I play soccer in the fall season, but in the summer, I get kind of bored. So this year my coach suggested that anyone from our team who can go to the soccer summer camp should. So we decided it would be fun to do this camp. Then a couple problems and phone calls to the registration place later, I was signed up! I was really excited because some of my soccer buddies were also going to be coming to the camp. I was worried about it being way too hot, but I made sure to put on a ton of sunscreen. The camp was 5 days long for 6 hours each day. They did give us a lot of water breaks to make sure we were hydrated while playing for so long in the hot summer sun.
In the morning right when you get there your parent must sign you in and out. The first thing we do when camp starts is to start juggling for 15 minutes. If you don’t know what soccer juggling is, it’s when you take a ball and hit it with different body parts as many times as you can before it touches the ground. I got a record of 5 in a row. After we did juggling we would break off into our assigned groups that were given to us on the first day of camp. We played running games in the first hour of camo before snack break. The games we played were Flag Tag, Sharks and Minnows, and Steal the Bacon. All these games revolved around running fast.
After our snack break, we got to scrimmage. My team lost some days and won some days, but it was really fun, and we learned a lot. But there was this one goal that I made that was incredible. I was at the sidelines doing a kick in, and I shot the ball really hard and went straight into the goal! It was such a hard kick that no one wanted to even try to stop it. After scrimmaging for an hour, we had lunch.
After lunchtime, we got to either scrimmage some more, or we could play World Cup. Most days we played World Cup because that’s what everyone wanted to play. In World Cup, you have to make teams of small numbers, so like 2, 3, 4, or 5. Then there would be a goalie who would serve the ball. Then everyone has to try and get the ball in the goal. The last person to touch the ball before it goes into the goal gets to advance to the next round. And the round keeps going until there is one team left, then everybody who advanced come back and keep playing and advancing like in a World Cup.
We also got a small break after our afternoon activities. We did different things every day. One day we talked about professional soccer leagues, one day we made up a really boring story, one day we talked about FIFA’s history, and another two times we basically had an extra snack break. After this break, we got to continue playing whatever we were playing before.
And during the entire day, it got hotter and hotter. My feet started burning through our cleats, and I had sweat stuck in the ridges of my shin guards. It was gross and hot, and stinky. I had to drink SO MUCH water to stop burning up that I got cramps while running. I even poured water on my head, body, and feet to try and cool them down. But it was so hot that 2 minutes later and I was all dry. As soon as I came home, I took a shower to get all the sweaty water out of my hair and off my body. The perfect way to unwind from the exhausting camp.
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