Offers news, comment and features about the British arts scene with sections on books, films, music, theatre, art and architecture. Requires free registration. Archives and past articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. A 10-year-old has suffered bone-deep lacerations after a fish chewed on her foot and ankle while she was swimming in a Minnesota lake. Maren Kesselhon was left with.

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Your coach: Dirk Koetter. “Well, I am sure there are plenty of people that think my playcalling stinks But I’ve been doing it for 35 years.

My Bizarre Quest To Become A Jew And Play Pro Soccer In Israel. In September of 2. Hønefoss, I had spoken with Aaron about future options. I told him I wanted to get back to the United States. He thought that returning to MLS would be an option. Enough teams still knew me and I should be able to at least get a minimum salary offer to be a squad- rotation guy.

Great, make it happen,” I told him. But I don’t want to go into preseason on trial. It has to be a firm offer.”He was confident enough about MLS that I didn’t pursue other options.

I waited for his phone call. In September he said it probably wouldn’t come until November. When I called to check in around Thanksgiving, he said to be patient; teams usually fill in the lower- salary Americans at the end. He didn’t expect an offer before January.

In early December, a friend of mine, Corey, asked where everything stood. When I told him I hadn’t heard anything, he asked if he could help.

He was old buddies with New York Red Bulls technical director Ali Curtis, and offered to shoot Ali a text for me. I told Corey not to worry about it, that Aaron had assured me he would talk to all of the teams in the league. I appreciate your willingness to help, man, but don’t use the capital.” Eager to lend a hand anyway, Corey dropped it into the conversation one day when he and Curtis were catching up. Curtis jumped at the opportunity. He extended an offer for me to come to the Red Bulls preseason camp in January for a tryout.

As appreciative as I felt toward Corey, I couldn’t help but be annoyed. Aaron had said he would check with everyone. Why was this the first time Ali was hearing I was available? Who else had Aaron not contacted?

I never mentioned the Red Bulls opportunity to Aaron, nor called him out on it. Aaron and I had become friends and I felt bad getting upset with him. Even though my agents were supposed to work for me, I always felt uncomfortable telling them what to do. Of all the people I’ve stood up to in my career, I always felt weak when talking to agents. I thanked Corey for the connection, but told him I would have to think about it. I wanted to stick to my “no preseason trial” game plan.

For years I’d seen players go into an MLS preseason camp and get dragged along for six weeks only to be released at the end. Trialists act as backup options while the team executives look around the world to find someone better. I get that you need to grind and put away your pride to survive in this business, but I had been toyed with enough in Dallas and felt averse to letting a team have the power.

Plus, even if I made the team, I would be a substitute fighting to make the 1. Either the team wanted me enough to sign me or I wouldn’t want to be there anyway. To force Curtis’ hand to get a firm contract offer, I told him that I was planning to go on trial with DC United, though DC had made no such offer, hoping Curtis would feel the pressure and offer me a contract. It was the first bluff of my business life. He didn’t take the bait.

I didn’t want to experience the feeling of rejection and failure. I dreaded having to tell people, “I didn’t make it,” and then see the look in their eyes. As the end of December arrived and a firm MLS contract hadn’t come, I started to come to terms with the Red Bulls option.

Despite Aaron’s optimism that something might still materialize, I could look at the rosters around the league and see there wasn’t any room for me. And since we’d assumed an offer would come, we didn’t look at other leagues or other countries. Without any other options, at the turn of the year, I had planned to call Curtis and accept his offer. I just needed a couple nights to sleep on the decision, so I pushed off the call a couple days.

The week after New Year’s, I got a hotel room in suburban Philadelphia to train with other pros in the area. We had a core group of players that had done off- season training together for the previous six years. We would meet three or four days a week and play 6v. A few days after New Year’s we were doing a crossing and finishing drill. A ball got whipped in from the right and as the ball approached me at knee height, I hopped up a few inches to meet the ball with the inside of my right foot.

As I came down, I landed awkwardly on my left foot. The ball flew past the goalie into the net, but I could feel the back of the sole of my foot jam into the turf and the instant stab of hard, tingling pain. I hobbled to the sideline. After a couple of minutes, I hopped back in line and took a few more reps, doing my best to adjust my body to deal with the pain, but eventually told the other guys that I needed to step out.

I couldn’t even touch the foot to the ground without excruciating pain. I figured it was a spontaneous ache that would be gone by the time Red Bulls camp started in 1. But the heel didn’t improve by the next day. It had gotten worse overnight.

I couldn’t put any pressure on my left sole at all. I had to hobble on my toes. Throughout the ensuing week I expected to wake up and feel the muscle relaxed, but every day it remained tight and unusable. Walking was a chore, running unbearable. My workouts for the first few days included walks to the ice maker in the freezer.

The fluke injury couldn’t have come at a worse time. Unable to move faster than the grandpa pushing his cart next to me at the grocery store, I had to call the Red Bulls and regretfully decline. Throughout my whole career I had been afraid to go to a team on trial. I always took the safe bet and guaranteed contract. I returned to Dallas instead of waiting to see what could happen in Sweden; and when I left GAIS to move to Norway, I took the guaranteed option at Baerum instead of taking an option to go on trial with a bigger club. I didn’t want not to make the team and be left without a contract at all.

Or, at least, that’s the reason I gave myself. Really, I didn’t want to experience the feeling of rejection and failure.

I dreaded having to tell people, “I didn’t make it,” and then see the look in their eyes. Now, though, I’d finally moved past those insecurities, and I suffered a fluke injury.

A few hours after I called the Red Bulls, Aaron told me he hadn’t received any interest on his end, either. My reaction paralleled indifference. Watch Wrongfully Accused Online Mic. I took the next few days off my feet. I sat on the couch and binged through House of Cards with my dad. When the foot recovers, I told myself, assuming it would just take a few days, I’ll start to look again.

Since I couldn’t play, I wouldn’t let myself stress about being unemployed. At the end of my week off, my foot hadn’t improved much, but I had to start making moves. I asked Aaron to evaluate the options abroad.

He put out feelers in Belgium and the Netherlands. I also talked to a new agent about potentially going to Korea.

I didn’t feel completely comfortable reaching out to new agents. Aaron had been my guy for the five years since college, but I didn’t know what choice I had. When I learned he hadn’t reached out to the Red Bulls, I realized I had to be more proactive myself. An old teammate from Dallas said an agent had just reached out to him about possibly playing in Israel. You should give him a call,” he told me. Your dad is Jewish, right? So you could qualify as a domestic player.

No harm in making the call.” I wanted to correct him and mention that actually there could be a lot of harm in moving to Israel, but I didn’t want to sound like that guy. I took the number. Israel, huh? Screw it. Why not? I had run out of ideas. I was tired of sitting around waiting for Aaron to call. There are few things worse than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. Much to my surprise, however, there isn’t just a form on the Internet that declares one as “Jewish.”I called the Israel agent, Leo.

No answer. I left him a voicemail. For years, I was scared to cold- call people out of the blue like that.

It always seemed so lame and desperate. In the weeks after Aaron said an MLS offer would not be coming, though, I developed a resilience.