2026-02-17, 12:09 PM - Word count:
KINGSTON, Jamaica — On most mornings, the tranquil tropical sunrise over Kingston is largely undisturbed, as the silence of night is only broken by birdsong and the gentle rumblings of the island slowly awakening to a new day.
On this particular morning, however, the serenity is intercut, as thumps, swishes and occasional pings burst out from the training ground of Port Royal FC.
The Docks, Port Royal’s home stadium, looms large in the background as Juliette Greer, the academy team’s swashbuckling midfielder, takes on some early-morning target practice. She takes a deep breath, then charges forward to strike the ball. It bends its way on target from about thirty yards out, up and over the dummies she’s placed as obstacles in the penalty box, before landing in the top left corner of the goal.
“See?” Greer says, already fetching another ball. “I can do it. I don’t lie about this stuff.”
She quickly sets up for another shot, from a tighter angle. After a moment to focus, she strikes again, this time a low shot that rounds the dummies and pings over the line off the inside of the opposite post.
“So why can’t I do it in a match all of a sudden?” she muses aloud.
It’s certainly not been the start she’d been hoping for. Although the self-avowed goalscorer is currently leading her team in shots and tied with striker Vincent Haye with the most shots on target for Port Royal, and despite putting in clearly stellar levels of effort (as evidenced by her academy-leading 85.6 km run so far this season), Greer has yet to appear on the scoresheet in any capacity. And that’s with an xG of 1.22, third-highest on her team and just a fraction outside the top ten among all Season 25 prospects.
Its been plain to see that these statistics have clearly concerned the midfielder in recent days, hence the early morning shooting drills. A nearby coach mentions offhand that Greer’s been doing this ever since her high-profile miss against Sydney City early in the season.
Greer moves on to shooting on the run. From midfield, she dribbles the ball forward, makes a cut around a “defender” (another stationary training dummy), then plants her foot and blasts the ball at the net. This one is a bit high, and strikes the crossbar with a resonating “ping” that echoes throughout the training ground. Greer swears under her breath quite audibly as she goes to fetch the ball for another try.
“Nobody’s going to take me seriously until I figure this out,” she says. “It’s all well and good to talk about scoring goals, but until I actually do put something in the net, I just look like a moron.”
Indeed, some pundits have called Greer’s recently performances into question, and more than a few have, fairly or not, made comparisons to the abbreviated academy career of her dad, veteran left back Jude Greer. American soccer commentator and overall twit Alexi Lalas went so far as to refer to Juliette as a “nepo baby” during an unrelated heated rant on a recent episode of his State of the Union podcast. (Lalas has since apologized for his remarks, in which he also slammed Mauricio Pochettino as “too stupid” to coach the USMNT and mused about the possibility of hiring Grok as the national team’s next manager, among other topics.) The comments set off a fierce debate in the online community, and while Greer refuses to elaborate on some of the more vicious comments she’s gotten, she does acknowledge that it’s been a rough couple of weeks.
“It’s a damn good thing I deleted my Twitter account years ago, that’s all I’m gonna say,” Greer remarks.
As if to punctuate her statement, Greer repeats the drill again. This time, she cuts to her weak side, completes a stepover, and then lifts the ball over the stationary wall of defenders and into the corner of the net again.
It's easy to see why Greer is so eager to break her scoring duck sooner rather than later. With six games played, Port Royal find themselves just three points back of league leaders Sydney with just over half the season left. That plus the looming SSL Draft is a lot of pressure—and that’s not counting the extra pressure Greer seems to place on herself.
“I refuse to be the reason Port Royal misses out on the academy title this season,” Greer says, fetching the ball again after another near miss. “And I damn sure don’t intend to let people off easy when I get drafted, either. When I get my mojo back, everyone’s on notice.”
After this point, Greer refuses to answer any further questions, and instead begins focusing solely on scoring penalty kicks with the help of one of the goalkeeping coaches who happens to be present. She manages a streak of ten consecutive goals before the coaches suggest that the interview is likely over.
There’s no doubt that Port Royal supporters are hopeful that Greer can find her goal-scoring boots again sooner rather than later. And it’s almost as certain that SSL scouts will have taken notice as well. The question is, come draft time, which will loom larger in Greer’s scouting report—her scoring drought, or the lengths she’s going to in her attempts to end it?
