Hugo Letellier
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My name is Hugo Letellier, I'm a football fan waiting for a job in the footballing world, and this is my story.
I was born in Paris in 1994, in the 15th district more specifically. For the first 6 years of my life, I lived there and enjoyed my childhood like any young kid would. Things are always easy when you're young, everything is given to you by your parents and it never takes more than crying once in a while to get what you want. The first time that football really came into my life was when I was on holiday with my family. I was 4 years old then. One night, as I was getting ready to sleep, I heard loud screams coming from the streets and the bars surrounding us. I couldn't remember the date, I didn't know what was happening. As my mom came and took me out of bed to join my dad in the living room, he was celebrating. His friends were there and everyone was so happy. France had won the World Cup. A 3-0 victory against Brazil, who was supposed to be the best team in the world. Zinedine Zidane the hero, Emmanuel Petit also a goalscorer. At the time, all I could do was just blindly celebrate with them, not knowing why. As I grew up, I got more and more interesting in football. We moved to Belgium when I was 6 and just 2 years later, I joined a sports club where I started playing football. The main reason why I got into it in the first place was because my friends were there. Learning how to play was the best part of my day. Even at 8 years old when school makes you so happy and interesting in things, football was still the best part of my day. Kicking the ball around, running freely on the field, wanting to score goals so all your friends would come and celebrate you as the best player they knew. It was always so easy. A year later, my coach told me: "Son, listen. I know you enjoy playing football and your friends are there but this group is not hard enough for you. You need to play with older boys and be challenged. This is just too easy for you". And there was my first life lesson. I was so used to getting everything I wanted and suddenly someone was telling me that it won't always be this way, that one day I'll have to work hard to get what I want. I moved up groups and played with the advanced group. For the first time in my life, football wasn't fun anymore. I just wanted to quit, to give up. My mom even had to talk to the coach about it and in the end he moved me back down. All I wanted at the time was to have fun with my friends.
Belgium was so far the only experience I'd had of football, but that was soon to change. At 10 years old, my dad announced me that we were moving again, this time to a country I didn't even know existed. We were going to the other side of the world, in South East Asia. Indonesia. Before I had the time to process anything, we were on the plane to Jakarta, the capital city. Life there was hard. The weather was unbearable, I didn't know anyone there and on the first day of school I cried. Like any kid would. It was too hard for me to take. I didn't know anyone and no one came to me, I was just all alone. With time, I realised that I was being too hard on myself and tried to make some friends, which I did. They all played football too and I just thought why not join my school team. In Belgium I used to play football in a sports club, at school, anywhere I could really. Started off as a goalie. Obviously. The new guy is always the goalie. When I joined the school team, I decided that I wanted to play outfield but my coach and teammates were having none of it. Goalie it was then. My first few practice games I felt good, I had played in that position for quite a while and it honestly wasn't too hard either. When our first friendly games came, that's when things got harder for me. Our team was good, I was just terrible in goal. Conceding every game, never playing well and with the coach always standing right behind our goal trying to motivate me so I could make some saves. I didn't know how to dive, sometimes I scored own goals. In practices we used to play with the under 16s and they all used to just blast shots from the penalty spot and either yelled or laughed at me if I didn't save them, which I never managed to. I just wanted to give up, just like in Belgium. This time I didn't have an excuse to go and tell my mom. I had asked to play football, my family had to pay for me to be able to do extracurricular activities and I couldn't get out of it. I tried to pick myself up but my morale was down. As a goalkeeper I just couldn't handle the pressure of being the last person the team counted on before the ball went in the back of the net. One day we had another friendly. An Indonesian school. They told us that they practiced every day for an hour and a half and already then I thought to myself: "Oh no, this is going to be one of those games again,we're going to get destroyed again" But then I told myself no. I believe in myself. I believe in my friends and the team. One of my friends' dad stayed behind the goal to encourage me. I was a bit off my line, as any keeper would at a kickoff because what's the point of staying right on your line when the ball is so far away. I got to know why. One of their strikers straight from kickoff decided to just go for it and the ball went right over my head, into the back of the net. We had no backup goalkeepers so the coach just had to keep me on. Every person on the team was yelling, was asking me what the **** I was doing off my line. At this point I just thought I was unlucky and I