The crowd roared as I walked into the stadium. I am feeling the pressure and I am really nervous, because I know that if I don't perform well I might not be able to play on the field until I redeem myself. Not just that but I feel that the crowd will despise me and not want me playing for their team. I can feel the ground shaking as the crowd cheers my name trying to make me confident I guess, but then again if I don't perform well, I will disappoint them, but I am going to do my best to make my name around the world.
This game I am going against Real Madrid, a tough team to win against. Before the game starts the national anthem starts to play. As the national anthem plays I start taking big breaths trying to calm myself down, I shake my nerves off and start stretching a bit. When the national anthem ended, we started shaking the other team's hand. The eye contact they make with me is imitating, especially because of how big they are. We all get ready on our positions waiting for the referee to blow the whistle for the game to start. This is when my nerves kick in a lot.
As soon as I looked at the referee blowing the whistle, he was in slow motion, I could hear my heart beating, my skin crawling, and my body warms up for a second. BEEEEEEP, the whistle blows. I got the ball and started passing it around with my teammates. I am going with the flow playing the game then Real Madrid scores a goal. This makes me want to score a goal even more because I don't want to upset the fans.10 minutes of the game goes by, all of a sudden the ball is rolling in the box with nobody, I sprint up and shoot the ball… GOALLLLLLLLLLLL!!! The whole crowd shouting, Cheering, and dancing as I scored.
About 5 minutes after I scored, Real Madrid scored again. The score is now 1-2, we are down. 27 minutes go by, Ronaldinho dribbles, dribbles, and dribbles, then goes for the shot and misses, I get the rebound… GOALLLLLLLLL!!! The announcers are saying my name rapidly and the crowd is cheering, I feel so alive with energy. The crowd is Loud, and the ground almost feels like an earthquake because of the roaring sounds from the crowd. The score is 2-2, and it is half time.
The coach is talking to us on the plays and what to do while we are in the locker room. After the coach stops talking my teammates stretch, some get a massage so they dont get cramps, others icing themselves, and changing boots. I sit there thinking to myself, “What can I do to help the team out more?” The coach comes and talks to me privately and puts his hand on my shoulder and says “Whatever you do on the pitch I am proud of you, and what you did in the first half.” That little talk he did with me got me very confident. I knew that I did not let him down or make a mistake being there on the pitch.
Half time is over and the second half kick off starts. Soon enough Real Madrid gets a goal in, so it is 3-2, we are down. I try my best to get a goal in. As I am in the box I try to shoot the ball but I get fouled from behind, but the referees did not give a penalty. I was kind of upset about that and almost felt the urge to argue with the referee but I let it be. Later on in the 90th minute of the game, Rohnaldinho passed me the ball, I dribbled through 5 defenders, I saw the defender's eyes looking straight at me while I was dribbling the ball. I felt like I was in control of the opponents defense to the point where I knew what they were going to do. Everything was in slow motion and then I shot the ball, and the crowd went silent … GOALLLLLLLLL!!! My first hat-trick I have ever done. I feel very accomplished. The crowd was chanting my name. My teammates, coaches, and people from the bench go over to hug me and jump on me. I tied the game up 3-3. I was cheering, dancing , and hugging my friends. Since I got the hat- trick, I got the game ball, kissed it and started waving at everybody in the stadium while they were cheering my name. My coach said to me “I am very proud of you Leo” as he hugged me with a smile.