Celebrate the little victories…it’s of utmost importance. More so for young athletes who may need constant validation from their family, friends, and peers. In some cases, it’s what keeps them going. The mental aspect needs to be carefully nurtured.
This post is exactly about that AND will be very short and sweet. It was about a year ago that both FCD and NTSC played against Spanish giants Sevilla. It was NTSC first ever international exhibition game and Jogo had the pleasure of starting in it. Congratulations Jogo. You shared the field with the likes of Joan Jordan, Eber Banega, Luuk de Jong, Aleix Vidal, among many others…”ballers” of a club that many of us can only dream of watching live. We will be forever grateful to FC Dallas and NTSC for those opportunities.
Sevilla is relevant today mostly because they are the only Spanish club still contending for any meaningful trophies in European competitions. As we know, Europa League finals are their cup of tea and them being part of it is a tradition. What is unusual however, is that there are normally more Spanish clubs fighting for important trophies in the semis and finals.
This past Monday, some of those players referenced above played against a strong Manchester United (Europa league winner of the 2017 edition) team in the UEFA semifinal game and miraculously survived and moved on to the championship game once again. Tomorrow, Sevilla will play Inter Milan in the final. Sevilla is by far the underdog but historically, they know how to play those types of games (won 3 out of the last 6 editions). We will be rooting for the Spanish as we feel we have closer ties to them than we do with the Italians.
As for you Jogo, all we can say is “what an honor it must have been to have shared the same field and have played against some of those ballers”. You have earned that right: stay humble. Keep grinding and learning and never stop dreaming like when you were 4 years old.
In other related family news, here is the latest episode of Chumchat. A day in the life of a D1 “soccer” player. Enjoy it.
#TheGomezway 