told myself to keep going. Fifteen minutes later, it was 5-0. I couldn't take it. I wanted to cry. My friends' dad behind me was telling me not to but I just did. In the middle of the game. On my goal line. By the end of the game, we had managed to 'only' lose 8-0. The whole team blamed it on me and as the shy, quiet person that I was and still am today, I just accepted it. I went home and cried. Football was just making me unhappy. I didn't want to be a football fan anymore, I didn't want to play it anymore. At that point I just told my coach I was quitting and for an entire year after that, I didn't play. Not a bit. I refused to play even at school during our lunch breaks. I was done with football. One day, I came to school and right before class I was with all my friends when they talked about how they were playing in an school league with all the other 'foreign schools' from Jakarta. The French School (which I was at), the Jakarta International School, the German School, the British School. There were many more. And suddenly it hit me. What am I doing? What am I waiting for? They're playing in a league! That's a great way to prove myself! I was now 12 years old and I decided to join the team again. Finally, we had a proper goalkeeper and I wasn't the new kid anymore. They played me centre-back. I was one of the quickest players on the team so that really helped me. For a year I played there and I became a key player for the team. At the end of the year, we came 4th in a group of 8 teams in the league, meaning we couldn't qualify for the playoffs. Devastating, but promising. The year after, I was still a centre-back. We went to Shanghai for a tournament with all the French schools around South East Asia and out of 8, we finished 6th. Not great. During training and mini-games that we played I proved myself and actually become one of the best long shot takers in the team. I wanted to take free-kicks, I wanted to shoot I wanted to score goals. The coach told me straight up no: "Look Hugo, you're a defender. As of right now your job is to defend and that's all I want you to do. You can't just expect to all of a sudden start shooting and get goals, you're not there yet." I was devastated obviously. I agreed to his demands and just decided to live with it and play at the centre of the defence. We had some fantastic performances and at the back I was really solid alongside one of my friends who was actually Argentinian. We did really well in the league and managed to come 2nd. We were so close. We knew we were almost there. One night, my dad came back and told us we were moving again. It just crushed me. It had been 4 years here and I was really enjoying football, school, my friends and everything in Jakarta. This was the most I had cried in my life. For my last year here, I wanted to do well. With the school team we did incredibly well and managed to win the league but once again before I knew it, we were on our way to Singapore.
The move had once again made me incredibly sad. I didn't know what to do. I had met a girl in Jakarta and she became my best friend. Leaving Jakarta, her and all my other friends and leaving a team who had just won the league was heartbreaking. A completely new city, school and at school, no football team. One day one of my friends just said: "Hey I heard you like football, we play for a team called Football Passion, do you wanna join?" I was back! Finally after about a month in Singapore I could play football again. When I got to practice, I had a look at the coach and already I looked worried. He seemed strict but he knew what he was doing. Since I was a kid, I had a dream. To become a football player, to be the captain of my team and to lead them to glory. For the first time in my life, I felt like that was believable. Throughout the year I was played as a centre midfielder and we went and played in Bangkok for an International Schools competition. For my entire life I had been waiting for an opportunity like this but unfortunately we got completely battered and didn't qualify for the next few rounds. That year in Singapore was also the first year where I finally scored goals. I scored around 10 and was so proud of myself. I thought that's it, this is when my life changes. As I grew up during that year I told my parents that I wanted to become a football player but they didn't believe me, they didn't support it. They said it was impossible, that I might be good but not good enough. Around 6 months after we had gotten to Singapore, my dad said he got a job offer in India and had accepted it and as I turned 15 years old, we moved to Bombay. There, I played with my school team where I also went and played tournaments in Oman, Nepal and Bangladesh against all the American Schools from the surrounding areas. We went all the way to the final in my second year in the football team but unfortunately we never went and won it. In India, I had problems with my friends and in my relationship, I had suicidal thoughts, I went into depression and my family was having health problems, my grandparents seemed like they didn't have long left and all of that made me want to work harder but all my life I was so used to getting everything I wanted so easily that I just couldn't. As I graduated from high school, I wanted to continue football, to continue playing it and being a fan of it. I had developed a passion for PSG, my hometown club and Tottenham where my favourite player Gareth Bale played for a while. I was so proud whenever he scored a goal and the next day I could go to school and show off about it.
