Been watching a ton of pro videos over the last while and I'm just so impressed by how versatile they are. They have great ball control, great expectation of direction on aerials (ie, where it will bounce and where to be), great prediction on their opponent's clear attempts, and they just never miss shots on the ground. Every ball that gets to them is redirected towards the net, or towards a teammate/other important space, with velocity and precision. If a stray ball comes to them, they don't kinda just wave at it or throw it to the corner, they angle it precisely towards the goal or a teammate, almost without fail.
It's really cool to go through this myself and go from just starting out, to understanding the basics of positioning (offense/defense, cycling), to trying to reliably get velocity on shots, to trying to make contact with basic aerials, to going for more advanced aerials, and STILL know that I'm so far away from good players. I like trying to break down how to score on good defensive teams, because I know the best players would have no trouble, and when you sit back and realize all the stuff you would have to do to always be in position and never miss, it's such a skillful game. I went through this 15 years ago for fighting games (and so now, all the fighting games I learn I kind of take that process for granted), so even with all my experience in gaming, it's neat to have to "learn to walk" in a new game, as it were.
I don't know if I'll ever aspire to be world class at the game, or grind out lots of practice away from real matches, but I'm still having fun learning and getting noticeably better every day I play, so until that stops I'll keep going. I feel my strengths are understanding field position and space control (from years of sports and videogames around positioning) and correctly predicting player tendencies (both on my team and on the opposing team). I feel I'm fairly average at "hard" aerials (I'm going for a lot of them recently so I can figure out the mechanics), but I'll score some nice goals here and there. My weakest area is dribbling, missing shots under the ball (ie, shooting high or whiffing), and wall shots (which I still don't really understand).
I got my Veteran rank yesterday too, yay.
