A Hero's Journey: Kian L

Out of all the time I’ve spent at IDF, there have been so many memorable moments. However, there is one moment that I thought of immediately. The Florence Cup tournament. Although it isn’t a particularly difficult or well-known tournament, it still taught me a lot and I feel that it was a pivotal moment in my football education.

The tournament style was that there were four teams, and you played the other three teams, with the goal of making it to the final. I didn’t start off the tournament very well, because less than 10 minutes into the first game my back started to hurt and

it continued to be like that for the rest of the day, but I still played the rest of the games. We beat all the other teams and earned a spot in the final.

I always enjoy tournaments with IDF because of the relationships you had with the other players. We would work hard during our games, then always come back to the hotel, to eat and recover. At the hotel was where it was like hanging out with your friends, joking, laughing, making fun of Max because Man City lost that day.

In the final, I remember we were up at halftime. When there was about 10-15 minutes left Coach André called me over to the bench. I remember what he said to me so clearly - “Pretend that it is 0-0”. This was very pivotal for a few reasons. One reason is that I know that Coach doesn’t ask you to do something that you couldn’t do, so he knew I could do it. Another reason is that Coach trusted me enough to ask me to do it. He didn’t choose anyone else to ask. That 15 second conversation motivated me like crazy for the rest of the game. That was the first time I had talked myself into that feeling of wanting to fight. It used to come when I didn’t start, or I lost the ball, or something didn’t work for me. But at that moment I told myself that we have to win this game. If Coach didn’t call me over, it would have taken me much longer to realize that.

- KIAN L, IDF PLAYER SINCE 2014