On 12th December 2016 Harry Fuller and I both sat in a physics lab at Hampton School discussing his impending move to the USA to pursue the possibility of a career in Major League Soccer (MLS), combined with a degree at Cornell University.
878 days on and we were both sat in University accommodation, but this time, 3400 miles away from each other and what was once Fuller's future is now his present.
When we first sat down, he was optimistic but wary of the challenge, but as is so often the case for anyone ahead of such a huge change, not quite as prepared as he expected.
Moving away is difficult for many, but going so far away from home, with a difficult degree and high-level football to balance, adds a whole different element.
"It was a lot more an adjustment than I thought it was going to be, which I hid to a lot of people definitely...everything was way more intense than I thought."
The nerves that many suffer from in the first training session weren't there, there were no nasty teammates, none of the clichéd difficulties that you would expect entering a new team.
Fuller celebrates his first goal for Cornell
But at the same time, his discipline and fitness were lacking and there was no quarter given by the coaches. In the fitness test known as the Yoyo test, he admits "I needed 25, but I got 19". With some players falling below half what they needed, and the constant threat of being cut, the intensity and pressure of the atmosphere was slowly being brought home to him.
If that hadn't been intense enough, two yellow cards in the opening two games, the second of which was a 3-0 defeat in Dallas, displayed to him the standards that he needed to hit, which he felt he was some way off.
But it was the conclusion of that fixture where he began to realise just how tough the environment would be.
"It's really humid and we were drenched in sweat. I took off my match shirt to change into my dry training shirt, quite a few people had already done this, but the coach calls us in...I'm being called over and I can't find my training shirt so I run in, assuming he'd rather I was there."
He approached the huddle.
"Harry, turn around and put a fucking shirt on."
Rather than starting the team-talk and allowing him to squirm back into the huddle, he waited, with all eyes on Fuller while he desperately scrambled around looking for his training shirt.
Fuller cools off in an ice-bath with his teammates, an occasion where he didn't have to wear a shirt for once
"I ran back in...he started off by saying 'Harry, you're a promising player. But you've got a terrible attitude.'...by the end, I was almost in tears."
He was prepared for it to be difficult, but "even though you're expecting it...you don't know what it's like until you're there."
As his confidence faded, the nerves kicked in. With his game, playing on the right, built on "running at players, there are easier positions to play nervous. When I'm nervous, I can't really do anything."
Fuller wears 10, but plays on the right, and confidence is crucial to his game
"I knew I could be shown up for fitness and as soon as that's in your head it's pretty hard to ignore. So you've got to be confident in your preparation."
New to him was having to really battle for a place too. He had been one of the first names on the team sheet at Hampton and though he had played at a high level in the ISFA team, the week-in, week-out battle for a place was a relatively alien concept.
"Being friends with someone that you're hoping you start over, and really wanting to start over, when their thinking the same is quite strange. But it's good, it makes you improve a lot."
And after a season of making most of his appearances of the bench, and a period of post-season training, the latter of which was "huge" in helping him gain the discipline and confidence he needed, he went into the second season "excited."
"I knew I was fit, but I was way fitter than I thought I was. Playing-wise and attitude-wise, [I'd improved] a huge amount. I became a really good trainer."
With the fitness, and the form, and the discipline, came confidence. Confidence vital to him playing his best.
State-of-the-art facilities, televised matches and professional preparation were other things new for Fuller in his first season
"I respond well to positive things, when I'm really fit, I'm much more likely to do better. I don't respond well to people ripping into me."
It meant he started the 2018 season brilliantly. "I was starting and playing really well in the first run of games, that's probably the most I've enjoyed playing football in my life."
"We were in the top 20 [Colleges for Soccer in the USA] for five weeks, which is the first time in a long time, and we got decent crowds."
Sadly though, those crowds started to tail off as form fell away for Cornell. "We lost a lot of bodies, we also lost fitness, and momentum, everything seemed to happen at the same time."
"We'll have to win the Ivy League before we get recognised as a team worth going to."
"Which we'll hopefully do next year."
Fuller, and his team, are confident of success next season
6th in his first season, 4th in his second, with no players heading for the exit door (when most teams lose roughly 5), they are in a good place ahead of next season.
But the 2018 season left Fuller with more challenges personally too: "If I'd played as well as I did at the start of the season for the whole season, that would've been enough for what I want to do next season. Even though it's a short season, it's so compressed and it's long enough that it's tough. It gets to the point where I'm like 'f*** I need to train again', and it's very easy to do the wrong things and try and search for nights out when I shouldn't be."
"I found a good routine last summer, now I just have to find the same again. Next season, I'll have had both of those experiences already, before last season learning [the standards required], then before this latest season learning how to keep [them]."
Fuller celebrates with teammate Emeka Eneli after his late winner against Penn
To keep things ticking over, he'll be playing for Manhattan Soccer Club, in the unofficial fourth tier of US football. It's unlikely to see him get scouted, and he'll have to work hard to get into the team, but it is clear evidence of him trying to get himself in the sort of condition he was in ahead of last season.
And what of the American life?
"It sounds ridiculous, but I was so self conscious of being English." he says, with more than a hint of an American accent now creeping into his voice. "Early on in the year I was talking to two girls I'd just met they were so rude. Later that night I shouted something across the room and one of the girls hears me and says 'wait you're actually British? Oh my god I feel so bad!'."
"The first semester I was in season, so it's hard to meet people. It takes the whole next semester to really find a friendship, and I definitely think you need friends outside your team. My friendship circles have expanded a lot more this year. I've been lucky people who I happened to live with have been good, I've met people from that. It's been good."
So despite a ride that's not always gone to plan, a path far less smooth than he would have imagined when we last spoke, and some hard lessons learned, things are still very much on track for Fuller.
It will only get harder, as his role in the team and the level of his studying intensifies, but, armed with adversity he has faced so far, the hopes and dreams of Harry Fuller are as alive as they were 883 days ago.
Comments
Post a Comment