Reflection Exemplars

17 February: I wouldn't say my football ability is terrible but I would like to improve on the skills I already have. During secondary school, I would occasionally play football, however, in my opinion, there was no real passion behind it. I played football just because I had to, however, over the given two year period, I've grown to the sport and began watching a lot more on television. This has driven me forward into building upon the skills I have into a better player overall. Also, this would help me keep fit and healthy while studying the IB. The first week, I filled in the midfield role to push for a 3-1 victory over the opposing team. Good start to a promising future I thought.

24 February: I decided I wanted to play the same role as I did during the first week. My reason for this was I knew some of the mistakes I had made during my debut match. For instance, in an attempt to pass the ball to one of the strikers as they were in on goal, I accidentally passed it off the pitch. This led to the opposing team getting a throw in and led to them getting a goal. Therefore, this time round, my aim for this week was to play the role I was 100% sure of and knew the limits to my abilities.

2 March: As I started the match on both first and second week, I did not want to be greedy and continue to be first pick. The main reason I believe I was first pick was purely based upon knowing friends that attended football on Friday. I took this time to stand on the side and observe those who played in the role midfield that I would normally be playing to see if they are doing anything different in comparison to me. I know that in any team sport it is essential to be cooperative and have good communication with the team. Saying this, I wanted to explore how important it was to be a communicative player in a team and therefore, at the beginning of next week, I shall be asking if I can play manager of the team rather than playing. This will allow me to see how the team interacts and able to communicate good strategies I may have come across.

9 March: This week went successfully I think. I had the privilege to manage the team which I found interesting. My plan was to observe the game and, during the second half, have a quick team talk about the positives and negatives. I called for a change in formation as I believed it would be more beneficial to the team if we played 1 striker but 5 midfielders instead. Fortunately, the strategy worked and we came out from a 2-1 lose during the first half to a 2-3 win for the students! What an intense game.

16 March: Getting picked for a starting position felt good again. Although previously I had really enjoyed the manager role, I think a big part of playing football every Friday is to maintain a high level of fitness and try to extrapolate as much both physical and mental skills as I can from the sport. Therefore, going back to the midfield role was fun and interesting as I could use the skills I had acquired from last session whilst playing in the game.

30 March: This week was not as exhausting as other weeks are for me as we ended up playing a five-a-side match due to a shortage of players. I could not gain much from the game and therefore once everyone decided to leave, me and friends stayed to play penalty shoot out. I found out during this week that there is a huge amount of pressure on one's shoulders.

(CAS TSM, https://tinyurl.com/y5vamjke)