Playing Time: Perspective of an Outcast

The only stat that I ever cared about was how many games I played. How many games I was starting and finishing. Proper games. From day one I always focused on getting my name on the starting eleven team sheet. Before you even start thinking about percentages, speeds, and xG stats, ask yourself: how many games are you actually playing? 

If you are not consistently playing, you are not developing. To make it even worse, someone else is developing instead of you. Soccer is a zero-sum game. There are no Ole Gunnar Solskjærs’ or Chicharito’s in youth soccer. There is no benefit in being someone’s super-sub, known to come off the bench, lift the team’s spirit and maybe contribute a goal, assist, or game-saving block. There is no benefit to you if you are a dreamer. Not if you really do want to climb the very steep mountain of soccer. 

Time, unfortunately, is the dreamer’s biggest enemy. It was my biggest enemy. You only have a handful (at most) of seasons to prove yourself before hitting the ruthless filter working continuously year after year preying on the weak. Trying to make it in soccer isn’t like trying to make it in comedy, screenwriting, or in business. These all have the luxury of time. They can try and fail as many times as they need to until they make it. Time is actually serving them. In soccer, it is the complete opposite. You have very limited time to prove yourself. You need to make sure you are playing week-in, week-out. Or at the very least, you better make sure you are on a path to getting there. 

If you are not playing every week, stop and ask yourself what your plan of action is. Are you trying to compete or are you there for the ride? There is a place for players being on for the ride. They play their own part and in many ways they can be extremely important. Bless them. I was not that. I was the opposite. Being benched brought out the worst of me. The worst in me. I almost never let any of it show, but under my skin, I was going to war with myself. I was in it to advance and to win. I knew that every second on the bench was a disaster for me and my dream. 

If you are being overlooked, if you are not getting the opportunities you believe you deserve, if there isn’t anyone guiding you towards a better future on the team, please stop for at least one second. Maybe it is time for a new home. 

I was very bad at pumping the brakes. I struggled to stop time and think. There was too much going on all the time all around me. Every season is a wave that you either ride or you don’t. Most players just ride the wave. It is the easy option. It is what you are supposed to be doing. I always rode the wave of every season I was a part of.. I always believed that the wave would wash me onto a shore of success, however crazy the ride was. Ask a surfer about anything in their lives while they're on a wave and you will get nothing. The wave is their life. 

Riding the wave, I convinced myself that every benching was temporary. Every disrespectful comment from a coach was not personal. I sold myself stories that the negative forces could somehow turn into positive ones. That I just had to stick things out a bit longer for me to be back on the field, to resuscitate my dream, hoping and believing things would just sort themselves out. Even at the lowest points of my journey my belief blinded me to the reality I was in. It allowed me to forget about my biggest enemy - time. I never fully entertained the idea of immediately getting up and leaving to find a new home. To my left and right I could only see blue. Far ahead of me I could see the shore of success, but 100% of my focus was on not crashing, keeping my balance, physical and emotional, knowing that there was only one way to the shore. 

As soon as my second season at BSC Young Boys was off to a start, my agent was invited for a meeting with the director of the club’s youth department. They wanted me out. My agent was invited for a meeting because he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t named in the squad for any of the first few games of the season. I became an outcast. Besides actually saying it to my face, the club was doing everything it could to make it known that they wanted me to leave. I wasn’t getting any pre-season minutes. My coach wasn’t speaking to me. No one was giving me answers. So I called my agent, Marco, the one bit of hope I had to try to understand what was happening. 

I would later learn that outcasting players is common practice in the ruthless game of soccer. It’s the club’s way of getting out of contracts they are committed to. It is them making the player collateral damage of the mistakes they have made. They agreed to pay me a fee to mutually terminate the remainder of my three-year contract. And they agreed to play nice with me until I found a new home. Meaning, I would be allowed to train with my team for as long as I needed. The fee was insignificant in its monetary value. Every second I stayed after that meeting cost me more than I could have ever imagined at the time. The season had already started, I had to wait until the January transfer window to officially move anywhere. Staying and training at BSC Young Boys, somehow at the time, seemed like the right decision. 

Being an outcast player was the lowest point I had known in soccer. I was the only player to not get minutes. I was the only one to not get reps in training. I was the only one people looked down at. I was the only one who knew that he wasn’t wanted. I had no support, no sympathy, no empathy, and no guidance. They just wanted me out. 

Even then, with my pain-is-in-the-mind upbringing, I kept going. I told myself over and over again that it was all meant to happen and that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. So minus a couple of nights of crying onto my pillow, I decided to stand up to the negative forces who thought they were done with me. I decided to be the best player in training. I ran the most. I sprinted the most. I worked the hardest. I was improving the most. I was making the whole outcast thing seem silly. I spent the most time in the gym. Everyone else had more minutes on the field than me, but besides that, I had more than them in everything else. I was the fittest and strongest. I was training the most hours. I was taking the most touches. I took every second of every training as seriously as I would take a Champions League Final. I projected positivity all the time. I tried to use the negative forces in my favor to help me. I used them to motivate me and push me day after day until I would eventually find a new home. 

