Weekly Review 19th – 25th November 2012 “Red Bull Soccer News”

I was half expecting for an opportunity to arise after seeing my quora answer amass over 300+ votes and 10,000 hits over the last eight days. My gut feeling was right when I received an inbox message from Jordan Katz. He’s the founder of a new site called create.it which is a platform for undiscovered talent to get found. There are campaigns from modeling to surfing. You submit a campaign with your video and your story and the most popular submission will get found? On Friday, Me and Jordan talked for roughly an hour and discussed a proposal of how I could be involved in a campaign. First of all, Jordan found my quora post through someone in Red Bull who posted it on their facebook wall. Jordan is friends with some Red Bull guys, he saw that guys post and that’s how he reached out to me. Red Bull is also doing a campaign with create it which got alot of viral lift.

So what Jordan wants to do is use me as a poster boy for a create it soccer campaign with the goal of helping me play in the World Cup in 2014. That’s the stated goal which is unlikely to happen, but the real opportunities come from professional clubs and coaches seeing my story in the media. He wants to do this campaign because of my unique story which has connected with hundreds of people already. It’s a win-win situation because I can potentially get alot of media attention with the story and create it can leverage that attention to gain popularity themselves. I have a gut feeling that something good is going to happen out of this and not because that’s what Jordan said to me. Jordan sounds very smart, motivated and most importantly believes that this campaign can be a success. He believes in the 10,000 hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell which is something we both connected on. He has the experience, knowledge and connections. He worked at Facebook and at Fox Sports, NHL, Golf Channel and NBC Sports in their Media and Sales departments over 14 years. He said to me that he wants to connect more because “We have good synergy”. I think I really wowed him with my professionalism over the phone and wider intelligence and understanding over most other athletes he’s been working with. At this point, I actually think he wants and needs me more than I want him because I feel sort of uncomfortable with the idea of having a big story in the media, which potentially this could achieve. It’s going to be very interesting whats going to happen over the next working week.

On Tuesday night there was a friendly game with JOS. A combination of first team, reserve and u23 players. All players were u23 though. Played one half right back and I was probably man of the match for that half. It was pretty easy honestly and I no doubt definitely impressed the first team coach as I was then allowed to train on Thursday. Would of expected no less of course.

So that confidence went through to Wednesday at the Dutch lions tryout. Skipped class and went down to Rotterdam. Spent the morning and afternoon there. There were about 40-45 players trying out and I played 2 x 45 minute halves. I felt it didn’t go well at all. I hardly got any touches on the ball. There was confusion with the position I was supposed to be playing in, so me and this other stupid idiot were going back and forth during the game about who should be doing what until one of the coaches eventually swapped me into the right back position to stop us from arguing. In these types of matches, I want to show myself and play an attacking role. I didn’t get to do that. So someone is supposed to get in contact next week about the outcome of my performance. Unless they could see that I got a heap of potential that wasn’t shown, I’m not expecting anything at all. Seriously, not even a U/20’s spot let alone the NASL.

On Friday, after a shitty training I asked one of the Zeeburgia players who I get along with.. “Hey do i look lazy on the Pitch?” said straight out “yeah, it looks like you don’t give a fuck”.

I get alot of shit from a few of the players there saying I don’t do enough. I want to make sure that’s not the case..hmm.

One last thing, Di matteo should of not been sacked. Really frustrating not to see Chelsea managers get more time even after winning a champs league and fa cup. I think this is the biggest mistake by Abramovich since Mourinho.

 15 hours.