The changing room is a sacred place for any footballer. It is his sanctuary, a place to prepare for battle and where bonds are made with fellow teammates.
In my playing days, I’ve seen how the changing room can be absolutely rocking after a huge victory and also the bust-ups that might occur after a heated training session or match.
I’ve played alongside true professionals over the years who I’ve learnt a lot from just by watching how they prepare for trainings and games. Jozef Kaplan was my club captain and teammate last season at Geylang International. His professionalism is one I truly admire; he always lines up his boots and shin pads in a certain position, he always has three bottles of cold water and energy gels at the ready in case he needs it. And this was only in preparation for a training session!
I’ve spotted other quirks in the dressing room too, such as a player brushing his teeth just before going out for a game (I hope it wasn’t in realisation that he didn’t do it in the morning), and players having a game of poker (and losing money) just before kick-off to ease their nerves.
Early in my career, when I was learning the trade of being a professional footballer, I was shocked to find that the term ‘professional’ was used loosely in the club I was playing for at the time.
Playing for a small club may be the reason for this attitude and it is probably why these players never made it to better clubs. What was even more shocking was finding out that they had to hide from the coach before kick-off to have a quick smoke or openly purge themselves in the toilet as it made them feel ‘lighter’.
A lasting memory in my career would be to find a player who had played at international level who had his pre-match meal just an hour before kick-off. In case you were wondering, the meal consisted a packet of chicken rice and bubble tea!
Pranks, of course, were also a given especially when you are in close confines with your colleagues. Cutting holes in teammates’ underwear or hiding their new football boots were all part of the culture and was usually taken in good spirits by the victim.
However, I had enough of one such prank being directed at me at one of my clubs when a teammate would continuously steal my shampoo for himself and I would furiously have to search for it every single day. I decided to teach this joker a lesson by pouring the entire contents of my shampoo into his bag which was filled with his clothes and valuables. I topped it up with water as an added measure. Needless to say, he never took my shampoo again. We also never really spoke after that!
You never really know how safe a place the dressing room can be, as after one particularly tough training session, my teammate and I were complaining about our drill sergeant of a coach while we were showering in our respective cubicles.
“Who does he think he is, a football coach or someone in-charge of the Singapore marathon team?”
We went on for a good 10 minutes blowing off steam and as we were still complaining about our aching legs while getting changed, none other than our head coach himself walks out of the cubicle next to the ones we were in. He turned to us and said: “Have a good rest,” with a wry smile on his face. The horror of it all!