getting better at soccer

I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but one of the best things about moving to NYC for me has been being able to play soccer again. There was a tournament that had been running over the past few months, and it just wrapped up — our team came in second (after a grueling 3–2 loss in the finals). I ended up winning the golden boot with 14 goals and I actually learned a lot about both soccer and myself along the way.

Before coming to NYC, I had basically quit playing soccer by the end of 10th grade. This was a significant decision, given that I’d been playing since 1st grade and had even reached the highest non-academy league level in Dallas during 8th and 9th grade. There was some sort of national ranking system (which, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how it worked) that placed our team somewhere around 100th in the U.S. Despite playing at that level, I don’t think I was actually very good. I had made it there by relying on a mix of raw athleticism and the leftover confidence I had from my early, non-competitive days as a striker. That was enough to get me in, but nowhere near enough to keep me there.

I hadn’t developed the habit of practicing on my own, or of watching and thinking about the sport off the field. I really enjoyed soccer as a kid, and that enjoyment was what kept me playing. But once I reached that higher level, a combination of an uninspiring coach and a socially distant team stripped away the childlike fun that had kept me going. With that joy gone, I had no motivation to work on or even think about soccer outside of practice.

As an aside, it feels like many immigrant Indian families discourage working out, so I also lost my natural physical edge and speed advantage as other kids trained harder. All of this added up to what I now recognize as the worst possible mindset for a soccer player — especially a striker. I had no confidence. I was afraid of receiving the ball, I positioned myself only to chase through balls instead of trying to control the game, and I never socially connected with my teammates, which meant there was no mutual trust. I eventually stopped playing because soccer had become completely disconnected from the reasons I had enjoyed and excelled at it in the first place. Other interests like debate and orchestra — where I connected with people much more easily — started to take over.

Of course, we can’t change the past, and things unfolded the way they did. Still, I can’t help but wonder how it might have turned out if even one factor had been different. The fact remains: I did quit, and I’ve made peace with that. But since then, I’ve undergone a lot of social, mental, and physical growth — and that has made my return to soccer incredibly rewarding.

Socially, I’ve matured simply by getting older and learning to connect with all kinds of people despite our backgrounds or interests. Physically, I’ve started going to the gym and learned a lot about flexibility and strength training. Mentally — and this might sound unusual — a big part of my change has come from the anime Blue Lock. It’s about a youth soccer training camp in Japan focused solely on developing elite strikers. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, but what resonated most with me was the main character’s mindset. He starts far from the best player in the camp, but he builds a strong sense of self-confidence and works hard to analyze his own game. His main strength is understanding what conditions give him the highest chance of scoring — and then actively creating those conditions. Watching that show helped me realize that if I want to get good again and truly enjoy the game, I need to shift my mentality away from fear and toward the belief that every play will be better with me involved. The more I believe that, the more others believe it — and the more it becomes true.

I know I still have plenty of strengths and weaknesses. I’m decent with my feet and can make good passes, though others are definitely better in those areas. And I’m no longer the “fast kid,” which was basically my whole identity before 9th grade. But I’ve discovered two main strengths: first, the ability to think critically about how to adapt my playstyle in order to win, and second, the ability to place the ball precisely where I want — whether in shooting or playmaking.

A great example of these two strengths coming together is the way I’ve changed my shooting in our work league. Scoring in that league is tough because the goals posts are small. Most persons’ shots, even if they’re on target, end up bouncing off the keeper. But I’ve found that when I have the time, taking an extra half-second to analyze the defenders and pick out the more open top corner dramatically increases my conversion rate. This strategy has paid off in both pickup games and league matches. I also think I’m getting better at identifying how to shut down individual players — though coming up with strategies to shut down entire teams is still something I need to work on.

All of these elements came together during the FED tournament. On paper, our team didn’t look like the strongest, but we had excellent chemistry. We pulled off a few great offensive plays where our teamwork really clicked, but more importantly, our playstyles meshed well. We could park the bus when needed and were very effective on the counterattack.

That said, I still have a long way to go — especially outside the indoor 4v4 format of the FED. I need to focus on drills and hone the fundamentals, and I have big plans to do just that once I move to Minneapolis. I’m currently playing in an outdoor 7v7 league, and it hasn’t been going great. Some of the problems are obvious: my fitness (and that of my team) is clearly below the average level of our opponents. But I’ve also noticed other areas for personal improvement. For one, the format is different — no offsides and smaller goals. I’ve learned that fast, low shots to the corners are more effective than lofted shots to the top corners, which are easier for keepers to save because of the goal’s lower height. My positioning is also an issue. I know it’s tough when you’re joining an unfamiliar team, especially one that’s already established — you just get fewer touches. But I’ve noticed myself slipping back into the mindset I had in middle and high school: not being proactive about putting myself in positions where I become the obvious passing option. I need to consciously work on positioning and get a better sense of spatial awareness in this 7v7 format, which I know will come with time and repetition.

I’ll be leaving NYC in a few months and moving to Minneapolis. I plan not only to continue my soccer journey but to level up. NYC’s leagues are fairly decentralized, but Minneapolis seems to have one centralized, competitive summer league organized by skill level. The top division is apparently made up of recent Division 1 college players. I’m nowhere near that level right now, but I think setting concrete targets is important, so my goal is to play in that top division for at least a year while I’m doing my PhD. More broadly, I want to make sure I’m playing regularly — at least one session a week, whether pickup or in a league — in addition to my other fitness goals.

One last thing I’ve been thinking about is the use of quantitative methods in soccer. Everyone knows about Moneyball and the rise of analytics in baseball. But baseball is a much more static sport with well-defined game states — like who’s on base and who’s batting — which makes it easier to model. Football has some structure, but team-based sports like basketball and soccer are much more fluid, which makes it harder to analyze what actions a coach should direct their players to take at any given moment. Soccer is even more complex than basketball in this regard — more players on the field, a larger playing area, and a more continuous flow. But I think there’s still a lot of potential. A match can be broken down into specific “game states” based on ball location, player positioning, and team formations. Analysts can then identify which actions in certain states are most likely to lead to positive outcomes, like scoring a goal. These best-expectation actions could then inform coaching and training.

I’ve heard that some Premier League teams already employ analysts in this way, and I imagine it’s a pretty fascinating job.