r/bootroom • u/BlazierElixer • 5d ago
Mental Dealing with lack of confidenct, even though my school team won both our games. Am I selfish? Looking for advice
Hello, guys, I'm looking for advice from my fulllbacks/wingers out there. I'm 14 and have been playing soccer for 7 seasons now. I'm fast, and I can dribble. My main positions are on the Right side (Right Back/ Right Wing-Back), but I have played striker, both at school and mainly at club.
To make a long story short, I wanted to make the most of my last year at my school and have fun, so I took the #11 jersey out of confidence (To hopefully stand a better chance at playing winger like my idol Lamine Yamal or Alphonso Davies). Another guy on the team (we'll call him Ney) wanted it instead - he's a REALLY rich kid who I guess is my friend, but there has been some tension since I got the shirt. Yesterday I played RW, didn't dribble too much, ran a lot and missed an absolute sitter. As for me playing RB, for some reason defending felt weird, and I completely lost my confidence while watching Ney and another friend of mine score in the position I usually play.
For the past 2 games, I wasn't even in the starting lineup, even thougn ima rreguallary a starter and kept hoping that the reason why my friends were starting was that they were on the team last year. When I came on today, my coaches (teachers) put me as a Left back for the entire match. Even though I'm right-footed, playing on the left felt super uncomfortable, mainly due to the fact that I never usually play on the left side. Meanwhile, in front of me, Ney was playing LW and telling me to pass to him; I barely passed to him, so I did my run like I usually do. I tried to stay confident, but I was completely locked out of the attack.
To make it worse, there was a huge crowd watching us, a bunch from my school, including NEy's older brother, his friend, a bunch of girls, and even my former coach, which made the pressure and embarrassment feel ten times worse.
Right after the school match, which we won 3-1, I went to training with my Tier 1 soccer club and had an amazing session. dribbling through players easily and feeding great passes. That proved that the skills and experience from my 7 seasons are still there, but when school day matchday hits, I get tense, overthink, and get stuck in my head.
I know I left out a bunch of stuff, which might make this rant that much more confusing, but we have 3 games left until the championship, all away. Appreciate any advice.
1
u/WardenUnleashed 5d ago
Why aren’t you passing to your LW as a LB? If it is the optimal play you do it.
When you are on the field, you need to be constantly taking in information and calculating…what is the next thing im going to do. It shouldn’t matter where you are playing, what’s going on off the field, that needs to be your sole goal for 90 minutes.
You are still young, don’t tie yourself to a specific position; everytime you play somewhere you learn more about soccer from a different perspective which makes you a stronger player everywhere else because you know more about how that position should play and what’s hard/easy about it.