Personal Experience with Soccer and the Factors that Shaped It

The Motivation of a Soccer Star
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The Motivation of a Soccer Star
I was born and raised in an environment with little physical activity. The people often cared about their families but not the farewell of their neighborhoods. As a child, I had little to no skills in soccer and other sporting activities. The best I could do was run around in our compound playing with a ball my father bought for me as a gift for performing well in my pre-school studies. Despite the lack of exposure, I later became among the best football player from my neighborhood. However, attaining that position was not easy. Lack of support from my parents, controversial narratives about soccer, pressure to be the best, nursing sports injuries, and cultural and religious norms were among the challenges I faced while pursuing sports.
My father is a soccer fan, but he neither plays nor likes playing soccer. He is an Arsenal fan, and he always watches their matches. He once took us on vacation to the Emirates Stadium to watch Arsenal Football Club play against Chelsea. However, he drew boundaries where a family member like me was interested in becoming a professional footballer. He encouraged me to play alone and my younger brother around our house compound but never joined other children in a local football pitch. This occasionally placed me on the wrong side of my father's rules because I used to sneak and play with a neighbor's child when my parents were not home. My younger brother could tell me off when my parents returned, and I would receive a beating from my father, who always emphasized obeying rules. I was raised by authoritarian parents whose commands were final, and we were not supposed to question them. This parenting style contributed to my fear of developing my soccer skills when I was still young by not practicing much. Nonetheless, I developed my interest in soccer through watching international football matches with my father and later became a football star.
My parents often painted soccer negatively to make me drop my interest in it. They took advantage of the fact that a child trusts their parents more than outsiders. My parents genuinely or manipulatively believed that soccer benefits other people apart from the players. They told me that I would see my family once a year or even fail to see them because the owners of the clubs like to overwork the players and deny them socialization privileges. They also told me that I would not marry because the football club owners want people who devote more than 95% of their time to the football team. The clarion call was that I would be making someone else wealth by straining my body and nursing injuries.
My parents' argument aligns with the conflict theory, which asserts that economic forces shape society and that sports must be studied in terms of economic exploitation and capitalist expansion (Christian, 2018; Sociology Group, 2020). The socialists use the conflict theory to show how sports perpetuate the privilege and power of the existing elite groups in society. However, the theory is biased because it does not acknowledge the importance of sports in physical and social empowerment. My parents advised me on sports by only seeing it from an economic perspective. They never considered the physical health and social benefit I would get from it.
I defied the advice from my parents and continued playing football, with the climax and breakthrough being during my teenage years. I joined the school's football team, where we played to the national level. I never told my parents about it because I knew they would disapprove. My father learned about it in the end-semester report, and he was furious at me. According to him, sports was wasting my time and glorifying the school's name and the leadership. He believed that the student players never got any credit for their efforts and that the praises only targeted our school, and the management took all the credit. This did not stop me from continuing to play soccer.
Our school performance earned me the team's captainship and got an opportunity to play for our region's youth team. This added to my experience in the football game. While captaining...