My name is Rafael, the picture on the left is just a young boy with a dream that one day can make kicking a ball for a living. In this first post, I want to share my youth football experience, where the ups and downs begin.
I was born and grew up in Indonesia, Bali. Funnily enough none of my family member likes football or even playing this beautiful game. The story behind my ambition in football was actually came through my dad’s friend who brought me to watch a FA Cup final game between Man United vs Chelsea back in 2007. Since then and until this moment, I’ve never stopped playing.
When I started my footballing journey, I was 6 at that time. Like any other skills, I had to develop it, I couldn’t kick a ball at all initially. I was completely rubbish at it even though I really enjoy it. I remember there was one time where I use my hand to make the ball stop running away from me in the middle of a game.
Similar to most kids, I always play at school, mostly during breaks between classes and sometimes at the end of school time where I was waiting for my mum to picked me up. The school I went to wasn’t that big at that time, we didn’t have access to a football pitch. Hence, I played a lot of 5-a side game or futsal with the small pitch we got. I had joined my futsal school team where we would play tournaments against other schools near our area.
Outcasted by teammates
Long before I hit my puberty, I was actually chubby compared to other kids my age. I felt quite insecure with how my physique looked like. Probably you can notice by how big my cheeks actually are. On top of that, I have a Chinese-looking-face due to my Chinese heritage from my great grandparents which was not helping either. I would get racially abuse when I was starting to get involved with a local club football outside school. It honestly took a toll in my development as a player.
Just small things like peers were not allowing me to get involved in rondos, being shouted as a Chinese kid. Imagine being that chubby-outsider kid who was starting to play football and not being welcomed by any other kids in that particular environment. Imagine that look you had got every training session whilst being present in that environment.
Younger me had felt very uncomfortable when faced with those experience. My mind didn’t feel the happiest when I go training with this bunch of kids at this club back then. I had literally made excuses just to avoid coming to that place. I would prefer just practicing at home in my room or in the back garden.
Developing through futsal
Until at one point, I decided to just stick playing for my futsal club at school, team training twice a week (on top of my own session at my house) with a few tournaments during a school calendar year. The main reason was I couldn’t cope with how they treated me at outside of s
To be honest, it wasn’t an ideal situation for a kid who aspires to be a footballer. Comparing my situation to some kids with the same age elsewhere around the world that are on an academy set up, training every day and weekly games on the weekend.
Don’t get me wrong, sticking to futsal has helped me to become a better player especially on my tight ball control as the pitch is much smaller. But I had missed the athletic element of football where it requires you to run more, covering more distance, short and sharp burst to win those 50-50s in greater distance, rules about the game which entirely different.
Those stuff that I have missed on definitely slowed down some aspect of my development as a player. With my school team, I had won some collective accolades throughout every other school year. However, I always have the desire to win individual award for myself. I wanted to achieve something that I can be proud of for my own work.
To find out more about the continuation of my story, click here
