Lioness in training

The first training session

To say I was nervous would be an understatement, I was brickin' it. I had to show not only myself but the others that I deserved to be here, when the squad list came out people were shocked to see my name. I mean I would be too, a 17 year old playing in the lionesses, it isn't normal. Then came the messages, you see I am thrilled that women's sport is growing so much, and I am so proud to be a part of this.

But with this comes haters, people who don't agree with women playing a ''men's'' sport. I try to ignore the messages but it gets hard when people start making the attacks personal, it becomes hard to ignore and it gets to me. I start to doubt myself and it becomes difficult to think you are playing well, I start to think about every pass or tackle and overthink everything, eventually making me play worse. Today was going to be different I was going to prove these people, they weren't going to take from me the one thing I love most in this world, the best game in the world, football.

It was a proud moment walking out onto the training pitch with my kit on, I was proud to wear the badge and I wanted to make the badge proud. Most of the girls were already there when I got there at 9:58 I was still 2 minutes early, which was good for my standard. As I am not known for my punctuality. I jogged over to where they were all stretching and joined in, some of the girls were chatting most just waiting for the training session to start. They wouldn't have to wait much longer as Sarina appeared about 30 seconds later.

Sarina: ''So I hope you are all excited to start, we are going to start with a light training session today, just to start getting back into the swing of things''

We started with a few passing drills, just to start warming up a bit then we split into our position groups, so I was with the forwards. I was excited as this is where I would really get to show myself and I had to make the most of it.  It was good I was shooting well, we were doing shots from outside the box, which I was doing well at, we started upping the anti a bit when we started including defenders. It was my turn and I was passed the ball from the wing and had to take it past a defender (who was Leah) and take a shot from outside the box.

Leah gave me a smile, I was taking no prisoners in this, I took a touch to control the ball then it was on I was running up to her unsure if I was going to side step, but I decided to be bold so when she stuck her leg into get the ball I megged her, then ran behind took a shot and it went straight in top bins. She was not happy, I went back and received a few pats on the back to commend me for my efforts. Which I was very happy about, Leah not so much.

Leah: ''Oy Kid how could you I thought we were friends''

Ellis: ''When it comes to football unless you are on my team there is no friends''

Leah: ''I see your only slightly competitive then''

Ellis: ''What me no, I am not at all competitive''

I got a few smiles from my comments, with a few people nodding in agreement.

Third person pov:

The team were happy to see Ellis smiling, you could tell she loved playing every time she would touch the ball a smile would appear on her face. As she would try all of these fancy skills to try and get passed you, most of the time they would work. It was nice to see and no one could say this girls wasn't talented she was going to be one of the best. The way she handled the ball and could almost see a pass before it happened.

Leah was not happy about being megged, she was very similar to Ellis in that when playing football she was very competitive. So this was going to be an interesting pair whether they were playing against each other, or with.

After the shooting drills, they went into an overload where there was 7 Vs 4 (excluding the goalies) trying to get us to work the space more and find those passes that would get us up the field. It was tiring on the smaller team.

On the smaller team was Ellis, Leah, Beth E and Ella so it was a strong team but against the 7 they were going to have to work hard. It was there that everyone saw the connection that Ellis and Leah had on the pitch, it was like they could predict where each other was and would perfectly land the passes to each other. They were unstoppable and very hard to defend due to know being able to predict anything they would do, as Ellis was like a Duracell bunny never stopping seeming to have a continuous amount of  energy. Then Leah being able to predict her and pass to her.

There was constant swapping Sarina clearly trying lots of different match ups to see who worked well together, but no one had quite as much impact as Leah and Ellis. They continued like this for a while then switched to some other drills, finishing off with a quick rondo.

Next was the activity everyone was exited about the volleyball tournament.
————————————————————————
Thanks for reading I will update every Sunday, if you have any suggestions please comment and if you enjoy please vote :)