Empathy – “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”

This is a topic that I’ve vested a lot of my time that serves my personal growth development especially as a goalkeeping coach rookie. This season so far has been an eventful and learning experience to which I’m grateful for. But before I get into the match report Park View FC vs Brimsdown FC , I would like to share an interesting story on training day, Wednesday.

It was a great turnout despite the freezing temperatures ( damn it was cold ❄❄❄ ) and being the last before the festive season break, training as expected was intense and productive as always – you don’t want to piss of Clem 😎, which in return produced of our most dramatic, resilient and deserved wins of the season so far. During training I spoke to Clem the head coach about a very young goalkeeper who we spotted the previous week training on our pitch. The kid lives in Enfield, a few miles away from Woodgreen and I thought that the commitments he’s invested in travelling, showed his hunger to learn more through growth and development. I thought I missed contact but Clem assured me the kid will be back and guess what, he was back at the match. We’ve just got the squad on the pitch doing our regular warm ups before the match ( I actively took part because I was reserve Goalkeeper for the day ), Clem spotted the kid and alerted me. Understandably, it was the wrong time to make contact but something interesting happened afterwards. I will not go deep into details but I was glad I didn’t have to, at that particular time. The next person to alert me to the kid was Luis, who I was about to take through his goalkeeping pre-match drills. It just has to be, that making certain psychological observations can alert your mindset on how to be consistently effective, and competition is a trigger to that alert.

Other key factors which again I will not discuss plays major roles in the mindset, especially before a game, but what I noticed was a sudden spring in his steps, so to speak. As I kept hitting the ball harder with surprisingly great accuracy he was very sharp to respond and that was the catalyst. I knew he was going to have a good game, and boy did he have great one! The weather conditions were punishing – freezing cold and windy rain. We didn’t get off to a good start ( this is our Achilles heel ) by giving away a goal. Now you’ll have to cut some slack on this because I cannot remember how we conceded it, I was battling to generate heat through my body at that point I missed the goal, obviously not worth reporting about. We gathered ourselves and battle through the half an on two occasions Luis was called upon to make a very crucial 1 vs 1 block save and the other was a lip over the bar from a fierce drive from the opposition striker. We rode our luck on numerous occasions by losing possession in our deep half but got spared the punishment on each occasion. The weather was getting worse and all I was praying is for us to get to half time a goal down, then work out the next stragedy in the warmth because at this point my brain cells were frozen. We had a very honest assessment of how the half went and immediate changes had to be made. Riccardo Price came on for Kwesi Botchey for the second half and that paid off immediately as we started off brightly. A quick neat interchange from the mid-field got the ball to Riccardo and from outside the 18 yard box he whipped a sweet left foot swerve that curled up and in the net for the equaliser yes. Then we started to pile up the pressure but we still had our ugly moments at the defensive line. We were still making suicide passes due to lack of communication as attest to an incident where Luis bailed us out with a brilliant low dive save from a strike, that stem from the creation of our avoidable mistakes. Then the game dragged on and just as we thought the drama was about to end on a 1 – 1 draw, we had a last minute corner kick and what resulted from it can only be described as a Santa Claus ping pong machine ball goal, and that was it.. 2 – 1 winners. What an incredible way to end the year!..

Next year will be challenging as we begin to realise the importance of the deployment of empathy in any given situation. As a goalkeeping coach and personal development promoter, there is a lot of PR involved and I’m beginning to accept the responsibility of committing whatever it takes to utilise my skill set and knowledge in the best possible and beneficial way. I was concerned about the mindset of Luis before the match and I had to notify the head coach, but in the end it all worked out well.

May I cease this opportunity apologise for the late post of this article, I’ve caught the cold ( I feel sick.. ) from yesterday’s heroics and have been trying to motivate myself to get the Christmas ping pong machine ball winner story done. Next week’s blog will be about personal growth and development, including the Vision Workbook London Workshop hosted by Nora Szanto which I had the privilege of attending on the 11th of December. She has been a fan of mine as much as I am of her, ever since we met at a business seminar in London back in May 2017..

You Are The Ultimate Keeper Of Your Destiny – ULTIMATE KEEPER