlons but that is a ways down the road. I hate to say it but there is part of me that wants to stop soccer and just run, I know I could be good at it. There is someone in my university and he does triathlons all over the place and there's pictures of him in the gym and his first place time for a 10k was 43 minutes, I can smash that by like 4 minutes. I don't know what I want to do with my sports and fitness really though. What I figure is I just keep training hard and see what I get out of it. It will all work itself out in the end. Just give a 110% into everything I do and don't look back, no regrets, no coulda, woulda, shoulda's.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

The Week Before BC and Match Day 9 & 10

I'm not one to usually get injured, fake injuries, or any of that so when I got hurt 2 weeks ago playing UBC I was devastated and taking all this time off has been killing me. However, it was good for me because it gave me time to heal and my ankle is at about 95% right now. Still taping it though for a bit of extra support. Training this week before our trip to BC though was pretty tough, kept tweaking it every practice but with rest, ice, ultrasounds, electro-therapy, and ART I was good to go when it came time for it. We started the weekend off playing UBC at UBC and what I was thinking right off the first blow of that whistle was, "where is that guy who hurt me? I'm going to stick him", but fortunately for him he never came close. On another note though, we played the best we have all year against one of the best teams in the Canada West division and ended up tieing them 2-2. They went up 1-0 in the first and then we tied it up with a great play that started in our back line on the right side and I made a run up the left and the switch hit me perfectly and I layed it off for my left winger who played it into the middle to our center mid who took it across the box and cut it back with his right and hit a beauty with his left in the top left corner. We went into half tied 1-1. We battled back and forth for 87 minutes and then they had a shot that deflected off our right backs foot, hit our holding mid in the chest and bounced past out keeper. It was 2-1 with 3+ minutes left but we didn't hang our heads. Probably for the first time this season we didn't hang our heads when we got scored on, we were hungry for that goal. With 30 seconds left in injury time we had everyone in the box and our goalie took a free kick from 35 yards out and we flicked it on and slid it in the net, and we tied it 2-2. It was a really great game and we held our heads high walking off the pitch. Now that was Friday's game, Saturday's game went a bit differently. We had injuries all over the field going into this game and we had to face Trinity Western and their crowd. They tend to get under people's skin a bit when they play there with their heckling and what not. When we started this game not everyone was up for it. We came out flat and they pressed us hard. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure we had the worst ref in BC and maybe the country. I swear this guy was paid off by the other team. We couldn't even go shoulder to shoulder with someone without getting a call. I took a yellow card in the 60th minute when I went for a slide tackle and the guy pulled the ball away from me so I slid right by him. When I asked the ref what it was for he said "that's your second warning", but that was the first time he really had to talk to me, so i was furious. All throughout the game though he was making shocking calls. They would kick it out and we would be by them and he'd call it their way. We would have perfectly clean tackles and he would call it because he saw that our player made a divot in the grass so it must be a foul. Just shocking, I couldn't believe what I was seeing out there. And with us already playing bad, when we would get these phantom calls against us it would make us all mad and make us play even worse. In the end we lost 4-0 and that's really all I have to say about that.

First Day Back

Monday night was my first night back at training in 2 weeks; it felt so good to be running around again. It is still sore to push off my left to the inside and to shoot but I'm still strengthening and doing rehab on it so it will be 100% in no time. I'd say I'm at about 85% right now, maybe even 90. I did have a minor set back though because I went to block a shot and my ankle wasn't tense so when the ball hit it it tweaked it a bit. And then near the end of training I went to clear it and had to use my left and it hurt quite a bit. There is one good thing about injuring your dominate foot; the other on gets better.

