First Panna Competition (ATFFC)

Joining ATFFC panna competition has always been a scary thought as it was my first competition and there were some pretty scary names that has proven themselves to be accomplished players throughout the years. The thought of going up against them was pretty scary. I have worked really hard to get myself ready for the competition but of course I did not expect myself to go far, instead I joined the competition with a open heart, wanting to learn more and gain experience from the competition.

The first day of the competition was pretty good, I went down to the event with the expy crew as we have became friends and I fell in love with the atmosphere and vibe of such an event. I realize how much I love the feeling when many people from all over Singapore and also from abroad, all gather together to do the sport we all love. This experience eventually encourage and lead me to do bigger things and change my goals to become more social orientated and I believe because of this change in mindset I was able to gather more people and attract more individual to join our Singapore panna community that has become what it is today. I will share more about my experience and the things I did to help grow the Panna community in Singapore at a later post.

Group stage was up first and it wasn't as hard as I thought (All the good players were in other groups HAHAHA). I went up against Shahrul (Who eventually won the competition) during the group stage, though it was a difficult match, It was a good game nonetheless. I lost the game but the score was 2-1 which wasn't too bad for my first competition. I managed to do a trick that got the crowd cheering too and the feeling was so amazing! Things went well and I made it to the knockout stage which was on day two. Day one was the first time I got to experience Football Freestyle right in front of my eyes, I saw so many young kids joining the competition and the level was so high, it was pretty amazing and I think it changed my mindset about freestyle. I used to have a view point that I will never do freestyle but after this experience, I became more accepting of this culture and sport.

Day 2 started with the knock out stage and my first game in the round of 16 was with a participant from malaysia. I lost the match during golden goal which I felt that I wrongfully lost because of a lack of fair play. My opponent gave me a cheap goal after I gave a gesture of sportsmanship which caused the match to draw and go into golden goals despite me being in the lead most of the match. One things that strike me during this competition is that I face a lot of difficulty scoring goals. I have spent most of my training session on groundsmoves and going for panna but it never crossed my mind that I needed to practice scoring goals on a small goal posts. So after the competition I changed my training methods and worked on my clapper and scoring goals, we all know how that went HAHA and now I have received so much praise for my scoring.

A GOOD LEARNING POINT. I have heard countless of young players saying that they do not want to join competitions because they are scared or that they are not ready. My question to you is, if not now, then when will you be ready. If you are not ready, then put in the effort to make yourself ready. If you do not join any competitions you will not learn from the experience and it will be an opportunity wasted since competitions don't come around that often. ONLY WHEN U JOINED AND KNOW YOUR MISTAKE THEN CAN YOU WORK TOWARDS CORRECTING YOUR MISTAKES AND START IMPROVING. My advise will be to join every competition, do not be afraid and challenge all the good players you know, only then can you improve!