Going into my college years, I studied football business in London and once again, tried my best to play the most games I could and see if one day maybe someone would scout me or scout the area where I was playing. It never happened and throughout my entire life I just wanted to become someone in the world of football. I wanted to step onto a field hearing the Champions League theme song. I wanted to hear the fans yelling my team's name or my name when we scored. All of this was a dream for me that I now knew I would never be able to accomplish. At now 21 years old, I've got no past playing experience apart from pretty much Sunday League football and I've got no coaching qualifications, but I'm hoping that my studies in college in football business will help me find a job. In one of the biggest decisions I've had to make in my entire life, I'm stepping into management as a 21 year old hoping to one day make a difference in the footballing world and maybe get the glory that comes with the sport. My dream of playing for a living might be over, but throughout all 21 years of my life until now, I've learned to never give up and managing has always also been part of that dream. I'm ready to make the big step forward, I am the Football Fan, one of many who want to make a difference in football, and finally I'm hoping to make one. Through the emotional rollercoaster that football has been for me since I was just 8 years old, this dream is about to become a reality and as I sign this contract to become a manager, I'm hoping for the best.
Today is the 8th of July 2014, and today is the day where I make myself available for any team out there who needs a manager. I'll do my best in the future to become the best manager I can be and finally be able to overcome my failures in my footballing life so far.
I was born in Paris in 1994, in the 15th district more specifically. For the first 6 years of my life, I lived there and enjoyed my childhood like any young kid would. Things are always easy when you're young, everything is given to you by your parents and it never takes more than crying once in a while to get what you want. The first time that football really came into my life was when I was on holiday with my family. I was 4 years old then. One night, as I was getting ready to sleep, I heard loud screams coming from the streets and the bars surrounding us. I couldn't remember the date, I didn't know what was happening. As my mom came and took me out of bed to join my dad in the living room, he was celebrating. His friends were there and everyone was so happy. France had won the World Cup. A 3-0 victory against Brazil, who was supposed to be the best team in the world. Zinedine Zidane the hero, Emmanuel Petit also a goalscorer. At the time, all I could do was just blindly celebrate with them, not knowing why. As I grew up, I got more and more interesting in football. We moved to Belgium when I was 6 and just 2 years later, I joined a sports club where I started playing football. The main reason why I got into it in the first place was because my friends were there. Learning how to play was the best part of my day. Even at 8 years old when school makes you so happy and interesting in things, football was still the best part of my day. Kicking the ball around, running freely on the field, wanting to score goals so all your friends would come and celebrate you as the best player they knew. It was always so easy. A year later, my coach told me: "Son, listen. I know you enjoy playing football and your friends are there but this group is not hard enough for you. You need to play with older boys and be challenged. This is just too easy for you". And there was my first life lesson. I was so used to getting everything I wanted and suddenly someone was telling me that it won't always be this way, that one day I'll have to work hard to get what I want. I moved up groups and played with the advanced group. For the first time in my life, football wasn't fun anymore. I just wanted to quit, to give up. My mom even had to talk to the coach about it and in the end he moved me back down. All I wanted at the time was to have fun with my friends.