Reacting the way I did helped build my character, discipline, and pain tolerance, but it did not help my career and it did jeopardize my dream. I gave in to the system. I was showing up to play every day at a club that didn’t want me with coaches who didn’t want me and players who didn’t want me. Still being there, by definition, was me giving in to the system. No matter how much I did to get myself to believe that I was still in control, reality was reality, I was a prisoner amongst free people. I was an individual amongst a team. 

I should have found a way to stop time and reconfigure a path. Even if it required taking a step back. I know why it was so hard. The wave of the system carried me along with it, and I abided by its laws. Like most of us do as citizens of our respective countries, I knew that there were rules and my mind only allowed me to think within the limits of those imposed constructs. I didn’t know that there was anything beyond that. I didn’t know that I could act up. I didn’t know I could just say ‘no’. I didn’t know that I could be a rebel. I focused on professionalism, honor, and what I thought was integrity. I played by the rules to avoid deeper cuts and further pain. I gave up my agency to the system. I didn’t know how to start thinking about options. There was a wave to ride and a season to finish. 

I should have ignored the noble calls from God to walk on the pilgrim’s path. Like Jesus, I forgave, and like Muhammad Ali, I took the punches. I walked in shit and swam in mud. I wanted them to know, by my actions not words, that I could face anything. But under my skin and in my mind, I was broken. I wanted them to change their mind. I wanted a miracle that  never came to save me. I was going to war every day to maintain my self-esteem while they already forgot that I ever existed. There was no one for me to go to war with. I was swinging punches that could never land. I should have taken some agency back in my own hands. I should have erupted. I should not have accepted their behavior and I should have just left. I should not have walked in shit or swam in mud. I should have left. I needed to play. Like a punching bag, strong, erect, and durable, I showed the Swiss that I could take the punches but I didn't have the arms to fight back. They paid no price and I had no vengeance. 

With all my extra work, training, repetitions, and gym-time, I was missing the most important stat on my resume - playing time. It was as crucial as a year and a season could be for a soccer player. U18 was an important year to be playing. Maybe the most important. It’s the year that most hit a ceiling. Not playing was destroying me. 

With no arms to punch back, belief was my only weapon. I still spoke to God. I still used my father as a sports psychologist, speaking to him every single day, helping me get through every single training session, squeezing as much as I could out of him (there was no one else to squeeze). I still worked hard. I still tried to improve and I still tried to impress. In my delusion I thought that things could still change. I thought that I would get a couple of repetitions in training and impress. I thought that because of a good rep in training I would be called up to be in the squad. I would be subbed in due to an injury or red card and I would show everyone my potential. Bringing fight, heart, leadership, and energy onto the pitch to support my team, helping them win. Because of a great substitute performance I would earn a starting spot. The unbelievable was achievable. I saw the path. I saw the possibility and I believed it could happen. But it never did. My delusion failed me. I went to war in which the only fighting soldier was me. Invading my own beaches and paratrooping into my own depths. Looking back, I should have picked a different war. One that I could win. I chose belief as my weapon but the only one it was killing was me. 

If you are going to war, find a way to stop the fighting for a moment and ask yourself whether you can win. The sunk cost fallacy makes us believe that when we are invested into something we can’t hit the brakes or pull the plug. We can. At any moment, even with chaos going on all around you, you can stop. You can turn left or you can turn right. You do have agency. Don’t give it up. 

Getting up will be scary. Leaving will be hard. Showing up at a new home will be terrifying. And begging people for a chance will be humiliating. But all of those things involve action. They involve you taking agency and having some control over your own path. That is a skill worth learning and a war worth fighting, one where you can choose your enemies. One where the opposing army isn’t writing the rules. I hope you stop and ask yourself if you are being led by a system, unwillingly and subconsciously, or are you choosing your own path. 

Every dreamer who really wants to make it has to make sure they are playing games. If you are not playing, you have to make sure that you are being guided by your coach to a place where you can earn playing time and eventually become a starter. Sometimes we just simply don’t want to admit it to ourselves. I know I didn’t. It’s tough to admit that your coach doesn’t even look at you and that your name doesn’t even come up in discussion on the morning of game days. Yet, if you do admit it to yourself, you might be homeless, but you will also be free. 

Every dreamer who really wants to make it deserves a place that is actively working to make them better, working as a platform for growth. Assuming 80% of the attention is spent on the top 20% of players (at best), imagine how many millions of players are just there as sparring partners for the Stars on the team. Every neglected dreamer, of the 80%, needs to find a way to squeeze into the top 20% or their dream will be over. 

Every dreamer who really wants to make it deserves a club that doesn’t require learning the rules of the jungle to survive. One that is rid of power-hungry politics and competition driven by insecure parents and want-to-be coaching executives. One in which you can just be and trust in the home that adopted you. One where you could actually just focus on doing what you always loved and wanted to do - play.