I scored 5 goals today. It’s a flattering tally really, and on the walk back from home right after the game, all I could think of was the fact that I just might be a centre forward.
Football is complex. There are zones, positions, traits, player profiles and an interesting mesh of technical terms that make the beautiful game what it truly is. My on-pitch identity has always felt a bit vague to me. I’ve always known I belonged in a position that brought out my attacking output but there’s always been general uncertainty about where exactly I felt most “at home”.
Up until Year 9, I probably told everyone that I was an “attacking midfielder”. I didn’t have any concrete rationale behind why I called myself that except for the fact that the phrase had three times the number of syllables the word “striker” or "forward" had. I liked that it was longer — it gave me a cheerful sense of sophistication whenever I let people know that I was, indeed, an “attacking midfielder”. Besides, football at the time was fluid and playful, and the lack of tactical instruction meant that I could identify as anything when my friends and I would meet up for our chaotic sporting sessions during break time.
Amongst my many football-related epiphanies, one I just can't forget is when I sat wide-eyed in 2018 as I saw Kylian Mbappé light up the FIFA World Cup in Russia. The performance on display was magical, and my desperate attempt to mimic what I saw that summer somehow washed away any positional ambiguity I had felt up until that point. From then on, I would start out wide at the touchline, relishing the battles against any fullback that I was put up against. It certainly helped that I was quick, too; the physical tools I had at that age made it easy for me to blitz past marking defenders.
Though beyond the thrill of beating an onrushing defender, the flanks possessed a certain sense of calm that I could never find at the centre of the pitch. There were fewer obstacles out wide, and as long as I could consistently get behind the marking fullback, games were always fun. The centre, however, was convoluted and choking, and the concentration of players there just made it difficult to navigate and traverse. Touches were scrutinised and needed to be perfect, plus the duels that went on there required me to assert myself in ways that just felt foreign to me.
So, I let myself stay on the touchline, and for a long time, there was nothing wrong with that. The encumbrances were few on the flanks, and there was nothing better than working silently, away from the light, attention and scrutiny that the centre always brought. It was my fullback and me and I wanted nothing but to keep it that way. I just had to do my job and find a way to cross it into space for the forward to score.
But I would always swing the pendulum too far, and the initial deficiencies that I had not worked on manifested in activities I took up outside the pitch. For as I developed, I found that there was not always lush green grass to run into, and the spaces that I found myself in were convoluted, messy and concentrated — just like the centre. It was no longer my fullback and me, and in many situations, I needed to take up space and conjure that confidence that was required of me.
For a long time, what I built was only on my computer. Like it was out wide, there were very few encumbrances by myself, and I was just zoned in on finishing whatever project I thought was fun at the time. But commanding a digital presence adds so many more layers of complexity. The web is so big, and there are so many people on it with their own ideas, opinions and notions. It’s incredibly convoluted and apart from the danger in getting lost in that sea of people, I’ve found that to truly be a differential requires one to frantically “call for the ball” like a centre-forward would on a football pitch. You need to look alive. You need to take up space so that I may be played through on goal.
This has been incredibly difficult for me and is perhaps why re-starting my YouTube journey feels so hard. Or why curating a public portfolio of my professional experience so far is ridiculously daunting. Or why I have a vast collection of tweet drafts that just go unpublished. There’s that aching worry that I may be scrutinised, and that need to bring some attention to myself is very hard.
Still, I’m going to try and build this skill slowly and make myself bigger in environments where I need to. Because I called for the ball today—for all 5 goals I did. Feels like a fond sign, a small sample of what I could do if I take up space as I should.
I scored 5 goals today. It’s a flattering tally really, and on the walk back from home right after the game, all I could think of was the fact that I just might be a centre forward.
Football is complex. There are zones, positions, traits, player profiles and an interesting mesh of technical terms that make the beautiful game what it truly is. My on-pitch identity has always felt a bit vague to me. I’ve always known I belonged in a position that brought out my attacking output but there’s always been general uncertainty about where exactly I felt most “at home”.
Up until Year 9, I probably told everyone that I was an “attacking midfielder”. I didn’t have any concrete rationale behind why I called myself that except for the fact that the phrase had three times the number of syllables the word “striker” or "forward" had. I liked that it was longer — it gave me a cheerful sense of sophistication whenever I let people know that I was, indeed, an “attacking midfielder”. Besides, football at the time was fluid and playful, and the lack of tactical instruction meant that I could identify as anything when my friends and I would meet up for our chaotic sporting sessions during break time.
Amongst my many football-related epiphanies, one I just can't forget is when I sat wide-eyed in 2018 as I saw Kylian Mbappé light up the FIFA World Cup in Russia. The performance on display was magical, and my desperate attempt to mimic what I saw that summer somehow washed away any positional ambiguity I had felt up until that point. From then on, I would start out wide at the touchline, relishing the battles against any fullback that I was put up against. It certainly helped that I was quick, too; the physical tools I had at that age made it easy for me to blitz past marking defenders.
Though beyond the thrill of beating an onrushing defender, the flanks possessed a certain sense of calm that I could never find at the centre of the pitch. There were fewer obstacles out wide, and as long as I could consistently get behind the marking fullback, games were always fun. The centre, however, was convoluted and choking, and the concentration of players there just made it difficult to navigate and traverse. Touches were scrutinised and needed to be perfect, plus the duels that went on there required me to assert myself in ways that just felt foreign to me.
So, I let myself stay on the touchline, and for a long time, there was nothing wrong with that. The encumbrances were few on the flanks, and there was nothing better than working silently, away from the light, attention and scrutiny that the centre always brought. It was my fullback and me and I wanted nothing but to keep it that way. I just had to do my job and find a way to cross it into space for the forward to score.
But I would always swing the pendulum too far, and the initial deficiencies that I had not worked on manifested in activities I took up outside the pitch. For as I developed, I found that there was not always lush green grass to run into, and the spaces that I found myself in were convoluted, messy and concentrated — just like the centre. It was no longer my fullback and me, and in many situations, I needed to take up space and conjure that confidence that was required of me.
For a long time, what I built was only on my computer. Like it was out wide, there were very few encumbrances by myself, and I was just zoned in on finishing whatever project I thought was fun at the time. But commanding a digital presence adds so many more layers of complexity. The web is so big, and there are so many people on it with their own ideas, opinions and notions. It’s incredibly convoluted and apart from the danger in getting lost in that sea of people, I’ve found that to truly be a differential requires one to frantically “call for the ball” like a centre-forward would on a football pitch. You need to look alive. You need to take up space so that I may be played through on goal.
This has been incredibly difficult for me and is perhaps why re-starting my YouTube journey feels so hard. Or why curating a public portfolio of my professional experience so far is ridiculously daunting. Or why I have a vast collection of tweet drafts that just go unpublished. There’s that aching worry that I may be scrutinised, and that need to bring some attention to myself is very hard.
Still, I’m going to try and build this skill slowly and make myself bigger in environments where I need to. Because I called for the ball today—for all 5 goals I did. Feels like a fond sign, a small sample of what I could do if I take up space as I should.