Belgium was so far the only experience I'd had of football, but that was soon to change. At 10 years old, my dad announced me that we were moving again, this time to a country I didn't even know existed. We were going to the other side of the world, in South East Asia. Indonesia. Before I had the time to process anything, we were on the plane to Jakarta, the capital city. Life there was hard. The weather was unbearable, I didn't know anyone there and on the first day of school I cried. Like any kid would. It was too hard for me to take. I didn't know anyone and no one came to me, I was just all alone. With time, I realised that I was being too hard on myself and tried to make some friends, which I did. They all played football too and I just thought why not join my school team. In Belgium I used to play football in a sports club, at school, anywhere I could really. Started off as a goalie. Obviously. The new guy is always the goalie. When I joined the school team, I decided that I wanted to play outfield but my coach and teammates were having none of it. Goalie it was then. My first few practice games I felt good, I had played in that position for quite a while and it honestly wasn't too hard either. When our first friendly games came, that's when things got harder for me. Our team was good, I was just terrible in goal. Conceding every game, never playing well and with the coach always standing right behind our goal trying to motivate me so I could make some saves. I didn't know how to dive, sometimes I scored own goals. In practices we used to play with the under 16s and they all used to just blast shots from the penalty spot and either yelled or laughed at me if I didn't save them, which I never managed to. I just wanted to give up, just like in Belgium. This time I didn't have an excuse to go and tell my mom. I had asked to play football, my family had to pay for me to be able to do extracurricular activities and I couldn't get out of it. I tried to pick myself up but my morale was down. As a goalkeeper I just couldn't handle the pressure of being the last person the team counted on before the ball went in the back of the net. One day we had another friendly. An Indonesian school. They told us that they practiced every day for an hour and a half and already then I thought to myself: "Oh no, this is going to be one of those games again,we're going to get destroyed again" But then I told myself no. I believe in myself. I believe in my friends and the team. One of my friends' dad stayed behind the goal to encourage me. I was a bit off my line, as any keeper would at a kickoff because what's the point of staying right on your line when the ball is so far away. I got to know why. One of their strikers straight from kickoff decided to just go for it and the ball went right over my head, into the back of the net. We had no backup goalkeepers so the coach just had to keep me on. Every person on the team was yelling, was asking me what the **** I was doing off my line. At this point I just thought I was unlucky and I told myself to keep going. Fifteen minutes later, it was 5-0. I couldn't take it. I wanted to cry. My friends' dad behind me was telling me not to but I just did. In the middle of the game. On my goal line. By the end of the game, we had managed to 'only' lose 8-0. The whole team blamed it on me and as the shy, quiet person that I was and still am today, I just accepted it. I went home and cried. Football was just making me unhappy. I didn't want to be a football fan anymore, I didn't want to play it anymore. At that point I just told my coach I was quitting and for an entire year after that, I didn't play. Not a bit. I refused to play even at school during our lunch breaks. I was done with football. One day, I came to school and right before class I was with all my friends when they talked about how they were playing in an school league with all the other 'foreign schools' from Jakarta. The French School (which I was at), the Jakarta International School, the German School, the British School. There were many more. And suddenly it hit me. What am I doing? What am I waiting for? They're playing in a league! That's a great way to prove myself! I was now 12 years old and I decided to join the team again. Finally, we had a proper goalkeeper and I wasn't the new kid anymore. They played me centre-back. I was one of the quickest players on the team so that really helped me. For a year I played there and I became a key player for the team. At the end of the year, we came 4th in a group of 8 teams in the league, meaning we couldn't qualify for the playoffs. Devastating, but promising. The year after, I was still a centre-back. We went to Shanghai for a tournament with all the French schools around South East Asia and out of 8, we finished 6th. Not great. During training and mini-games that we played I proved myself and actually become one of the best long shot takers in the team. I wanted to take free-kicks, I wanted to shoot I wanted to score goals. The coach told me straight up no: "Look Hugo, you're a defender. As of right now your job is to defend and that's all I want you to do. You can't just expect to all of a sudden start shooting and get goals, you're not there yet." I was devastated obviously. I agreed to his demands and just decided to live with it and play at the centre of the defence. We had some fantastic performances and at the back I was really solid alongside one of my friends who was actually Argentinian. We did really well in the league and managed to come 2nd. We were so close. We knew we were almost there. One night, my dad came back and told us we were moving again. It just crushed me. It had been 4 years here and I was really enjoying football, school, my friends and everything in Jakarta. This was the most I had cried in my life. For my last year here, I wanted to do well. With the school team we did incredibly well and managed to win the league but once again before I knew it, we were on our way to Singapore.
