Sometimes, in sport, the hardest ball to dig isn’t the one on the court, but the one of your own emotions. We know how much you wanted this win and we know that the fear of making mistakes was, today, the toughest opponent.
But we want to tell you one essential thing, to carry in your hearts tonight: Whatever the score on the board, we love and value you just as much! Your talent didn’t disappear with the final whistle, and your work isn’t cancelled out by an unfavourable result. You are the same wonderful, hard-working and passionate girls who make our hearts leap with every ball.
Sport sometimes gives us lessons that are hard to digest, and today’s match against LPS was one of them. Although we fought for every ball, the result wasn’t the one we wanted, and the road to qualification takes a short pause today.
Looking at it objectively, we have a team with exceptional individual players and talented girls who can stand level with any opponent in the country at any time. Yet today the toughest opponent wasn’t across the net, but in our own pressure. The fear of making mistakes and the huge desire to succeed built an invisible wall that stopped us from playing to our true value.
Volleyball is a sport of states of mind. When the fear of error becomes bigger than the joy of the game, arms no longer hit as decisively and coordination suffers. It’s a maturity “exam” that many great teams have failed before learning how to win finals.
We have talent, we have technique, but today we lacked that confident relaxation that makes us unbeatable. It hurts, but it’s part of an athlete’s growth. We will learn to manage our emotions and turn fear into ambition.
The difference between a good player and a great one isn’t the absence of fear, but the ability to play as if fear doesn’t exist. Today we lost a match, but we didn’t lose your talent. Next time we’ll hit the ball with more courage, because we already know what losing feels like – so we have nothing left to fear!”
In these moments, remember the words of Pierre de Coubertin, who understood the spirit of sport better than anyone:
“Did you win? Keep going! Did you lose? Keep going!”
Today’s defeat is a stop at a red light, nothing more. A lesson on how to manage our courage for next time. What matters isn’t that we fell, but how quickly we brush off our knees and get up to resume the fight. Because tomorrow there will be another battle!
We move forward together! #OurTeam #LearningToWin #CadetVolleyball #HeadsUp
