1 minute. 1 minute is all it took to mess things up not for just me but for my whole soccer team. The feeling of utter failure leaving you pained with the thought. This takes me back to that summer. The summer that I still haven’t completely got over.

The word failure takes me back to that very soccer game. It was tied 1-1 and the clock was ticking down; there were only a few minutes left in the game. Without a goal we would surely be going into overtime. A pass was kicked up the field to the forward position, the one I was playing, and I quickly made my way towards the goal as fast as I could knowing we didn’t have much time. Maneuvering my way around the defender I made a mad dash towards the goal. Just as I was into the goalies box and was about to take the final kick towards the goal the defender from behind shoved me over. My foot that was supposed to kick unfortunately met the ground. The most awful feeling seared through the foot, and the most unbearable pain made it’s way through my body. There was no doubt in my mind that my foot was broken. Ignoring the pain I quickly hopped up and tried to make my way towards the coach. It was a slow limp that seemed to last longer than it should have. I finally reached my way towards the sidelines and a sub quickly went into the game while I sat down for a second. My foot was throbbing with pain and it made me dizzy with the pain. I sat there with a grim look on my face and my coach was asking me what was wrong.

“My foot hurts” I said. He seemed to be pondering something until a whistle interrupted his thought. I was rewarded a penalty kick.

“Kaitlin,” my assistants coache’s voice rang out, “take the shot.” I gave him a bewildered look. How was I supposed to shoot the ball when my foot felt like it was broken. But for some reason I just nodded my head and limped my way towards the goal where I would be taking the penalty kick. I took a deep breath and placed the ball on the ground knowing the whole tournament was resting on this shot. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, and seemed to mix with the terrible feeling in my foot making me not think straight. I backed up and ran/limped towards the ball and kicked. As soon as I saw where the ball was going my heart completely dropped. It soared over the goal and I heard a collective gasp from the crowd. I didn’t dwell on my disappointment for too long because once again a whistle interrupted me. Someone had stepped over the line and I was rewarded another shot. I looked towards my coach and he pointed for me to take it again. I placed the ball up again, ran towards the ball, and shot. This time the shot was good, but not good enough. It soared towards the goalie and the goalie made the save. The goalie quick gave the ball to their team. They quickly made their way down the field and made a goal. The game ended right after the ball hit the net. The only thing that I was filled with was the overflowing feeling of failure. It was my fault that we lost, entirely my fault. I had 2 chances to shoot and missed both of them.

I solemnly made my way towards the coach and we sat down so he could talk to us. He was commending us for playing hard and suddenly the assistant coach spoke up.“Kaitlin shouldn’t have taken that shot,” he said. Almost simultaneously everyone's head turned towards me. In that moment all the blame was placed on me, even though he the assistant coach was the one that told me to take the shot in the first place. Rage filled my body and it took everything in me not to start screaming at him. I just got up, limped away with failure tormenting me. I made my way towards my parents and we left. We went to a foot specialist and my foot was broken. But the thought of failure from that day still stings when I think about it.