Congratulations are very much in order as Nova Pioneer and TTA graduate from the class of 2021, Peter Kolenyo, this week, committed to join Cardinal Stritch University on a 67% soccer scholarship.
Peter made the decision after receiving offers and interest from various universities including Amherst University, Manor College, Irvine Valley, Whatcom University, Pima College and others.
Cardinal Stritch is one of the most consistent NAIA Men’s soccer programs in the United States, having qualified for the NAIA National Tournament in 4 out of the past 6 years.
Peter is a graduate of the True Talents of Africa Football Academy residential program at Nova Pioneer Boys where he excelled not only on the field but also off the field, scoring high marks in his KCSE Exams in 2021.
We are extremely proud of him and we wish him well in his journey! He is set to travel to the US in August and is currently training with the TTA Football Academy’s Under 21 team.
Peter joins the list of Nova TTA Graduates headed to the US this August on Soccer scholarships which includes Cedric Mucui, Kennedy Obanda and Derrick Onyango.
Congratulations are in order as TTA Striker, Daryl Joseph has officially committed to joining Northern Oklahoma College on a 55% soccer scholarship through TTA’s Special SRUSA program. Daryl made the decision after receiving offers and interest from Fulton Montgomery, Eastern Oklahoma State College, and Phelps School.
Daryl, has been an exemplary performer for True Talents of Africa’s Under 21 team for the past 9 months and was therefore inducted into TTA’s SRUSA Program that offers players soccer scholarship opportunities to study and play in the United States.
He is now set to join one of the top Junior College programs in the US in Northern Oklahoma.
We wish him well in his journey! And we are extremely proud of him! His consistency and commitment have been a testimony to us all!
Daryl, a graduate of Brookhurst International School in Kiserian, is due to travel in August 2022, and he joins a list of 4 other TTA Students making the same trip including, Cedric Mucui, Kennedy Obanda, Peter Kolenyo and Derrick Onyango.
As a player you can have days where you’re completely unstoppable, and then other days where you can’t even control the ball…
One thing that players often forget is how much of the game is actually “MENTAL”. Of course talent is important and players do need a certain level of ability to play at a high-level. But what happens in places where all the players are talented? When everyone has ability, what makes certain players “special”?
The only real differentiating factor when you play at a high level is your “mind”. How you approach the game, the habits you have on and off the field, your level of self-belief and confidence… all of these things separate the good players from the special ones. But despite this, very few players take the mental part of their game seriously.
Consider this.
The best players are actually not that good… but mentally, they are great. They have the most important attribute of all: Confidence.
The hardest thing to give any player is confidence. Not the false kind of confidence where a player is delusional and tells themselves that they are much better than they are when their performances don’t reflect that.
We’re talking about real confidence. The confidence that not only makes a player believe he’s good enough, but actually makes them “know” that they are.
Different players cultivate and create this confidence in different ways. There are some players that seem to have it abundantly. Players like Zlatan Ibrahimović.
Zlatan Ibrahimović – AC Milan player
But then there’s the rest of us. The players whose confidence comes and goes. For us, we need to build our confidence. And the question is, how do you do that?
Where confidence comes from?
Real confidence can only come from continuous practice. If you’ve passed the ball a thousand times, the 1001th time you pass it, you won’t doubt yourself as much as you did the first time. That is confidence, and the more you practice the more confident you get.
But aside from practice, players can also train their mind. Visualization, saying affirmations, having a pre-match routine… these are only a few examples of techniques you can use. Every player is different, but if you’re a player who’s struggling with consistency and confidence, the solution isn’t always that you need to train more, it could be that you just need to train smarter and cultivate your mind.
This blog is written and created by True Talents of Africa. The TTA Football Academy program is a specialized highly intensive football program designed to turn students from ‘students’, to ‘student-athletes’. The program enables talented football players to pursue football at an elite level without subtracting from their education whilst granting them greater opportunities to play internationally.
If you would like more info on playing opportunities for yourself or your son, you can join our next masterclass.
Hands down, FOOTBALL is Africa’s most popular sport.
There is no day that goes by without us talking about Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and all the big clubs we love to watch. But this passion, this deep and relentless passion for football, is mostly carried by our youth.
Young boys (and girls) all over Africa strive to be professional footballers. It’s no surprise then that in pursuit of this dream, many of them join football academies to develop and grow their talent to reach the highest level.
In layman terms, a football academy is a ‘Football School’.
A talent development centre which focuses on football and its goal is to train and teach young players to maximize their talent and one day make it as professional players.
Most football academies tend to promise the same thing;
“Train with us and you could play professionally abroad for your favorite club.”
However, in saying this, when you look at the number of African players who make it at the highest level, why are they so few?
How many academies actually address why?
