The flight has taken 2 hours. Everything went well, no turbulence’s, but in my mind I wasn’t calm at all, so many thoughts coming in and going out of my head. There was I sitting, on the plane home to Berlin, this time not only to visit my parent, but to move in with them again. At least until I would find a new club.
And again this intense and nerve-racking time of finding a new club has come. However this time I actually had good cards, after all, I came from CSKA Sofia, the most successful football club in Bulgaria where I did prove my quality’s as a solid central defender in numerous of games. My attitude was positive because I have been looking for new clubs before, under much worse initial conditions. I experienced a few setbacks already, but neither on the field nor in life I fear the battle. In such situations I always think back to the beginning and the path my life has taken since then.
Everything started about 18 years ago. I had just reached the age of 6, when my father told me, „Denis, today you will go to football training.“ Nobody can say that I instantly shared his enthusiasm, because at home it was so nice cooking some food with my mom, solving maths problems or reading lyrical texts. Actually that’s rather the beginning of a career as an academic.
But already a few training sessions were enough to start a fire in me. I made new friends and had fun strategically chasing a leather ball around the field. But the two sessions per week were not enough for me. So my Dad began with my “individual training „. And this seven times per weeks, 52 weeks per year.
„Share your knowledge with others. That will give you immortality“ , a quote my dad loved to use.
The most important thing for a child, who is staring to take football seriously, is the juggling with the ball. (keepie uppies) “So you train your basic technique and get the feeling for the ball.” This feeling for the ball is the key for every football player; the rest is based on it. Therefore it’s especially important to learn it at an early age. My dad gave me the task to juggle 100 times with the ball (right and left foot, alternating). He said: “If you want to be the best, you have to start with that.“ So I created the 1st out of a series of rules and objectives: Always be the best.
I hope I didn’t create the impression that I was forced by my father. Sometimes I had really bad days and wasn’t even able to keep the ball up 40 times. In such situations, my Dad used to say: “Denis, just rest for today and try again tomorrow.” But as long as I had not achieved my goal , stopping and resting was not an option for me and I said blankly : “ NO , why don’t you go home , I will continue“. In most of the cases this was the start of a big argument and it always ended with the fact that my Dad actually went home alone. I stayed and continued to practice. My ambitions and my stubbornness were often “stronger” than my Dad. After 14 days, it finally happened and I managed the 100. I was so proud and satisfied with the feeling inside my chest, that I am actually the best. I was showing off in front of my friends and demonstrated it to them, as nobody wanted to believe it. However, resting on my success is not a trait of mine.
I wanted more. I wanted 1000!!!
And I was willing to invest. Day after day I went on the football field, to reach more than the previous day, to improve myself every time. The point wasn’t anymore to be better than somebody else. My focus had changed. The one I had to beat was MYSELF:
Be better than yesterday, and not better than somebody else.
denisprychynenko 