The recent blog posting by American forward Robbie Rogers, who has stepped back from football, announced that he was gay. In a moving post that has been tweeted and mentioned by many in the soccer world, Rogers wrote of the pain of the secrecy that he has had to live with and the difficulty of telling and explaining to his loved ones after 25 years. Soccer, for Rogers, became an escape and a way to hide his secret - but one can sense the pain with which Rogers wrote. He describes seemingly religious attitudes prevalent as he writes, "Try convincing yourself that your creator has the most wonderful purpose for you even though you were taught differently." Whilst Rogers didn't state

Preseason often offers a challenge to players, coaches, and chaplains alike. For the player, there are the tasks of securing a contract, getting into match-fitness, making the starting 11, or, sometimes coming back from surgery or injury. For the coaches, they must make decisions on what players to name to the squad, what positions need more support, what formation to play, and what strategies to employ through the season. Teams spend their preseason time refining and working out the mechanics of the game and their work. Often, both player and coach are looking to work out of "preseason form" and begin to ascend to the peak of top shape, top form - physically and mentally. To accomplish this, each goes