July is the month when we say goodbye to writers who are retiring or moving on to new adventures, and this is Izzy’s last post. She has been writing with us since August 2024.
My first goal ever was on a Saturday morning in late spring on the Chicago lakefront soccer fields. My Dad had bought a beer from one of the Mexican peddlers’ carts on the way to the game—IYKYK. It was the only game my Dad took me to my whole season, and I think the only one my Mom ever missed. The ball rolled into the goal’s far corner, past a goalie who was probably picking daisies somewhere. I looked over to my Dad, beer spilling on his shirt with his hands raised, beaming. So excited, and I saw a rare, proud smile on his face. I felt my team embrace me, and I felt an elation and adrenaline rush that was unfamiliar.
I was hooked.
My favorite goal was in high school, when I was pulled from goal for a rare occasion and got to play on the wing. I loved that one-on-one dance you engaged in with your defender. I raced up the left side, with some girl I beat to the ball breathing down my back, ball gliding from my left to right, then back to my left. I plant with my right and take a big swing just outside the box near the corner to try to cross right in front of the goal, in the air, for a classic header for my friend Allie. But, in a shocking turn of events, it soars over three different heads and then drops right between the goalie’s gloves and the crossbar, gliding beautifully into the right side of the net. My jaw drops open as my teammates rush me. I hear one of my coaches yell, “Close your mouth, and act like this has happened before!”
My favorite goal I ever saved was during a PK shootout in my first year playing with my high school team. I was a sophomore on a team that was eager to prove ourselves. We had battled all season with ten total players. There are typically eleven on the field. We played down all season and were WINNING. Which was HUGE. Sometimes we only had nine. It was either the semi-final game or quarterfinals. We got really close to blowing what was supposed to be an easy game. We end in a tie. Then we tie up the first rounds of PK’s. It all ends in sudden death.
I can’t really explain it, but I had this crazy peace that I was going to save it. I knew nothing was getting past me. God, it still gets my heart racing just thinking about it. The Steiner forward kicks the ball right to my hands, and I grab it with ease and run to my team, screaming. It was incredible. That save earned me a spot on a conference honors team. But more than that, it earned the trust of my team and our fans.
Soccer has brought me some of the highest highs I’ve ever experienced. It christened me in the glorious bath of victory, swept me off my feet with multiple team crushes, and helped me feel embodied in more ways than one. Soccer showed me early on what pure joy feels like, and the ecstasy of believing so hard that something will happen, and then it does. Soccer showed me that hard work can pay off, and that when you’re a part of a team, you can defy odds when you’re centered around a bigger goal, together.
Soccer will also break your heart. It will show you some of your deepest flaws, right out in the open, raw and for everyone to see. It showed me early on that I wasn’t the leader I thought I was. It forced me to grow and change. But when I left the sport abruptly right before college, it felt like a piece of myself was ripped out of me. I had no idea who I was anymore.
I had pairs of cleats that sat in my closet unused but moved from dorm room, to college house, to college house, to apartment and so forth, because I couldn’t imagine getting rid of my Neymars I saved all my babysitting money for.
In my free time, all I used to do was look up soccer film, scores, players, merch; I’d go run laps; I would practice long balls, work on my shot, practice dives.
I wasn’t like other girls. lol
But I didn’t have a team behind me anymore and was thrust into figuring out who else I was outside of sport. I felt really empty, and I felt really stupid for feeling empty.
All of this has been on my mind because of the World Cup. If you had told sixteen-year-old me that the World Cup would be in the US and I wouldn’t be at a single game, she would have crashed out.
I am proud of who I am now. I may not be as close to the game I love anymore, sometimes it feels like a ghost was who played. It’s still hard to watch or play soccer recreationally now.
I’m not sure why. It still feels like the most dramatic of breakups.
I played soccer for fourteen years. That’s longer than most marriages last.
Izzy Nunez graduated from Calvin in 2022 after studying graphic design and sociology. Today she lives in North Carolina where she is living out her dream of being a graphic designer.
