PLAYER PICK is an ongoing blog series we’ve created to be able to highlight different sports team players,, and talk one-on-one with them to hear about their story and athletic experience. Here, we sit down with 24 year old Professional Football Player, Patrycja ‘Pato’ Jerzak, of Ifö Bromölla.
Kicking it since five years old
Pato grew up in Poland and started playing football as early as five years old, just playing outside with friends. A few years later when she moved to Sweden, she joined a football club. She started school there and one of my older brother’s classmates' dad was in charge of a team of boys. Her brother was invited to play and Pato went with him as well. As you can imagine, there wasn’t really a girls team her age there. so they allowed her to play with them. She shared with us that she ended up playing on a boys’ football team until she was about 12 or 13 years old.
Getting into the topic a bit more, we asked Pato if she thought if she was made into a better player and got to where she is today due to the fact that she had to play on a boys team when she was younger.
Pato shared, “I think so, yeah. For some reason the way they coach girls versus boys when they’re young is different…and I don’t think it necessarily has to be like that. I would argue for having teams being mixed up until they hit puberty, because apart from that there’s no actual reason to physically separate them. There’s obviously a difference between boys and girls, but by separating them from the start, we kind of give this idea to the girls that they’re worse than the boys.”
Interestingly enough, Pato actually did a study about this topic in high school. She would go to a handful of younger girls' teams and ask them “Do you think boys are better than you?” or “Why do you think you’re not playing with boys?”, and the girls (who were about 10 years old) would all respond saying they think boys are better than them.
When Pato was young, although there weren’t many girls football teams, there were a few and she would occasionally try to practise with them. Her experience was, “I felt like it wasn’t as serious, because it seemed the coaches for those teams weren’t as serious. They weren’t pushing them as much as they were with the boys. But I do feel like playing with boys did make me a better player because the tempo was higher.”
The journey to becoming pro and beyond
Pato was 18 and living in Stockholm when she first became professional. She was playing at an academy there and her goal was always to be on the first team. She shares, “I always had that as a part of my plans, it was just a matter of time.”
She remembers it clear as day, it was the summer of 2015 or 2016, and she and three other girls were approached by the person in charge of the women’s team that said “We’re going to offer you a contract, so from now on you’re basically going on a youth contract. And starting next year you’ll be 100% with the women’s team, the first team.” During this period she was still playing with the youth team, but was getting paid and would alternate practising between the youth and senior team – that’s how it all started.
Pato always knew from a young age that she wanted to play football, and when she would watch professional footballer Marta Vieira da Silva play, it showed Pato it was possible for her to play in a professional league and she could make a career out of it.
Pato shares, “In the back of my head I couldn’t ever really see myself in a different career. I always felt that I would play football somehow and it would figure itself out…and it always has. Some years it’s been a bit tricky but I think there’s always a way to make things work if you just really want it.”
She had a dream and now she’s living it. We asked Pato how long she can see herself playing or what’s next for her and she said, “In my eyes I kind of just started. I’m very young, although some people would say 24 is considered ‘getting old’. One of the best players in Sweden right now is going to turn 39 this year and she’s still one of the best players ever. There’s no reason for me to not play until I’m almost 40. There are women’s players now who have been playing even longer than the men.
She can’t even think about stopping her career now, “It’s kind of hard to live without it as well. Having the routine you’ve always had for so many years, it would be hard to let go.”
We spoke to Pato about sacrifices and what she had to give up in order to make it big. She said, “I always knew what I was doing, so I can’t say I was really sacrificing anything.” Pato didn’t really care much for parties, distractions, school events etc. It was never really in her head. She always knew that was the price of playing the game. She was sacrificing a lot of time, but that’s what you have to expect. She did say that it would have been nice to spend more time with friends without the commitment of practice but, if you want something that bad, you will make the time.
Football is Everywhere
Just last year, Pato started her own magazine called Football is Everywhere, which is a highly visual collection of football stories from around the world, showcasing the impact it has on people’s lives. She created this with a bigger picture in mind, trying to give back to football communities all over, telling untold stories and investing in smaller unseen communities.
Pato told us that the brand is going to be much more than a magazine going forward. She of course shared some goals of wanting more subscribers and people to work for the magazine in order to build bigger things, but she really wants to make a tangible difference. For example, she shares, “We wouldn’t just raise money for ourselves, but we would take the money and build a football pitch.”
She shared that she wants to showcase more people that are doing great things in football and make documentaries out of it. She wants to showcase “the people that are doing the beautiful things in football and help them get more attention instead of all of the corruption going on in the headlines on the news.”
Highs and Lows
Taking a step back and thinking broadly, we asked Pato what she thinks the biggest challenge for professional athletes is today. “I honestly think it’s distractions. If you really want to be professional, there are so many things that are distracting you these days, like your phone….especially for the younger generation living in that world. Back in the day when I was 10, no one would expect me to have a phone. And now I feel like I have to be available all the time.”
When asked about her biggest strength, Pato said being resilient. She has endured so many bad moments in her career, yet she was always able to come out of it and come back much stronger. Her biggest weakness, in her opinion, is how sometimes she can care too much or be too nice, which causes her to get in her head too much.
We ended Pato’s interview with some fun rapid fire questions, which we’ll share across social media over the next week. Check out our Instagram for that! Also be sure to continue on with Pato’s journey, by following her on Instagram.