What are they not telling us, as players and parents, about the real world of professional football?
Here are 3 things your academy has probably never told you that you must know as a player or parent in your pursuit of football as a career:
Banned International transfer of youth players
Did you know that since 2009, FIFA Prohibits the transfer of players under the age of 18 internationally?
Despite this, hundreds of academies in Africa send students to international tournaments every year. It’s not that playing in these tournaments is wrong or bad, it’s that academies don’t tell their students and their families that your son/daughter is not likely to be signed. And when the player comes back wondering why they were not picked up by a club, nobody has answers. The truth is that clubs cannot sign underage international players. So go on trips and play in tournaments, that’s all fine… but find another route if you want to play abroad under the age of 18.
Limits on International Players
Another thing, players often don’t know is that every league has limits on foreign players. They do this to protect their home-grown talent. In Spain for example, each team is only allowed 3 Non-European Union players on match day. In France, that number is 5.
Even in Kenya, each club is only allowed 5 foreign players.
This means that the competition for those spots is very high. To play abroad as a foreign player, you would have to be world-class.
How hard it is at the professional level
Most players will not go from Nairobi, or Kampala, or Accra directly to playing for Arsenal. Football and even life doesn’t work like that. You don’t land your dream job after you finish high-school. Football is a ladder. And many families simply lack the patience to support their son/daughter through that ladder.
We have this conception that if you take your son/daughter to London, they will immediately be signed. But that’s impossible.
What’s more likely is that your son or daughter will play in different countries as they climb the ladder of international football. They may not even get a professional contract on their first trial, or even their second or third one. But the same applies to any highly competitive job. You might work different jobs and go to many different interviews before you get what you really want. And that’s okay. Expect football to be the same way.
. . . . .
This blog is written and created by True Talents of Africa. The TTA Football Academy program is a specialized highly intensive football program designed to turn students from ‘students’, to ‘student-athletes’. The program enables talented football players to pursue football at an elite level without subtracting from their education whilst granting them greater opportunities to play internationally.
Sports Recruiting USA
FC Malaga City (Spain)
Brooke House College (UK)
Soccer Viza (Costa Rica)
FA Euro (USA)
Our Academy Partners
If you would like more info on playing opportunities for yourself or your son, you can join our next Masterclass.
Several years ago, I remember staying with my aunt and uncle in Kansas City, Missouri USA. At the time, I was working as a youth coach whilst playing at the U23 level in the USL 2 (formerly known as the PDL). The season had just ended. Earlier that year I had also competed in my final college season with the University of Rio Grande where we were crowned NAIA National Champions.
That summer was a crucial time for me because I was preparing for some prospective trials at different teams. It was a time of a lot of uncertainty and anxiety because of all the questions I had over the next step in my career. For 3 or 4 months, I was not signed by any team. It was tough.
During that time, I learnt something about professional football.
It’s Nothing like you think it is…
Every young boy has a dream of playing in the biggest leagues internationally. But as we say in Nairobi “kwa ground, vitu ni different” (On the ground, things are different).
I’m not sure where I heard this but I was once told that in the world of Professional football, there are three kinds of footballers:
The top 1% – These are the Messis, the Ronaldos, the Neymars… that live a life most of us can’t even imagine. They are at the pinnacle of the sport.
Then there is the 30% – These are the professional players that play in high level leagues across the world and live a comfortable lifestyle.
And then there is the other 70%… who nobody ever talks about – these are the professionals/semi-professionals who live contract to contract, constantly uncertain of their future and for the most part struggling to support themselves with their football.
I have been part of the 70% and I will tell you from experience… it’s not for everyone. When I was living in Kansas City, I worked out 6 times a week. sometimes twice a day. I was in the gym in the mornings, I would go coach, and then train at night with different teams. The reason I wanted to share this experience with people is because they think that the journey they’re on is hard… but they have no idea just how hard it is.
What you should do now
At True Talents of Africa, we put most of our athletes on a holiday workout program for the next few weeks as the COVID-19 Pandemic subsides (we pray). The workouts are 4 times a week and are designed to focus on football actions to improve their explosiveness and technical ability. It hurts me to say that most of our students aren’t even committed enough to complete their workouts.
The reason it hurts me is because I remember being like them—having a dream I knew nothing about. They want to play in the biggest leagues in the world but they don’t want to commit themselves to getting better every day. It saddens me.
So, I write this for any aspiring footballer, and athlete. I want you to know that it’s what you do in the dark when nobody is around that will determine what you do under the lights when everybody is watching.
90% of anything worth doing is boring and monotonous and tiresome, but that’s exactly why it’s so hard to do, because few people are willing to make that sacrifice. You don’t suddenly become professional at anything; you are a professional every day until you become one.
