Weekly Review 10th – 16th September 2012

17 September 2012

Typing away on my iPhone as another Sunday quickly passes here in Amsterdam. I forget if I’ve said this before but living in Amsterdam has been everything I ever wanted. The ‘college life’ is exactly what I’m experiencing and it’s the best decision I could ever make.

The two Volendam trainings I had this week were good and bad. The training on Thursday was positive, we tend to do alot of shooting drills and I always seem to get a “good finish nicky!” from Berry the head coach. In the 3v3 games we had I was taking more players and being much less reserved. It’s taken a long time to get there since I tried turning on the “taking players on attitude” in May. One on one fear has basically dissapeared now! Friday’s training was not so good because I got there late, was a bit physically tired from the two trainings the day before (I’m not used to it yet) and I didn’t eat much.. but Berry was away from that one.

I did find two amateur clubs to train with this week. JOS Watergraafsmeer which play in the Hoofdklasse (4th division) and Zeeburgia who play in the 5th division. Trained with the u/23 Watergraafsmeer team on Thursday night after Volendam training and I think the coach had a good training session, but a shame that the players werne’t all that great. Still good practice for me. I think next week he said he’ll introduce me to the first team/reserve manager as I’m too good for the u/23’s. Zeeburgia’s training was on Wednesday, trained with their reserves. Again alot of the players are not very good, but still good fitness and practice for me.

Went to the gym a full 3x this week at USC, which is the university sports centre about a 15 min bike ride from where I live and that’s going well. It’s a really nice, big new facility and they have alot of good classes. Did a yoga session earlier in the week. May combine the gym sessions with some circuit training next week to switch it up a bit.

Now that I wind down this review, I’ve done 12/15 of the hours. It’s 3am and I have to get up at 9:30ish so I won’t be doing the three hours I owe. It’s a bit more difficult to complete the hours these days. I have much less time because of:

  • School & Attending Lectures
  • going out and/or socializing every single night (which is a priority)
  • more time spent on public transport

What is really important is to make the most of the cool life I’m living right now and not have any regrets later. I need to manage my time more effectively so I can socialise as much as possible, while meeting the hours and also growing my business. So, how to free up more time to get more stuff done?

  • Have iPhone specific tasks that I can do on the go
  • Buy best Sony laptop battery for classes ~3 hrs?
  • Be strategic and plan when missing classes (make sure I know the content, attendance not mandatory, etc)
  • Use daily planner/calender
  • Set hours are completed every day no matter what and before 8pm?
 So that’s what I’m going to do this upcoming week!
Next Week

Make them think that when the ball goes out to you, something’s Going to happen! Aim to be better than young players in similar positions to me, Sterling, Oxlade chamberlain. I’m more intelligent and can slide tackle.
What to do with the three hours I owe? Roll them onto next week. I will complete 18 hours next week!

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In 2009, I was an average soccer player with a dream. I started this blog to document my journey from local underdog to getting offered over $100,000 in soccer scholarships, a contract to play professionally and the experience of playing in Europe.
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