The tests are starting to come now in all of my classes. I have 3 this week but I don't really need to worry about them I don't think. One is in Kines 1000 and it's on basic fitness and wellness, cardiorespiratory system, flexibility and the FITT principle so I'm not very worried. The only test I am some-what nervous about is for writing and that's because we are doing grammar right now and somethings are pretty tricky. Either than that though I have a fairly easy week because we are going to play Trinity Western and UBC this weekend and we leave on Friday so I only have a 3-day week.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This is the one weekend of our season we get off and it's pretty nice to have. I mean right now I hate it because I want to play so bad but it's good too because I get to rest my ankle some more. I think it's just the bone bruise that's slowing me down now, some tendon and ligament stuff but I've been strengthening quite a bit. I'll be back to play Trinity and UBC though with out a doubt. On Thursday night we had a team meeting to figure out why we're playing like we are and why we are where we are. There were a lot of good points brought up but most of it revolved around communication and intensity. But all-in-all everything has to be picked up to the next level. I had goose bumps for the whole meeting. It made me want to get playing so bad. The guy who took my position when I got hurt has been playing pretty good and at the end of the meeting I said to everyone how much it sucked being on the sidelines and just watching and then I told the guy in my position that be better step his game up if he wants to stay on the field because I'm coming for him. Every 50/50 ball, every header, every tackle, I am going to win it. I am going to be louder and have more intensity than him. I am going to make him look like he is still in high school and I am going to get my spot back.

On Friday afternoon after my classes were done I went and talked to my writing professor and went over a paper I just got back and only got 60% on. Luckily though I am able to revise it and hand it back in and then she takes the average of the two marks. So I should be able to pull it up to about a 75% or so I think.

This weekend a few of the guys on the team taht didn't go home for thanksgiving are getting together and having a dinner. It should be good. Good food, good people, good environment, not bad. Besides that though my only plans for this weekend are to rehab my ankle and hit the gym.

My Day - October 6, 2010

Wednesday is early morning training and I am starting to get annoyed with them. They mess with my routine; like on tuesday I did back and tri's and then we ended up doing a full body so I worked my back and tri's so I didn't get my full rest period. I barely had any weight on though so it's not that bad but it still messes me up. After early morning I went and worked on my legs but it's kinda hard to do right now with my ankle but I still got a good workout in. My glutes and hamstrings are going to be sore tomorrow.

My classes aren't all that hard this semester except for writing 1000. Some of the words used confuse me and I'm just not quite getting it yet. I got my summary back on that molecular biology essay and I only got 60%. My paper was red when I got it back. Luckily though we are allowed to revise it and improve our mark. The main thing she was writing was that I wasn't talking about the use of ethos in my summary and I still don't know what that means so I'm going to have to talk to her.

Tonight is the men's soccers annual Turkey Bowl. It's just a football game between the rookies and vets. I saw the trophy and the rookies have only won it once since like 1996 when it started. I only played the first half because I tried to pivot and my ankle just wasn't feeling it. I came off at half and we played a bit better once I wasn't just standing in the middle of everything. We were playing like garbage the entire game though. Trying to throw hail-mary's when there was someone 10 feet away from them. But then when we'd throw the short pass we couldn't catch it. The Final score was 63-7 for the vets I think.

I swear if my ankle doesn't get better in time for the Trinity Western and UBC trip, which is the 15th and 16th, I am going to lose it. I have appointments with our athletic therapist and chiropractor everyday until we leave for BC. Hopefully with ART, ultrasounds, shock treatment, and ice I'll be good to go. Like I posted on my facebook, "What hurts us will make us stronger. What doesn't kill us will make us invincible"

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

The Last Week

Again, I apologize for not posting every day the last little bit but I have been busy with school. The main thing that was keeping me off of here was a summary I had to write in my writing class about the birth of molecular biology. I had to summarize an academic essay written about Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA. And if what I just said confused you, try summarizing a 10 page essay on the topic. It's a good thing it was only 500 words though.

We played home-and-home with Calgary this weekend. I had to sit out because of my ankle. I was so mad that I had to sit on the side lines. I think that sitting though actually helped me a bit, not just with my ankle but with how I am going to approach every game now. I saw the mistakes we were having in the back line. I saw what happens when there's no communication. I saw what happens when there isn't someone to hold things together. And, now realizing that things can happen so fast and I can be out a few games from our already short season I have to pick my game up. I have to play with more intensity than everyone out there, I have to be the reason that we start winning games. I have to be a leader, regardless of being a first year or not. No one else is going to step up. I have to take control of this team and sort us out. We are half way through our season and we have 4 points, its ridiculous.