Back in junior high,
I was, without question, the team's dead weight.
In training and in matches, I couldn't produce results at all.
Everyone around me was improving, and I was the only one left behind.
My teammates looked at me coldly.
The atmosphere was always heavy and suffocating.
No matter how loudly I called out or how hard I ran,
I couldn't become someone they trusted.
Almost every day, they threw words like these at me.
“We lose when you're on our team.”
“Don't come. You just get in the way.”
“Die, you useless player.”
“I don't want to play football with you.”
They weren't joking.
That was my reality.
And what hurt most
was that even the coaches had given up on me.
“He isn't cut out for football.”
“He probably won't keep playing in high school.”
“Going pro? Absolutely impossible.”
My dream was laughed at, crushed, and kicked aside.
⸻
Every day before football was hell.
Just standing at the front door made my throat tighten and left me feeling sick.
I tried to steady my shaking hands and hold back the tears.
One day, my mother said, looking worried,
“If you don't feel well, you don't have to force yourself to go.”
But I couldn't say,
“I don't want to go.”
I didn't want the parents who supported me to see my weakness.
I wanted them to see only how hard I was working.
So I smiled and put on my shoes.
As if nothing had happened,
I headed to the training ground.
⸻
One day, something I did on the pitch led to us conceding, and we lost the match.
Nobody said anything.
There was just a cold, silent atmosphere.
That day, I sat alone on the bench.
When I got home, I clutched my kit and cried.
With my face pressed into my pillow,
“I just want to quit,”
my heart screamed, over and over.
⸻
But then—
some words came back to me.
When I was in elementary school,
a coach once said this about me.
“It's kids like this who become pros.”
Just one sentence.
But it had stayed deep inside me.
It had kept glowing like a small ember.
“I'm someone who will become a pro.”
“It can't end here.”
Those words alone fired me up again when I was close to falling apart.
⸻
On another day, an older teammate casually said,
“I see how hard you're working.”
I'd thought nobody recognized my effort.
But someone was watching.
Those words made me feel that it was okay to keep trying.
Even if it wasn't paying off, if someone could see me,
I could lift my head and move forward again.
⸻
There were nearly 40 players on my junior high team.
But the number who kept playing through university—
is just two, including me.
The days I walked out the front door feeling like I would throw up.
The days I kept calling out when nobody expected anything of me.
The times I stepped forward even after I'd become afraid of the ball.
None of it was wasted.
I'm proud of all of it.
⸻
Believing isn't easy.
Even when everyone around you looks like an enemy,
you have to be the one person who believes in you.
Sometimes that's lonely.
It's frightening and painful, and over and over you think, “I can't take any more.”
But it's the people who keep believing through that
who change their lives.
I'm going to prove it.
⸻
To anyone struggling with football right now.
To anyone who feels like they're the only one whose effort isn't paying off.
If this article reaches you, here's what I want to say.
There is someone who sees you.
The view only changes if you keep believing long enough to reach it.
Your story isn't over yet.
That's the honest truth from someone who used to be the failure.