second draft

Speech topic: Soccer competition in my school.

 

  We, the first grade in high school, have met 10 different classes so far. Some of them might be good, but the others might not. I think if you’ve met just one excellent class that you want to remember for the rest of your life, you are lucky. For me, there was one in my third years in middle school. It was very unique and exciting class. We’ve experience lots of things together such as school trip and camp. However, the most memorable event was by far the soccer competition in November, which reminded me of important lesson once again.

 

  By the time the soccer match was announced, I was poor at playing soccer. I’ve never practiced it during my whole life, and I didn’t even know how to dribble the ball. However, I was not the only one who didn’t have the basic skills of soccer. Many students were in exactly the same situation with me or worse than me. They didn’t know how to pass, shoot, dribble the ball as well, and some of them had never played soccer. There were only a few students who were good at soccer including
goalkeeper Tae-hoon and captain Moon-ho. We were in the 14th place among 17
classes according to the evaluation of our school’s soccer club. I tried to practice soccer by myself not to be a troublemaker. Won-shik, who was quite a good teacher helped me. After hard training for only 7 days, I could learn almost all the basic skills of soccer up to some point.

 

  Three weeks before soccer competition began, students in my class started to practice in earnest. During that time, soccer club announced that all students have to participate in either the first half or the second half. Captain Moon-ho completed setting the position of each student. All students including me who were not good at soccer were allocated in defense, and Tae-hoon, the goal keeper took on the whole management of defense part with me. What I did at first was training students in defense. At every break time, Tae-hoon and I called students one by one, and taught the very basic skills of soccer. They at first felt cumbersome about practice but as time passes by, they tried harder and harder and even practiced higher-leveled skills.

 

  Few days later, the soccer club informed the group formation of preliminary round. My class was in group #4, which included classes 16, 14, 10, 13 and 1(my class). It was called the ‘group of death’ because class 16 and 14 were at the first and third place respectively, and the number of team in our group is one more than others’. Students in my class were frustrated about the group formation. Some students even claimed that we’d better give up this match. However, most of us didn’t think we should let our practice go up in smoke, just because of group formation. After a little discussion, we set the goal of surviving in ‘the group of death’.

 

  Finally, the preliminary league made its start. We had a first game with class 10 Class 10 was quite a easy team for us. We won by a big margin; 4:1. The next opponent was class 16, the hardest one. We should focus on defending rather than scoring a goal because all players in that team were well-cultivated by soccer club. We succeeded once again, defending our goal post. After two weeks, we bet another strong team, class 14 1:0. It was the result that offense and defense made together. Offense didn’t miss chance to make a goal, and defense played their roles very well. The last game was with Class 13. If we have lost this game, we couldn’t have survived in the preliminary match because class 16 and class 14 were competitive. Fortunately, we drew 1;1 with class 13, and we became the only one who passed through ‘the group of death’ at last.

 

 Two days later, the finals started. Only four best teams left. We gained a victory relatively easily in the semifinal match with class 8. Even though there were many nice players in that team, they couldn’t defeat our teamwork. We also expected triumph in the last one with 17 because class 17 wasn’t that marvelous team. However, class 17 was not an easy opponent. Although they had few chance to shoot, they succeed to defend all shootings made by our offense. In the end, in penalty shoot-out, we lost 3;4. However, nobody felt disappointed because we did a really good job contrary to common expectation, showing the best teamwork, and we astonished all the other classes.

 

  Obviously the main factor of success was the best teamwork of my class. When other classes’ strategy concentrated only on a few great students, we cultivated all students one by one. Captain Moon-ho, who was the core of our offense was a great leader as well. He never became upset although someone made a critical mistake, and he cared everybody not to be fall behind. Other offense and defense also practiced a lot to become better players and contribute to our victory. Tae-hoon was the best goal-keeper in my school. He really practiced hard. and he took care of defense more than anyone. The soccer match this year was the most impressive game I’ve ever participate in. I could heartily realize that teamwork and cooperation  can make impossible things possible .