Playing Football Is By Far the Best Experience of This Year
How it started
It started with muscle cramps after the first touch of the ball, literally. I tried to massage my leg, but it didn't help, so I had to leave. The second time, both Achilles tendons hurt, and I had to skip about a month. Trying to run tended to worsen the situation, and it hurts now every time until I warm up. But you know what? Somehow YouTube showed me a video of a woman in yoga leggings recommending stretching the Achilles tendons, and the caption said something like "you are sitting the whole day, what do you want from your body?" So it seems to be a me-problem, and if a simple 10-minute-a-day stretch can fix it, there's just nothing to talk about. In the meantime, I discovered a warm-up routine from some English gentleman and advice from the chatbot regarding the training runs. So now I run not by distance, but by time, for about 20 minutes. And it seems that the human body was designed to regularly take some load just to feel normal, but a body needs to sweat. I feel a lot better after each training session, physically and mentally, but playing football brings something very special too.
Being with the boys
I think socializing is underappreciated. And my friends laugh when I tell them that men are somewhat psychologically wired to need to be among other men. We don't discuss a lot, because we come to play football, but I like these guys, and although they don't know it, they somehow helped me navigate through a rough period of my life. I kind of lost the thread of what is normal, what human and manlike reactions are, how you should normally react to small talk, uncomfortable situations or conflicts (don't ask how it happened).
I don't drink beer, I don't talk about my background, but they somehow learned to read my emotions, and the funniest part is that my emotions matter to them. And yes, cultural difference is a thing, and I stepped right on it in one case, but that's how I learned something valuable. To me, it seemed like excessive bureaucracy, which I hate, and to them, it was the system that just works, so there's no need to change it. And playing football after work requires understanding (sometimes guessing) German words quickly, and that even doesn't count as a challenge.
The challenges
They warned me from the start that they participate in the championship. I was just like, "I'm fine with it". But an official game, even in the lowest league with no spectators, is a completely different experience compared to training, and it motivates you to progress and to give it your all. But the first challenge was to get to that game, because it was usually a new location, which I needed to find in time.
The second challenge was bringing beer or washing the uniform for the team. There's also some more logistics involved if you have a car and want to help someone get to the game in time, and I also learned about the "traditions" (where we meet) the hard way, but look, I didn't screw up for a long time, and it was kind of revealing to me. Beer is actually the most challenging, because you have to buy it, bring it home and cool it down, and then not forget to bring it to the game. One mistake and the team gets warm beer or no beer, and you see at least 10 disappointed guys, which is really motivating not to do it the next time.
How it ended
Oh, I'm not done with playing football, but the season ended. And I'd like to tell you how the last game of the season went. So we had a training session with the guys from the upper league. They all seemed to be former pros, they all ran fast, had good technique, and when they split the team, I played with these guys. So I lost all the balls I got, couldn't get to the ball because I wasn't fast enough, couldn't score a goal – I couldn't do almost anything, although I gave it my all. But I remember vividly how I played and how I felt in February – like a bag full of shit, and I couldn't run at all. The improvement in less than a year was huge for me, and I keep smiling when I remember that game. And it was positive overall; everyone was relaxed and just enjoyed the game. There are some social mechanics involved, like calibrating myself, and I'm starting to think, maybe I shouldn't be that hard on myself. And, playing twice a week and running once a week, I lost some weight effortlessly. That alone was kind of amazing.