People sometimes ask me whether soccer is about talent or about belief. After a lifetime in the game, my honest answer is that it’s about both, and about the strange little rituals we build to hold the two together. Everyone who’s ever laced up a pair of cleats has a number, a routine, a superstition. Mine just happens to come with a few more stories.
Seven has always felt like a friendly number to me. It shows up in lineups, in jersey racks, in the way a good practice seems to hit its stride about seven minutes in. I’m not claiming it has any magical power. I’m saying that when you give a young player something small to believe in, you often unlock something much bigger underneath.
That’s what coaching has taught me more than anything else. You’re not just teaching passing angles and defensive shape. You’re teaching kids how to carry themselves when nobody’s sure how the next ten minutes will go. Confidence is a skill, and like any skill it grows with repetition and encouragement.
I try to remind the players I work with that luck is mostly preparation wearing a nicer outfit. The bounce that goes your way usually follows a hundred unglamorous touches in an empty field. The save you make late in a game was built in the cold mornings when you could have stayed in bed.
There’s also a gentler side to all this. Superstitions are a way of making a scary moment feel manageable. A player who taps the post, ties her boots in a certain order, or wears the same socks every match is quietly telling herself, “I have some control here.” I would never take that away from anyone.
What I care about most is that the game remains joyful. Soccer has given me so much, and the best way to honor it is to pass that joy along. If a lucky number helps a nervous kid step onto the field with a smile, then it’s doing exactly the work it’s supposed to do.
So keep your rituals, keep your good luck charms, and keep showing up for the work. The rest, as every coach eventually learns, has a way of sorting itself out.
