VOICES
Hans, Hans Hooray!
June 15, 2019 | ISSUE 10
By Shuying Ou
Congratulation to Hans Dierz Merlian in our School! Last year, on November 18th 2018, Hans represented our school as a best player to join the Mayor's Cup Soccer Championships in New York City. This Championship was gathering all the best players from different high schools around the city. The people who were in the team came from everywhere, such as Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens. Then they cooperated to make a team for Public School Athletic League and play against private schools or Catholic High schools. Hans performed his excellent talents to get into the public school team.
Before he got into the game, he needed to go through the hardest processes which the referee and the coach had to vote on the player to be in the team. After he got into the team, there were two trainings before the Championship Day. When he walked in the competition area, he felt honored to be part of the best players in the city. But also he still felt a little bit nervous because there were a lot of audience watch him. This opportunity is very rare, it’s not everyone have this kind of opportunity to play in the best team. He felt thankful for all the people who support him. When time comes into a tight moment, Hans did a wonderful shot into the last five minutes of the game. All the “fans” from our school stood up and felt proud of his successful moment. His efforts throughout these years is worth it. In the final game, the Public School Athletic League completed the competition through the cooperation of the players, and the public school team won by 3-0.
After the game, we got a opportunity to talk with him about the championship. Hans thought back about the game. Some challenges that he faced were there are lots of people had to rotate for the team every time. So he did not have enough time to play in the game. But he did the best to win the game at the last five minutes. From this game, he believed people should not limit yourself, you need to think bigger and think that you can do it, have thinking about what you can do and know that what are some things that are important to you, then it will change your life. In his future, he recognizes that he still want to play soccer in college. Hopefully, he can play for Haiti in the Olympics and have a club to play for America or somewhere else. Also, he hope he can have more opportunities to develop his talents and skills in order to be a success soccer player.
Afterwards, he wanted to share some soccer gained knowledge with all those who are interested in football. He said: “Playing soccer is playing with your head, when you play soccer you will focus on the game, don’t focus on what you can’t do. You had to concentrated on the game and believe in yourself that you can do it.”
Hans mentioned something important in the interview: “I feel proud and honor to play as a representatives of our school. The championship depended not only on our own strength, but also on the team spirit of the team members. So I believe I can overcome the difficulties and I will go far beyond in soccer.” From this interview, it demonstrates that this is a rare opportunity for him. So he cherished this opportunity. This opportunity built up a turning point in his life. In addition, this championship helped him grow and lay a solid foundation on the future soccer path in order to help him find his future life goals. We feel proud about his success. We hope that he can achieve all the goals that he made and have a great development on soccer in the future.
“I want to say that no matter what happens, no matter how far you seems to be away from where you want to be never stop believing that one day you will make it.”
Hans Dierz Merlian