I’m gonna say my piece, and it’s going to piss some people off, but then you can say your piece, and I’ll sit down and shut up and listen.<\/p>\n
This game owes you nothing. There’s going to a come a day where the game passes all of us by. It chews us up and spits us out. Which means every time we get to play, every time we step on the field, we have to play as if it’s our last match.<\/p>\n
When you come out here, first come with your heart. Bring passion. Bring joy. Bring beauty. Bring an appreciation for the beauty of the game.<\/p>\n
Then mentally show up. Get here on time to warm up. During warm ups get in your touches, and work on one thing for each game. Work on your first touch. Work on your headers. Work on shooting to corners or work on wall passes. But mentally commit to being better at one thing after the game compared to before the game.<\/p>\n
Finally physically show up. Make the runs you’re supposed to make, and surprise yourself and make some you didn’t think you were strong enough to make. Play defense with intensity. Support your teammates with passion. Ignore the ref. Play the game beautifully, and after these 90 minutes which we have, these 90 minutes where the game is still ours, let’s walk off the field and say to ourselves if today was the last time we ever played the game we did so with heads held high, with pride in our performance and with everything we have left on the field.<\/p>\n
We did not do that today, and for that I am ashamed to be associated with this team. This game will never give you anything. We have to go out there and earn every inch. Today we just quit. I promise each and every one of you that this team won’t quit again. If you think that quitting is an option, then don’t come back next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m gonna say my piece, and it’s going to piss some people off, but then you can say your piece, and I’ll sit down and shut up and listen. This game owes you nothing. There’s going to a come a day where the game passes all of us by. It chews us up and spits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-62","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":437,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2011\/03\/22\/my-sexy-assist\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":0},"title":"My sexy assist","date":"March 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a really pretty assist today. We have an 8-on-8 league, and last week our game was quite embarrassing. We didn't show up to play mentally at all, and ended up losing 2-7, and I broke my nose in the process. There were a million and one excuses, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports Stories"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":169,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2009\/09\/04\/step-on-the-field-to-play-the-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":1},"title":"Step on the field to play the game","date":"September 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I played a game with my indoor team \"Where's the Beer?\" last night. I think we lost 19-1 or something along those lines. It wasn't pretty. I've learned that the most important element in the match is coming out of the match with a degree of pride for the way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports Stories"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1019,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/03\/18\/a-day-of-winners-and-losers\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":2},"title":"A day of winners and losers","date":"March 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Big sports day today. One big win, and one big loss. Game 1: Galatasary 0 - Chelsea 2 Galatasaray were not the story for this game. It was all about Didier Drogba returning to Stamford Bridge. And he played awfully. And the whole team was awful as well. It was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/07\/24\/one-month-to-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":3},"title":"One month to go...","date":"July 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There's one month to go in my Summer of Zimbra. I can genuinely say that I've learned a lot of things, many of which I never expected to experience. At the same time, I've been battling a desire to just burn out. I'm not sure why I never learned balance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Summer of Zimbra"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":823,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/01\/25\/everyone-gets-in-on-the-painting-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":4},"title":"Everyone gets in on the painting game","date":"January 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We're getting ready to move in (T-2 weeks to go). We've put up new lights, removed the doors from the play room closet, and started to make a big dent against our credit card :-p Micky is really excited about the DIY, and I'm really excited to make the house\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Home ownership"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1237,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/07\/19\/hide-or-dont-and-seek\/","url_meta":{"origin":374,"position":5},"title":"Hide (or don't) and seek","date":"July 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The babies have fallen in love with playing hide and seek. Except... there's no mystery to how they play :-) The game usually goes something like this Amelia and Luka go into bed time delay mode by suggesting a rousing game of hide-and-seek. Amelia usually says something along the lines\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}