If you were a coach of a new soccer team and you had high expectations, you would have yelled at this team. Especially that they lost their first game badly, against a team that were two years younger than them. Although that was a practice game, many team members were disappointed and gave up hope. And many of the parents also thought this team needed some time to reach the level of a competitive soccer team.

   Oops, I almost forgot to introduce ourselves, we are the U-10 team in Red Star Soccer Academy. The club was just founded in July, 2009 and the U-10 team in January, 2010. After 2 months of hard work, we won our first game against Central Valley Soccer Club 5-2 when the league began in March. Our spirits went up by a ton, and it encouraged us to train hard and work as a team, so we could win again, but not win easily. The opposing teams always showed threats.

The toughest game we’ve ever played was against Willow SC Chelsea. Chelsea’s individual skills were awesome. They kept stealing the ball and clearing it out of their defense and boy, those quick feet, I swear they could get past a person without the person noticing. During the game, there were lots of taunting, physical contact, and lots of fouling. We scored two goals by penalty kicks, and fought hard all the way to the end and won 4-3. That was the best game we have ever played together as a team.

  The next game against PSV was also one of the best games we ever played and gave Redstar the title of Champions of the league in the spring season. By the end of the first half, we were losing by one. Then the coach asked us if we wanted to be the first ever champions of Red Star Soccer Academy. Most of us were taken by surprise, as we didn’t know Red Star hadn’t won a championship before. That gave us motivation to win. We were playing our hardest out there and scored two goals. One was brought into the goal box, and another was by a volley from the half line; everyone was surprised about that brilliant decision. That ended the score 2-1. Even the parents and siblings went crazy, some called out, “Let’s go Redstar.”We were thrilled about our performance; and I felt like we won the World Cup.

This is what went into the history book. U10 Red Star 99B, first ever Champions of the Red Star Soccer Academy! We scored forty-one goals, and we were ahead of the second place by five points, and out of all the U10 regions in Northern California, we were one of few teams that led five points ahead of the second place.

  We love our Coach Adriano Allain for instructing the team so we can play both attacking and defensively as a team. He is skilled, looks really deep into the game, and expresses his thinking to us. He also takes a moment to tell us what we did well and what we didn’t, when we come off the field. No matter how intense the game is, he totally gets us into playing good soccer. He always says, “Kingsley, I want you to play left mid, go make something happen, don’t stop moving.” That sentence always turns me from a little, scared soldier into a brave commander, ready to die for glory. Without him, we would have never made it to the championship.