Weekly Review 1st – 7th October 2012 [sailing through & champs league in Amsterdam]

The photo above is my first person view of watching Marcelo and Pepe warming up. My seat for the game was in the corner of the stadium and 23 rows from the ground but I walked around to the front to see the players up close and personal. I was in awe when I saw some of the Madrid players warming up just a few metres away from me.  It was crazy to see a few of the players I’ve been watching on TV for years now live in person. I closely analysed Marcelo warming up to see if there was anything special about him. Well.. him and Pepe were doing a few long balls to each other and Marcelo would occasionally give a shitty pass. A brief glance at their technical skills and it didn’t look like something I couldn’t cope with. Infact a honest assessment, I was probably on par technically to them. But then again they are defenders. Anyway the match was great and so was the evening itself.

On Tuesday I rocked up to Volendam training and naturally the first thing I wanted to know was what the score against Jong AZ Alkmaar was. I asked one of the players and he said that Volendam beat them 3-1! Furthermore, AZ had 15 MILLION Euro’s worth of players on the pitch. So that was great to hear. 500-600 people attended the match according to Berry – for a reserve match that’s also fantastic. Question is.. when can I play in these matches? Haven’t asked yet.. but I’m really enjoying training regularly at this high level. It’s challenging , but also fun when you’re playing with guys who know what they’re doing and don’t make many mistakes.

Tuesday’s pros and cons rundown goes like this

– harder passing nick!

– long ball/cross exercise – finishing  was quite good once again

– through balls were good

– this is key: when I’m in the centre for example and I go to the ball, and the ball is passed, I stop and then that’s how the ball is intercepted. I need to keep running towards the ball as I receive it. I think this is how I lose the ball in those situations all the time

Thursday

This was a really crappy training for me. We did a ‘fitness conditioning’ training which meant that most of the training was spent playing 2 x 1 minute high intensity games with a 1 minute break. It made me really tired and frustrated because I lost the ball alot and my defending was pretty awful. In hindsight, the lack of ‘high intensity’ fitness is what came down to it. So I lost concentration, I was slow, etc.

Friday

– One touch passing getting better as I ma making decisions before I get the ball better which comes from scanning that’s becoming more of a habit now.

– played a 70m x 35m possession game with the majority of first team reserves against jong volendam. I had to mark the left back. This is a guy who is in his mid 20’s and played for Ajax in his youth days. So that was pretty cool.
– coped well, more confident!

Great match! Messi v Ronaldo in today’s Classico.

Making a quick note here that my back has been beginning to get a little stiff. On Monday it was most stiff.. I think because on that Friday I was doing kettlebell swings and that’s really not good for my ‘par’s defect’ in my back.

Keep training, hustling, moving. 15 hours.