Super classico!!!

We won 2-0.  Here are some pics.  Really wet!  Really cold!  Really fun!!!  This was the guy sitting next to Greg.  After they scored he was totally crying.  It's life out here.

Ciao

Saturday

We spent the day watching partidos (games) between kids from the ages of 7 all the way to the B team.  The whole experience of what we have seen and learned in priceless.  This will benifit me as a coach more than getting every USSF soccer license available.  We are heading to the Super Classico right now.  The match starts at 10:15.  As of 8:00 the sidewalks are packed and spilling over into the streets.  Every bar we walked by is packed out the door and every one is singing at the top of the lungs.  Every car you walk by is honking their horns.  If you are wearing a Real Madrid scarf or anything close you will get a beating.  We have on 3 sweat pants each and 5 layers up top and it just started raining too.  Probably cold enough to snow by game time.  As gametime approaches, they tell us the streets will be packed side to side.  It looks like times square on new years eve.  I attached a couple pics from the games today.  I attached one of the first girl I saw in any games.  She was a stud and wore #9 and scored the only goal in the friendly that they played against a local club.  She was 9 years old.  There are less than 10 girls in the whole escola.

Ciao

Friday

Today was our long physical training sessions.  A lot of the coaches are really sore.  I held up well.  Learned a ton of things.  We just finished a question and answer session with the president of the escola and the head trainer of the academy.  We sucked all the info we could out of their heads.  Here is homework for all my soccer girls,  I want an email from you before I leave about who your favorite player is and why.  If you want, you can attach your favorite you tube clip too if you want.  Tomorrow we will be at the ciutat esportiva for all the academy games.  I will definitely wear out my camera batteries tomorrow.

Ciao

Thursday

Another busy day.  We started at 7:00,  first was tactical theory and that ran over until we were to go watch the 1st team practice.  It was awesome,  They walked right past us and each was totally polite and all greeted us.  Some of these buys are making $30 million a year and all were pleasant.  They trained 2 times today and the one we watched was an hour.  They worked hard and also laughed and teased each other during practice.  It was really fun to watch.  Sven Goran Erikson, the mexican national team (ex-england national team) coach sat next to us during the session.  Most all the ex-players all speak 3 to 5 languages.  After that excitement we went back to watch the 7 yr train at the soccer school.  We watched and participated for an hour or so and the headed back to the academy to watch and learn more.  We finally returned about 10:30 and went to dinner and saw the 8 year old barca team from dubai, UAE (team is full of all nationalities, kind of a all star team) that is staying in our hotel.  All these young men are totally polite and travel around the world playing in tournaments representing Barca.  The european football world is amazing.  It is not a sport, it is their life.

p.s. We were not allowed to have camera's at the 1st team practice, but I accidentally snapped a couple with camera by my hip so you could see

Ciao

We just got back from the training complex, or the ciudad de deportivo (city of sport).  That is where the scrimmage was.  WOW, the polish boys only touched the ball a few times.  The result was 10-0 and Barca didn't even seem like they were trying.  Amazing stuff!  The next thing amazing to happen was we got to meet an amazing footballer, Hristo Stoichkov.  He was part of the Barca dream team in the early 90's.  He also played in the mls at the end of his career for chicago for 4 years.  He has also been the bulgarian national team coach and most recently the coach of the professional team, Celta Vigo.  He talked with us for 20 minutes about different things in the soccer world and will be catching up with him on the weekend.   The amazing news is we were approved to watch the 1st team practice tomorow.  This is amazing, the guys that work here and are putting on all the clinics and tours have never seen them practice.  It s a huge honor.  We get to see that after our training session tomorrow.  It just keeps getting better.

Ciao

Quick post

Here is a quick post about today so far.  We went to the offices again and went through theory stuff for an hour and then headed to the pitch to train for a few hours.  We went thru amazing stuff today.  After we were done we got a vip tour of the stadium which included locker rooms to the press box.  After that we went to the FCB museum.  Wow, that was overwhelming.  Lots of info.  Later we will go watch a training session with the ninos (7-8 yrs).  We're told they will blow us away.  After that we are going to the scrimmage I wrote about yesterday between the 12 yr old academy team and a polish club.  Should be awesome.  The pics are of me at the stadium and infront of the welcome sign for the champions league game.  It says welcome in Ukraine.

Ciao

Segundo parte de Miercoles

What an amazing day of football!  First we spent 3 or 4 hours going over organization and theory of football.  Like I said earlier, it was in espanol, but it still blew my mind away even though I only got about half of what he was going through.  After that we went and watched the 16 and 17 year olds train at a 80 million dollar facility.  These kids are professional at this point and receive a salary and live at the "Massia"(apartments).  We also met Cicihno Dos Santos, who is the father of Giovanni and Jonathan.  Both part of the mexican national team, and their brazilian dad played professionally for years.  Mazihno was the other footballer we met.  He was part of the brazilian world cup team in 94 when it was in the states.  Greg and I are pictured with Both Cicihno and Mazihno.  After we met those amazing jugadores, we headed to the stadium to watch FCB warm up for the champions league game and also watch them go on to loose 3-2 to Shakhtar (Ukraine).  They played all the reserves in order to rest the first team for the super classico on saturday.  This is the biggest game of the year, It's comprable to the super bowl here and will probably have as many viewers.  Take a look at the pic's and I'll have lots more in the morning.  We are training technical all morning.  Tomorrow evening we get to see a Polish club that is traveling down for a scrimmage against 12 year old FCB team.  This was the most amazing soccer day of my life and It will only get better.

Ciao!