The move had once again made me incredibly sad. I didn't know what to do. I had met a girl in Jakarta and she became my best friend. Leaving Jakarta, her and all my other friends and leaving a team who had just won the league was heartbreaking. A completely new city, school and at school, no football team. One day one of my friends just said: "Hey I heard you like football, we play for a team called Football Passion, do you wanna join?" I was back! Finally after about a month in Singapore I could play football again. When I got to practice, I had a look at the coach and already I looked worried. He seemed strict but he knew what he was doing. Since I was a kid, I had a dream. To become a football player, to be the captain of my team and to lead them to glory. For the first time in my life, I felt like that was believable. Throughout the year I was played as a centre midfielder and we went and played in Bangkok for an International Schools competition. For my entire life I had been waiting for an opportunity like this but unfortunately we got completely battered and didn't qualify for the next few rounds. That year in Singapore was also the first year where I finally scored goals. I scored around 10 and was so proud of myself. I thought that's it, this is when my life changes. As I grew up during that year I told my parents that I wanted to become a football player but they didn't believe me, they didn't support it. They said it was impossible, that I might be good but not good enough. Around 6 months after we had gotten to Singapore, my dad said he got a job offer in India and had accepted it and as I turned 15 years old, we moved to Bombay. There, I played with my school team where I also went and played tournaments in Oman, Nepal and Bangladesh against all the American Schools from the surrounding areas. We went all the way to the final in my second year in the football team but unfortunately we never went and won it. In India, I had problems with my friends and in my relationship, I had suicidal thoughts, I went into depression and my family was having health problems, my grandparents seemed like they didn't have long left and all of that made me want to work harder but all my life I was so used to getting everything I wanted so easily that I just couldn't. As I graduated from high school, I wanted to continue football, to continue playing it and being a fan of it. I had developed a passion for PSG, my hometown club and Tottenham where my favourite player Gareth Bale played for a while. I was so proud whenever he scored a goal and the next day I could go to school and show off about it.
Going into my college years, I studied football business in London and once again, tried my best to play the most games I could and see if one day maybe someone would scout me or scout the area where I was playing. It never happened and throughout my entire life I just wanted to become someone in the world of football. I wanted to step onto a field hearing the Champions League theme song. I wanted to hear the fans yelling my team's name or my name when we scored. All of this was a dream for me that I now knew I would never be able to accomplish. At now 21 years old, I've got no past playing experience apart from pretty much Sunday League football and I've got no coaching qualifications, but I'm hoping that my studies in college in football business will help me find a job. In one of the biggest decisions I've had to make in my entire life, I'm stepping into management as a 21 year old hoping to one day make a difference in the footballing world and maybe get the glory that comes with the sport. My dream of playing for a living might be over, but throughout all 21 years of my life until now, I've learned to never give up and managing has always also been part of that dream. I'm ready to make the big step forward, I am the Football Fan, one of many who want to make a difference in football, and finally I'm hoping to make one. Through the emotional rollercoaster that football has been for me since I was just 8 years old, this dream is about to become a reality and as I sign this contract to become a manager, I'm hoping for the best.
Today is the 8th of July 2014, and today is the day where I make myself available for any team out there who needs a manager. I'll do my best in the future to become the best manager I can be and finally be able to overcome my failures in my footballing life so far.