As if it couldn’t get any worse, I was picked. Now normally I would be able to handle a task such as this at practice, but in a game, it was a whole different story. Coach picked me to take a penalty kick in a cup match. Now what I’m about to tell you is a true story, so bukle up.

Regular time had just ended; it was a hot spring day, unusually hot for March. We were tied 2-2 after a late surge by my team and we carried momentum. In the overtime we almost scored but neither side prevailed, so the game went on to pk’s. Now for none of you that play soccer, that’s 120 minutes that I’ve just run at a near sprinting pace for about 30 of them. I was exhausted. We gathered in a circle and coach praised us, telling us that we had fought hard, but that now we had to finish the job. He pointed to our goalie Adem and told him that he would take the first kick. Then he looked straight at me and said I’d take number two. A sudden feeling of panic washed over me; I almost threw up. I had never taken a real penalty kick before and from watching other games, I knew they were nerve racking.

Adem walked over to the spot, buried his shot in the back of the net, and casually walked into net to get ready to stop the other team’s shots. The first shooter on the other team walked up, took his shot, and was absolutely stunned when Adem made a magnificent save on him. Now it was my turn. I began the long walk from midfield with the cheers from my teammates behind me and the looming cheers from the parents ahead of me, who were sitting behind the net up on a large hill. As I put the ball down on the spot I was ever so confident until I turned around. A girl I knew from school who was quite pretty stood right at the side of the goal. She had been reffing the entire game and I didn’t even notice until now. The panic I felt before suddenly re-entered my body. I was stone cold and I didn’t know what to do. Thoughts started to run through my head, What if I miss?, This is so embarrassing….. I decide d that I should just try and kick the ball as hard as I could at one side of the net and see what happens. I ran up to the ball, my head down, a big mistake, and shot to the right side. The goalie had shifted so much that all he had to do was jump 3 feet to the right before he caught it in his stomach.

I had just missed my pk in front of everyone and now even kids at my school would know and so would this girl. I was extremely embarrassed. The only consolation I got was that we had won the game and that I had kicked the ball so hard that I injured the goalie. Thus concludes the tale of one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.