National team

So as most of you already know if you follow my social medias, I played with the national team for the last two rounds of our Euro Volley 2019 qualifications. We played against the Czech Republic in a place I still can't pronounce and Estonia at. I won't be focusing on the results all that much since the team already qualified for the European Championships over last summer but for interests sake, we lost 3-2 to the Czechs and 1-3 to Estonia. With this post, I mainly want to grasp on my feelings before, during and after the camps and matches.

I found out about being on the national team only in mid-December and to be honest, it kind of came out of the blue. I'm saying this because I wasn't selected for the qualifying camps for last summer and these matches were still part of those same qualifications. After getting past my initial shock, I got pretty excited. I had previously been selcted for the team and played a few matches in 2015 I believe but never in official qualifiers. I wouldn't say I was nervous but definitely very excited (borderline nervous I guess). Thankfully with Christmas and flying back and forth between countries multiple times, I didn't have a lot of time to worry about how I would manage.

As I mentioned, I have played with the national team before but entering the gym on the 1st of January felt a bit like my first time because (if you haven't noticed) the women's volleyball team has been really booming in Finland. It felt like a whole new world compared to my previous experiences. Also having not been chosen for the team for a couple years left me with this strange in-between feeling of being not quite new but definitely not old either. It is really hard to explain. That feeling evaporated within the first five minutes of hanging out with other players. You would have a hard time finding a more hardworking, wonderful and talented bunch of women.

Before our matches I wasn't really sure what to expect in terms of playing just because I wasn't sure what my exact role would be. So I was quite suprised with how much time I ended up spending on the court and let me tell you, I can't remember the last time i've had that much fun playing volleyball. The atmosphere within the team and also between both the players and coaches was pretty awesome. I loved the fact that we didn't need to have people yelling and screaming in order to get through to eachother. It was calm, cool and collected but at the same time we were playing with smiles on our faces. I have to say that during the past 2-3 years I feel like I have been a bit lost with my state of mind on the court. Now I think I might have found it again.

We ended up having quite a rollercoaster ride as our 9 days were riddled with all kinds of injuries and illness. We pulled through though and I can honestly say that I learned quite a bit about myself during this time. Now exactly one month later when i'm writing this post, my conclusion still is that I definitely don't want this to be my last appearance in the national team.