By Beatrice Lee (18S06A), Member

Training: 3 times a week,
1 physical training (2hrs) + 2 field trainings (3hrs)
Monday, Tuesday and Friday
Location: RI, Stadium Field
Experience required: NO.

“Why play football? Why don’t you just use your hands, like normal people do?”

Flying in the face of that impeccable logic, football is played around the world today. As we speak, someone out there is probably butchering a Cruyff turn. And that someone could be you! That is, if you join Raffles Soccer Girls.

I know, I know. Football? I wanted to play a much more aesthetically pleasing sport. Like netball or something. Football is just kinda gross. I don’t want to get tetanus from the school pitch!

Actually, football is popularly known as “the beautiful game”, and not without reason. Skill moves aside, there are few things more aesthetically pleasing than seeing someone put the ball in the back of net. A well struck shot, the net ballooning. The keeper on the ground, looking devastated. Here’s a bonus video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=godT873UO08 (watch with sound for maximum effect). And nobody ever got tetanus from playing football. I think.

Alright, alright, you say. But I don’t know anything about football. Many of us came in not knowing anything about football. In fact, our captain supports Arsenal, which further proves my point. Some of us do come in with a better tactical understanding of the game, but there is nothing that YouTube cannot help you with. In fact, football is much more of a thinking game than one might assume. If you watch enough football games, the same few patterns of movement and passing) appear over and over again (wing play, overlapping, one-twos and so on). Once you’ve had a taste of being an armchair football expert, you can never go back.

But I can’t play football. In the beginning, few of us could. I won’t claim we are all good now, but we can kind of kick a ball a little bit now. That is to the credit of our coaches, Mr Leong and Mr Man, who make our trainings fun and progressive, and manageable even for complete beginners and those who are new to the rigour of sports CCAs. Every year, they manage to turn a bunch of bumbling kids who trip over the ball into football players (who still sometimes trip over the ball).

And if you need one more reason to join football, just consider: 17 girls sweating it out on the field together for 8 hours a week; sharing food, socks and anything else you can imagine. What’s the logical result? Hand foot mouth disease? No, it’s friendship! The very nature of the game requires communication and understanding within the team, and the sheer amount of time we spend together as a team means it would be harder to not grow closer together. Very soon, you’ll find those hours in training won’t be enough, and you’ll find yourself going for team dinners and casual kickabouts outside of training. And these friendships are what will carry us through the most miserable PT sessions, the toughest defeats (yes, expect to get smashed 7-0 or worse at least once), and the gruelling A division season. To this day, many former football graduates remain close, and some continue to play the sport together, whether it is by invite to our trainings or in semi-professional leagues.

So give football a try! There’s never a dull moment, what with subpar memes and poking fun at your teammates’ screw-ups. There’s no other sport here that will give you a better chance to learn a new sport and make it entirely your own, no other sport that will allow you to play a bigger role in choosing the direction that you want the team to go. Try it, and you just might score!