How It All Started
It didn’t start with a big moment. No stadium lights, no lanyard badge, no dramatic music in the background. It started quietly. The way most real things do, in my opinion.
It started with me sitting on my couch, watching football and talking to the screen like the players could actually hear me. It started with rewinding goals three times because I wanted to understand why they worked. It started with me reading articles and thinking, “I could write this… I want to write this.” For a long time, football felt like a world I admired from a distance. Something huge, something untouchable, something reserved for people who already belonged. I never imagined I would be packing my life into a suitcase to study sports journalism in Madrid, walking around a city where football is basically oxygen. A couple of months ago, everything you’ll read on this blog was simply a feeling. But a quiet, stubborn one. A voice that said:
You love this. You understand this. So go see how far it can take you.
And then everything began happening in small steps. A late-night decision. An application submitted with shaking hands. Conversations with professors. A plane ticket. A new city. A new version of myself learning to breathe in Spanish and think in match analysis. The funny thing is, I didn’t arrive in Madrid feeling like a journalist. I arrived like someone who hoped she had the right to try. But the moment I walked into class at the Real Madrid Graduate School and introduced myself as an aspiring sports reporter, something shifted. It felt like I wasn’t pretending anymore. It was happening. So, how it all started is not only about the past — it’s also this moment right now, typing these words. My beginning isn’t behind me. I’m still in it.
This blog is the record of that beginning: the nerves, the excitement, the assignments, the matches, the photos, the culture shocks, the growing-up moments, the dreams that suddenly don’t feel so distant. So if you’re reading this, welcome. This is where my journey into football didn’t just start — it finally became real.
Sana Meftah
Aspiring Sports Journalist
