5 minute read
An Unbreakable Will to Achieve an Impossible Dream
As a child Steve always dreamed of being a professional football player. I never dreamed about becoming a filmmaker but I did have a tendency to write short stories in the form of poems and raps.
WORDS: SERGE RASHIDI-ZAKUANI, DIRECTOR OF UNBREAKABLE
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Steve is my cousin and I have grown up with him my entire life. Playing football in the park with him even at the age of eight was to witness brilliance personified. He would play with kids twice his age and make them look foolish on the pitch, often prompting those older kids to use their physical stature against him by fouling or hurting him in some way. I guess this was the only way they could stop him but even back then he was fearless on and off the ball and he needed to be, growing up in inner city London.
His talent would initially allow him to shine in Sunday league football, eventually being spotted and scouted by Arsenal football club. Playing for a top tier academy would allow Steve to travel around the world at a very young age giving him an appetite for much more than the disadvantaged background we came from.
Unfortunately, at the age of 14 Steve would see his dream crumble upon being released from Arsenal. Their reason for letting him go? He was too small for his age and did not fit the physical profile sought by the academy at that time. He subsequently joined Leyton Orient but the drop in quality was clear, no longer travelling the world, plying his trade against elite players or being surrounded by top quality facilities, he quickly became disheartened.
During the same time I was finding my voice through music as a grime mc part of a growing sub-culture of music in innercity London. I would pen music with a narrative often tragic, sometimes funny, but always relevant to my experiences at that particular time.
Seeking a distraction, Steve began to do the same. He joined a collective called Menace to Society and his voice could often be heard on the radio. The same fearlessness he displayed on the football pitch manifested itself in provocative yet insightful lyrics on the mic.
As any teenager in inner-city London will tell you, there are too many distractions that can lead you astray. One day Steve and his friends came up with a bright idea to steal a moped for a joy ride. While on the bike, Steve had a head-on collision with a parked car resulting in his foot being crushed. Doctors would inform his parents that the damage was so severe that he potentially would always walk with a limp, and football was out of the question.
Believing his dreams to be gone, and with no-one to blame but himself, Steve entered a deep depression with no sense of direction. As fate would have it, an Arsenal Academy alumni had recently joined a newly formed independent football team and was adamant that Steve needed to join and would be able to play again with his guidance.
During this time I was also experiencing my own identity crisis, no longer doing music because I did not feel I was good enough to make it. I no longer had an outlet to express myself. I would remain in this state for a few years until I went to university.
Meanwhile, over a 14-month period, Steve worked with the independent football academy (IFA) to rehabilitate himself and begin playing again. The IFA would boldly offer itself to academy teams for friendly matches and quickly picked up a reputation for often outclassing ‘better’ teams. Scouts began to take notice.
Across the pond in Ohio, USA, Caleb Porter, a newly appointed head-coach of Akron’s University’s soccer team was keen to develop his programme and was desperately seeking new talent. His search would lead him to British shores where he would encounter Steve. Impressed with what he saw, Caleb decided to take a bet on him.
During my first term at University I would have my own fateful encounter, meeting two ambitious friends with a passion for storytelling. This shared passion would lead us to starting our own production company. Initially starting with stage plays, our first production sold out the Bloomsbury theatre in London and inspired us to produce additional shows for the stage.
Overcoming numerous obstacles, Steve received a full scholarship to enlist as a student athlete at the university of Akron. Two years later, flying high as the leading scorer of college soccer, Steve would enter
the Major League Soccer draft where he became the number one draft pick, recruited by the Seattle Sounders.
I remember watching the live stream of the draft in shock and awe of an individual who had achieved a seemingly impossible dream against all the odds. Many would end the story here but unfortunately this was only the beginning.
Unbreakable: The Steve Zakuani Story documents the journey from a horrific leg break sustained during an MLS game, nine surgeries and severe nerve damage, to a heroic comeback in front of 40,000 fans at Century Link Field, Seattle in the summer of 2012.
At the time of injury, Steve was coming off a career-defining-year in which he led his team in scoring, debuted for his National Team, and was attracting interest from European clubs.
The injury remains the worst in Major League Soccer history. The comeback remains one of the most iconic moments in Seattle sports history.
In 2017 I received a phone call from Steve seeking advice on how to tell his story. By this time I was a fully-fledged storyteller with several writing, directing and producing credits to my name for stage and screen so I felt confident in advising him on how to go about doing this.
A few weeks later I would receive another call from Steve with a simple question “Would you want to tell my story?”
Unbreakable is an emotional, inspirational, heartfelt, and uplifting story that had to be told. U
Unbreakable: The Steve Zakuani story is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