On this particular morning, however, the serenity is intercut, as thumps, swishes and occasional pings burst out from the training ground of Port Royal FC.
The Docks, Port Royal’s home stadium, looms large in the background as Juliette Greer, the academy team’s swashbuckling midfielder, takes on some early-morning target practice. She takes a deep breath, then charges forward to strike the ball. It bends its way on target from about thirty yards out, up and over the dummies she’s placed as obstacles in the penalty box, before landing in the top left corner of the goal.
“See?” Greer says, already fetching another ball. “I can do it. I don’t lie about this stuff.”
She quickly sets up for another shot, from a tighter angle. After a moment to focus, she strikes again, this time a low shot that rounds the dummies and pings over the line off the inside of the opposite post.
“So why can’t I do it in a match all of a sudden?” she muses aloud.
It’s certainly not been the start she’d been hoping for. Although the self-avowed goalscorer is currently leading her team in shots and tied with striker Vincent Haye with the most shots on target for Port Royal, and despite putting in clearly stellar levels of effort (as evidenced by her academy-leading 85.6 km run so far this season), Greer has yet to appear on the scoresheet in any capacity. And that’s with an xG of 1.22, third-highest on her team and just a fraction outside the top ten among all Season 25 prospects.
Its been plain to see that these statistics have clearly concerned the midfielder in recent days, hence the early morning shooting drills. A nearby coach mentions offhand that Greer’s been doing this ever since her high-profile miss against Sydney City early in the season.
Greer moves on to shooting on the run. From midfield, she dribbles the ball forward, makes a cut around a “defender” (another stationary training dummy), then plants her foot and blasts the ball at the net. This one is a bit high, and strikes the crossbar with a resonating “ping” that echoes throughout the training ground. Greer swears under her breath quite audibly as she goes to fetch the ball for another try.
“Nobody’s going to take me seriously until I figure this out,” she says. “It’s all well and good to talk about scoring goals, but until I actually do put something in the net, I just look like a moron.”
Indeed, some pundits have called Greer’s recently performances into question, and more than a few have, fairly or not, made comparisons to the abbreviated academy career of her dad, veteran left back Jude Greer. American soccer commentator and overall twit Alexi Lalas went so far as to refer to Juliette as a “nepo baby” during an unrelated heated rant on a recent episode of his State of the Union podcast. (Lalas has since apologized for his remarks, in which he also slammed Mauricio Pochettino as “too stupid” to coach the USMNT and mused about the possibility of hiring Grok as the national team’s next manager, among other topics.) The comments set off a fierce debate in the online community, and while Greer refuses to elaborate on some of the more vicious comments she’s gotten, she does acknowledge that it’s been a rough couple of weeks.
“It’s a damn good thing I deleted my Twitter account years ago, that’s all I’m gonna say,” Greer remarks.
As if to punctuate her statement, Greer repeats the drill again. This time, she cuts to her weak side, completes a stepover, and then lifts the ball over the stationary wall of defenders and into the corner of the net again.
It's easy to see why Greer is so eager to break her scoring duck sooner rather than later. With six games played, Port Royal find themselves just three points back of league leaders Sydney with just over half the season left. That plus the looming SSL Draft is a lot of pressure—and that’s not counting the extra pressure Greer seems to place on herself.
“I refuse to be the reason Port Royal misses out on the academy title this season,” Greer says, fetching the ball again after another near miss. “And I damn sure don’t intend to let people off easy when I get drafted, either. When I get my mojo back, everyone’s on notice.”
After this point, Greer refuses to answer any further questions, and instead begins focusing solely on scoring penalty kicks with the help of one of the goalkeeping coaches who happens to be present. She manages a streak of ten consecutive goals before the coaches suggest that the interview is likely over.
There’s no doubt that Port Royal supporters are hopeful that Greer can find her goal-scoring boots again sooner rather than later. And it’s almost as certain that SSL scouts will have taken notice as well. The question is, come draft time, which will loom larger in Greer’s scouting report—her scoring drought, or the lengths she’s going to in her attempts to end it?
![[Image: f3PLeZn.png]](https://i.imgur.com/f3PLeZn.png)
