Football just like every other sport is a difficult pathway to success. Only a few of the grassroots players and athletes will make it to professional level. This is a global trend and if you consider our country’s environment, it is more difficult here.
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I stay away from advising grassroots players and athletes because I am always hard when I engage them. I will tell you the HARD truth. I will not deceive you, I won’t tell you the sweet things that will ruin your journey. I don’t need you to like me, but I want my words to challenge you to work hard.
And it is not even about sport alone, I was told the HARD truth in my early days of journalism and I knew only hard work, consistency, and perseverance could help me out. The words of some senior colleagues motivated me, not sweet words but “career-damaging” words which was the tonic to work hard.
It is difficult to advise a man not to pursue his talent and passion, we can only highlight the challenges and encourage the person. We have seen the less talented footballers make it to a professional level while those with bundle of talents will not pass the grassroots level. Football is a complicated journey.
Sadly, the new generation of footballers in Nigeria are keen on social media. This generation are lucky with social media which is an advantage compared to the previous generation. It is disheartening to see how this generation are using social media wrongly.
The volume of posts, unnecessary conversation, and careless talk will ruin this generation. Social media is meant to help you and not to ruin you, but these footballers do not know how to differentiate it.
You are meant to use your social media to expose your talent, your highlights, and your daily life about the sport. Keep showing how much you are working hard to breakthrough, but what do we have now? A noisy generation who are missing their way.
It is even a bad idea to be the one handling your social media yourself. You need a professional to guide you, your focus should be daily training and improvement. I follow a lot of grassroots players and the volume of daily posts makes me ask if they train at all. If you train hard, you won’t spend all your time on social media jumping into unnecessary conversations and posting everything that comes to your head. I don’t think they also rest well after training, they live on social media instead of hustling like a Ram in training.
Then again, I think that these footballers have a different plan, football might just be a cover-up. They have other plans, sports influencers, and motivational speakers probably. I will see some posts and I feel like knocking the head of the footballer.
Talent will never be enough to make it to a professional level. Focus on your career and use social media properly. Drop the phone and pick up your boot, your office is the football pitch.
Wretten By: Adepoju Tobi Samuel
