2026-05-17, 07:36 PM - Word count:
What does one do after they "arrive" as a player?
Un-arrive. Anything else is un-statistical and is the province of gods and prophets.
Tlacaelel Tepoztli delivered 5 goals in 3 games, far and away the most impactful set of games in his career. Without his scoring, those 3 games would have yielded SfV zero points in the standings, while with that scoring, they earned the team five.
The next four games yielded three losses and a scoreless draw, with neither goals, nor assists, nor meaningful on-pitch impact from Tlacaelel. It was possible he was passing just as well, but that was nothing to be all that proud of. His role had become to generate opportunities and exploit them - to take a position that offered less and turn it into one that offered more. He tried not to chalk his failures up to adjusting to playing out of position - left wing was familiar, even if it used his instincts differently than shadow striker or wing-back did. He tried not to chalk it up to anything at all, really. There is sun, and there is rain, and days can have one or the other or both.
Only, now that he'd acquired a taste for it, he really wanted to wrest the sun itself from the sky and singe the rain away with it, before kicking it through the nearest net.
Un-arrive. Anything else is un-statistical and is the province of gods and prophets.
Tlacaelel Tepoztli delivered 5 goals in 3 games, far and away the most impactful set of games in his career. Without his scoring, those 3 games would have yielded SfV zero points in the standings, while with that scoring, they earned the team five.
The next four games yielded three losses and a scoreless draw, with neither goals, nor assists, nor meaningful on-pitch impact from Tlacaelel. It was possible he was passing just as well, but that was nothing to be all that proud of. His role had become to generate opportunities and exploit them - to take a position that offered less and turn it into one that offered more. He tried not to chalk his failures up to adjusting to playing out of position - left wing was familiar, even if it used his instincts differently than shadow striker or wing-back did. He tried not to chalk it up to anything at all, really. There is sun, and there is rain, and days can have one or the other or both.
Only, now that he'd acquired a taste for it, he really wanted to wrest the sun itself from the sky and singe the rain away with it, before kicking it through the nearest net.
