Narrative Essay: High School Football Failure and the Lessons Learnt

This narrative essay recounts a deeply personal experience of failure during a crucial high school football game. The author, a team captain, vividly describes the high stakes match against Forest Rovers, a game scouted for potential academy recruits. The essay details the intense pressure, the team's high expectations, and the devastating moment when the author missed a penalty, leading to the team's defeat. The author reflects on the immediate anger and disappointment, the struggle to cope with the failure, and the eventual realization that failures can be valuable learning experiences. The essay concludes with a message of resilience and the importance of maintaining hope for future opportunities, highlighting the transformative power of failure in shaping personal growth and determination. Desklib provides access to this essay and other study tools for students.

NARRATIVE ESSAY ON A FAILURE EXPERIENCED
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From childhood, my best moments in life had been when I was playing football. In fact, I
cannot remember when I started playing football though, as grew up, “football was in me, and I
was in football.” In other words, this game derives the highest level of satisfaction in my life.
Moreover, the most interesting part of it was dribbling the ball and having cheers all over the
spectators. I saw football as the only alternative that could take me to my dreamland. I actually
saw many opportunities in my talent plus the courage I had gained from “time immemorial”
when I started playing football. My inspirations were by then, the famous footballers who among

others included the likes of Christian Ronaldo, john terry, Frank Lampard, and Henry among
others.
There came a life-changing opportunity when my high school team was to play against
Forest Rovers. This club plays a popular league and it so happened that it was one of the top
clubs in the league. The club’s management with the intention of recruiting an academy team,
organized a match between my school and a rivalry team within the same district in which, the
best performers would unquestionably be selected to join the club’s academy.
My team by then was well equipped with super talented guys, most of Couse like me.
The super talented dudes weren’t anything special to me. In other words, I was damn sure and
confident; I would be among the stars to be selected for the team academy. Little did I know that
it was just but false confidence that I had. When we kick-started the game, of course, as usual,
my teammates and other students expected exceptional performance from me. In other words, I
was the team captain. The game was all perfect though it was too competitive as all players
wanted to exploit their best to have a chance to be part of Forest Rovers. Moreover, players to be
selected were to be paid on a weekly basis. The game went far up to extra time with the
opponents having two players off due to red cards. However, they managed to defend until
penalties. This moment really seemed like those moments in movies when I missed the only goal
in the penalties that would make my team qualify. We lost the game to the rivalry school. Any
hopes, which my team, my coach, and fellow students might have had in me snatching of the
goalkeeper to get the ball into the net all ended with me warming and kicking the ball off the net.
I was typically angry with myself, holding it to my responsibility to have saved my team
and getting a lifetime opportunity that would possibly get me sold to a more prominent club like
Barcelona, Manchester City, and Arsenal among others. I kept on replaying the memory in my

head, and I could not ascertain how I kicked the ball out, leaving the vast goal with just a small
keeper. If fact, I would see myself scoring the penalty in my head but this would not reflect any
positive phenomenon as it was just an imagination sourcing from the embarrassment and
disappointment.
Of course, it is one of the worst failures life has ever thrown at me, and it really left me
mad at myself. The experience, the only alternative I had to take was the pieces of advice to cool
down. This, however, surprised me as I thought my colleagues would be much angrier as I
caused the fault. From this, I learnt that failures are regular happenings in life, which can be so
depressing and disappointing at first glance. In profound reflection, I discovered that mistakes
and failures are sometimes positive contributors to the success of life. It is entirely right that
substantial shortcomings in life are not quickly forgotten. Every time I play football, I get a
memory of that moment, and I feel I cannot be as careless as I was that ady, to miss the penalty
that could have positively affected my life. I later concluded that although I missed joining the
club’s academy, I could always be vigilant for my other upcoming opportunities. In fact, my
failure gives me the believe that I can win the next time I fall into such opportunities

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