When I last posted I mentioned that in an ideal world I
would play so well that AIK would want to sign me. I reasoned that if I scored two goals in the
match that I would have a great shot of signing directly with AIK and jumping
two division and a boatload of prestige in the process.
Well I had two golden opportunities. I missed them both. Not only didn’t score, but missed the goal
entirely both times. Goals that I have
scored before and goals that (if I ever get a contract) I will score
again. The first was about 10 minutes in
and we had just conceded a goal to go down 1-0.
The attacking midfielder played a ball over the left back and I ran onto
it and controlled it perfectly in stride out of the air. That left me one on one with the goalkeeper
on the right side of the box. I decided
to strike the ball on the volley, but scuffed it badly and hit the outside
netting of the near post. Glorious
chance missed. I did by far the harder
skill by controlling the ball with ease, then blew the (relatively) easy part.
The second chance came with us down 2-0. It was maybe 25-30 minutes in. The attacking mid played a hard ball to my
feet and I ran at the left back. I ran
at him at full speed, which pretty much meant he had to guess which way I was
going to cut to have any chance of tackling me.
He guessed that I would go to my right foot…wrong. I walked past him and had only the keeper to
beat from 15 yards and inexplicably tried to use the inside of my right foot to
guide the ball into the keepers near post.
I assumed he’d be cheating to his far post, since my momentum was
carrying me that way. I was also an
idiot for using the inside of my right foot for a ball that was in the middle
of my body. Either a toe poke or left
footed shot would have been a better choice there. A second great chance missed.
We lost the game, 2-4 btw.
The silver lining in my performance was that I did a good
job handling the winger for AIK. His
name is something Mutumbo and he’s considered the top winger in
Allsvenskan. He was the only player on
that team that I’d heard of going into this match. Once I was subbed off he scored within two
minutes. I also “assisted” the first
goal. I put that in quotations because I
don’t know if it was credited as an assist.
Mutumbo was trying to dribble out of trouble deep in their end and I
tackled him. The ball went directly to
our attacking midfielder who cheekily chipped the goalie. Technically it did go directly from my foot
to the person who scored, but anyone watching knew that it was not a pass but
instead a quite fortunate tackle. All
the same some credit must be given for winning a tackle that leads directly to
a goal.
I have nothing else today.
I think I’m in a good position at the moment to win a contract, but then
again this isn’t the first time I’ve thought that and I’ve been wrong the other
times. I feel like I absolutely need to
score a goal in our next training match on Saturday to ensure my position. We’ll see.
If nothing else the Swedish agent who I’m working with here saw me play
for the first time today. He will have
seen that I can play at this level and if Enkoping doesn’t work out then he’ll
be more inclined to work to find me another club because he knows I can cut it,
even if Enkoping doesn’t agree. Talk to
y’all soon.
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