Forward Aaliyah Faddoul sits down with Jason Longshore for a quick Q & A as the Georgia State Panthers prepare for their match against the Florida Gators Thursday at the GSU Soccer Complex.
What’s your first soccer memory?
“My first soccer memory was probably when I was like four, and I would play on a team with all guys, but I genuinely hated soccer. Like, I would sit down on the field and pick dandelions, and my mom who was a soccer star at a young age and grew up playing soccer was devastated because I'm her first born. She's like, ‘Oh my God, my daughter doesn't love soccer,’ and it's a passion that she wanted to share with me. So I had that game on a random Friday night when I was four, and then I'd say at the same time next year, I'm like, ‘Mom, I want to play soccer,’ and then my mom was just glowing up with joy and then boom. That, I think, is like the most that my mom brings up, like, my early soccer childhood.”
Tell me about your mom’s love of soccer.
“Well, my mom was, from what I've heard, I didn't watch her play, but she was really good. She had Team Ontario under her belt. She was committed to Penn State, and then some family stuff happened, and she didn't end up continuing with all that. But, because I'm able to go and play soccer, she kind of lives it through me, you know? So, she's just my biggest supporter, to be honest with you.”
Tell me a little bit about growing up in Canada and falling in love with the game there.
“In Canada, sports aren’t as humongous, like it's a lot of education and different stuff going on. There's a program called OPDL and I jumped into that like I realized, like all the way down the 401 from Windsor where I'm from to Toronto like there's a lot of great competition. I didn't even realize how many amazing players there were that would travel over to the States or go over to the States for college from Canada, but mean playing soccer in Canada was only a little bit of my career as I would just Cross to Michigan and play through there.”
You've had some experiences with Canadian youth national teams. What's that like?
“I got invited to one of the tryouts, well, a couple of the tryouts, and that competition was where we would actually play the players on the team. Big players like Olivia Smith, who just signed with Liverpool now, I played against her and it kind of just showed me, like, the level that I needed to get to. I think, like, although I didn't take it all the way with that, which was unfortunate because it was a huge opportunity. I'm glad to see the level that I need to be at to get to that opportunity. I'm grateful for it.”
That’s obviously still a goal for you right?
“100%. That's 100 percent the goal. I do want to represent Canada for sure.”
When the opportunity came to come to Georgia State, what was that process like? What did you know about Atlanta and the university?
“It was actually through my family, because I have my aunt here. She's my mom's twin sister, so we've always been super, super close, and she's like, ‘Georgia State is a great school, like, why don't you come to an ID camp?’ I think I was just like let's do it. It was kind of during COVID time, so there was a bunch of stuff that I was really thinking about, but we ended up coming here to an ID camp. I met Ed Joyce and some of the girls and I really liked it, and then boom, I went to another ID camp and I got offered a scholarship. I'm like, honestly, it just feels right, and then I went with that. I already knew Atlanta because I would visit my aunt and everything like that. It's just that Georgia State was unfamiliar to me up until the ID camp.”
What are your personal goals for 2024?
“I think just building off of 2023 really, because if I am popping seven or eight goals last year, I think I want to do like 10 to 14 this year. To be honest with you, like I want goals. I want assists. I want more wins, like not even just for me, like as a team. I think we deserve more wins. We would fall short off of some silly incident in the game, and I think that this year if we increase our sharpness by a little bit, then the 2024 season blows out the 2023 season like out of the water for sure.”
Listen to the full interview with Aailyah Faddoul on this week’s episode of the Panther Prowl!
Comments