Miles Byass is a U.S. Soccer youth national team player, a former Top 100 club prospect and quite possibly a SPY™ Award winner.

Miles is the inspiration behind the SPY™ Award nominated song, “Miles Byass Anthem (It’s A Goal!).” Vote or nominate your favorite song of the year now!

In today’s edition of his weekly blog, the San Diego State freshman talks about the role music plays in soccer.

Check out past entries from Miles on winning over friends, his respect for defenders and the pain of losing.

There are many pre-game rituals that soccer players have. Whether it’s which socks you wear or what songs you listen to, the ritual is a necessity for the player to feel comfortable with their game.

When it comes to music it can vary with each individual player. Some players may like music with a speedy and upbeat tempo to hype them up, and some may like a slower tempo to calm them down and relieve them in a sense - relinquish nervousness.

More melodic music can calm you down so you aren’t overexcited and can go into a game level-headed instead of being all over the place.

Music can be used as a gateway to meditation for a player to really get that game-time focus they need in order to be prepared mentally. Music is the pregame and post-game ritual for some players. After the game the music is determined by how the game went for the player.

If you had a bad game and lost it’s comparable to being dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend. So you are most likely going to end up listening to depressing music and mope around like a sick dog for a while.

But if you had a great game and won you might end up listening to your pump up music or the music you listen to pre-game. If you had a great game and lost you’d probably listen to similar music as if you just had a bad game but won. In the end, many players listen to music in the buildup and aftermath of a game scenario. Whether it’s because you are traveling or because you like concentrating with tunes, music is used a lot for games. Whether it is Taylor Swift, Kanye West or my song music is used as a passage way between the real world and the world of football.

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