MY SON’S FIRST GOOD TRAINING

“Do you know what is the favourite part of your child’s activities? The opportunity to have FUN.”

My brother is a soccer fan. Long before my baby was born, he was planning joint football training with this child. His dream came true because firstly I gave birth to a boy, and secondly, as soon as Patrick started to walk, you could see his love for football. 

In small steps, my brother played football with him very often. Patrick was happy that he could run out, and his uncle was happy, that Patrick ran for the ball into the bushes all the time. Regularly, every Saturday, we went to watch uncle’s training sessions. Of course, sometimes it ended in crying because Patrick wanted to play too. Imagine the conversation of the three-year-old boy:

“Mom, I’m going to play with them.”

“But Patrick, they’re big guys, they would kick you, overturn you.”

“What are you talking about Mommy, this is a friendly sport, you only kick the ball, and I can see that I am faster than them.”

From time to time it happened that the training guys kicked him a ball, and Patrick was in heaven.

My husband and I started thinking about finding a kid’s soccer lesson for Patrick. Unfortunately, Covid showed up and my brother’s training was canceled as well. We were also unable to send Patrick to any children’s courses.

Of course, uncle with Patrick still went out kicking the ball in the park and they have a great time. But in the end, our world turned upside down because we left England, to live permanently in the Czech Republic. 

We were new to everyone and everything was new to us. New Nursery, a new baby born, this time a girl. Brother stayed in England, and we somehow forgot about Patrick’s football.

Luckily summer has come, covid has passed, or at least the panic that someone is sneezing in your neighborhood has calmed down. We met a few people, including the coach of the children’s football team. Patrick was 4 years old. The trainer said:

“It’s okay, but there is no one in his age, we have 5-year-old boys, but if Patrick is good, let him try. “

“Ok. Please remember that Patrick may not understand all the commands in the Czech language yet, but you can easily communicate with him in English”.

“It won’t be a problem, we don’t communicate much, we just kick the ball.”

I thought: such a great guy, sport is in his blood, a typical coach. 

And the first training began. I didn’t think that football is also popular in the Czech Republic, that hockey is popular, I knew it. However, I was wrong when I saw crowds of parents during training plus the rest of the family, aunts, uncles, siblings, and friends also.

The first whistle and the game began. I didn’t watch the same boring pattern of a football match over and over again because I had to run after my one-year-old daughter. She also brought the ball and copied the boys’ training from a separate playground. I heard the first commands from the coach:

“Now we are behind the line and we run from gate to gate, a form of warm-up.”

Second command:

“Now we will run with the ball around these cones.” 

Another command:

“Now we pass the ball in pairs and kick to the gate.”

I will not describe more, because I saw that Patrick did not perform a single command from the coach throughout the training. It was obvious that Patrick was there to have fun, he expected his friends to kick a ball with him and run through the bushes, just like with his uncle. Here he only received orders that he didn’t want to follow.

Several times I would go out onto the field and in front of the crowd of people, I was explaining to my son that he shouldn’t jump or dance and that he had to stop doing acrobatic figures and just do what the coach asks for.

Anyway, my son had a great time as he caught the attention of other kids playing soccer and distracted the whole training overall.

The end was I stole it quietly from the field and he went with me without hesitation. The situation was under control. In addition, he played football with his little sister for the next hour and was angry that she didn’t listen to him. At home I asked:

“Patrick, are we going to training next Tuesday?”

“And I will be able to dance and make acrobatic figures?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“That how can I play there?”

“Listen to the coach and practice football.”

“It is boring.”

And since my son needs extra classes, I didn’t wait long and found another course for kids. You probably won’t be surprised that this is a Latin dance course. Patrick is very pleased. He had his first performance and you can see that dancing was a good choice. Patrick gets along very well with the 11 girls from the courses, and with a dance coach – they are best buddies.