Soccer is Life

Since I don't have a job right now I seem to have a fair bit of free time! Although I spend most of it planning for the future (looking for jobs and planning new businesses) I took a part time job assisting as a soccer coach for a soccer clinic here in Saskatoon called Serious About Soccer (SAS). It runs for 2 weeks for 2 hours a night and is geared towards kids (mainly U11 - U14) that really want to focus on improving their skill. I originally wasn't going to do it since I didn't know if I would be in Sasktoon or not (I had already stepped away from coaching soccer for Bethany College), but since we are I was grateful for the chance to help out with this. Not only because I love soccer, but I also get to work with some other great soccer coaches. And because the timeline was very short I felt I could handle it. I didn't want to be committing to anything long term because I just didn't know what the future had in store.

Unfortunately, today in the SAS clinic as I was working with one of the players who wanted to improve his defense skills I twisted my knee or something. He was practicing block tackles as I held the ball on my right foot. But then he wanted to practice his left foot. No problem. I moved the ball to my left foot, but when he came in for the tackle I didn't brace my leg and foot enough. I could feel my entire leg go back and my knee bend the wrong way. "Ok, time for a water break," I managed to say as I hobbled around the floor seeing how bad it was. It should be ok. I still have 5 weeks or so until the indoor season starts for my Men's team so it should be healed by then. But it will need a little TLC for the next few days/weeks.

But speaking about committments, I agreed to be an assistant coach with Eastside Soccer Association's U12 boys Gold team. I told Tom (the Technical Director of Eastside) that I couldn't commit to being the head coach due to my unknown future, but that I would help out as an assistant. As things have progressed I am now a co-coach along with another person (I haven't met him yet). It's funny how things like this happen to me. I'm still planning on just helping out in the co-coach role, but I have this funny feeling I will be playing a very large role with the team this year. Now don't get me wrong, this is great! I love soccer and coaching and these kids on the team are a great bunch of guys. It's just that I don't want to be filling up my entire schedule with soccer committments as I don't know what will happen with my new job/business venture. I will have to learn French though as one of the kids doesn't speak English! Luckily a few of the other boys are in French immersion so I'll have to use them to translate. I also just found out today that this U12 Gold team will be playing in the new Saskatoon Soccer Complex in an 8 vs 8 game. I'll definately have to start looking over some new strategy as this will be a brand new game.

That's it for now with the soccer news, but I'll leave you with this video link for some Great Soccer Moves . Click it to watch some great soccer dribbling, juggling and 1v1 attacking moves in real games and it will get you pumped to play some soccer!

Stay tuned shortly for another Fact or Fiction story!