UI Turfs and Breaks

As I yawned for what felt like the billionth time, my eyes started to water out of exhaustion and I let out a big sigh. My brother, Bara, noticed my exhaustion and asked, “hey I’m going to turfs if you wanna come.” Initially, I was annoyed - he clearly saw I was fighting to keep my eyes open so why would he ask if I wanted to go play soccer. Then I thought about it, I glanced at the clock and it read 6:32, I realized I’d been studying for 6 hours straight. It made sense, I did the physics worksheets, Latin homework, English reading, history questions, and a bunch of smaller tasks. When Bara asked if I wanted to go to turfs he didn’t ask for the sake of being polite, he wanted me to come so that I could take a break. 

Half an hour later I was standing in the goal attempting to block his kicks, but it got boring very soon - we wanted to play an actual game. My brother approached these random guys who looked like they just finished a game and asked them if they were going for another round. “Yeah we’ll probably start in a few, and we’re playing last one back can touch with hands - so no goalkeepers.” said a tall guy who I would eventually figure out is named Clay. At first I told my brother I didn’t want to play because I’ve never played any position other than keeper, but he refused and said that I’m at the turfs, so I have to play in a game. A few minutes later I was playing defense and had just gotten body nudged to the side.

Playing defense on the field was a lot different than playing keeper. Instead of having to stay behind the players at all times, I needed to push my way through and try to get in the action. Also I needed to make spontaneous decisions. When playing goalie, it’s a lot of pressure to save the ball, but once I had it in my hands, I could take my time to survey my options and get the ball to the best place. This was different, and somewhat uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to planning ahead and being aware of where all the people in my team are. Especially since they kept moving around. Also, at the beginning I felt a lot of pressure because my brother has never played with this group of people, so everytime I messed up, it reflected negatively on him. Luckily though, my team was good with guiding me where I should be and giving me easy passes to pass to someone open. 

Five - that’s the number of times I had the ball in the first half hour. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t mind. My team realized defense wasn’t the best position for me because I was good at pressuring people and getting them to make mistakes; and defense was mainly trying to get possession of the ball. I played forward for the second half of the game, and although I usually wouldn’t win the ball, I would at least mess up the plays of people from the other team. I’ve played with countless groups of people and this one definitely had the most skills. Seeing how well they played from the earlier game, I was nervous to play with guys so much older than me. Once the game started and I messed up the first pass and I got nervous. I didn’t enjoy it until my teammates started yelling encouraging words and they were pushing me to better myself. I didn’t realize it until afterwards but going outside and playing soccer with my brother and a bunch of strangers was a good break to not think about school and clear my mind.