Nigeria, America and the UK

Random, random, random....

I was watching a movie the other day and it's a baseball movie, so the coach goes up to the team and proceeds to give them a pep talk. "Y'all have worked so hard...", "get out there and do your best..." - you guys know the drill. And then the team proceeds to play and win or lose, they're still a team. It got me thinking about my experience growing up and playing soccer in Nigeria and then playing it again in the UK (if you keep in mind that in both of these other places, they call it football and that totally makes sense).

In the UK, it was kind of similar to America. Before the game, coach would tell us which positions everyone would be playing with his little whiteboard and marker and then we'd get a little pep talk with some tips and would be out on the pitch for the game. This team was a bit different though. About a month into my playing with the club, I started noticing some tension between some of the girls on the team and the coach. We also had another coach, but she was more in charge of conducting our fitness exercises than actually coaching the game. But it seemed like all of a sudden, a lot of the girls on the team were getting very offended whenever either of the coaches would give them instructions, whether it was from the side of the pitch during the game or in the locker room during breaks. And I just couldn't get it. Granted, I tend to err on the side of overanlysing everything and being hard on myself for my mistakes. But my upbringing also meant that I really didn't understand how kids could look at adults and actually indicate they were upset that they were being corrected. One of these players was the centreback. I used to be the centreback in high school and it was always a position of very high stakes and high responsibility. You got a vantage point of the pitch that many players didn't have. You organised the defensive line. You could even organise other players. And so coming into a new team, I still considered, and honestly I still consider, that position to be an important one. She however didn't appreciate the fact that the coaches were always yelling at her to organise the defensive line. I kind of get that considering that you could tell people to do things and they would just ignore you, but again.. it was more about the way she said that to coach. And then some defenders were upset because everytime we'd come in for half time or breaks, the other players would pick on us. Granted again, i feel like people don't give defenders the respect they deserve very often. But I was used to being corrected you know.

Now to give a brief glimpse into what teams were like in Nigeria... For starters, we didn't ever really have the pep talks from coaches before games. Coaches came in to clarify where everyone would be playing and give last minutes tips and instructions regarding strategy. If there was ever to be a motivational speech, it would often come from the team captain or other senior members of the team. Moving on from that, every football coach I ever had was a guy and when we would practice, they would often play with us. I'm getting the sense that that isn't very common in other places, but I appreciated it. Apart from the fact that my coach probably had more than a 100 pounds on me, and if we forget the time he pushed me and I flew a couple feet in the air before landing (the first ever free kick that I earned), I'd say it was beneficial to play with someone who had such obvious physical advantages and had played the game for longer. It made me a more aggressive player and made me less scared. That has served me well. But Nigerian coaches are also very shout- heavy. In the UK, my coach would never shout at me. If he needed to tell me to move up to meet the defensive line, he would gently tell me or motion with his hands. In Naij, the coaches would be shouting from the sidelines for us to get in line, screaming particular names, and sometimes even insulting people to get them to act. The boys had it much worse. Their coaches were just brutal. The insults were next level. The drills to punish unsatisfactory behaviour often blown out of proportion. But they loved the game. We loved the game. And so barring some dramatic stomping off the pitch and friends keeping friends from saying things that could get them kicked off the team, we stayed.

I'm not saying I'm a supporter of insults. I don't think they're necessary. And when you're new to the game, or trying to get back to it, you really don't need another voice in your head pointing out all your faults. But.... I think learning football in Nigeria made me humble. I can appreciate coaches that criticize less and that do it more gently. But I can see my faults and I can handle hearing them from other people. I still love the game, so my coaches couldn't have been all that bad. I just think it's really interesting to see the cultural differences in how we're taught the game and so how we play the game.

Hope this brought a little unserious consideration to your life today.

Dera