Journal Entry #6 Monday, June 25, 2007
Because we were all pretty tired our coach pushed
back the training until ten thirty to let us sleep in a little.
We made the best of it and slept in late and casually went
through the morning routine of showering, eating, and then meeting in the lobby.
Some people on the trip forgot to set their alarms for the later training
time so we had to chase them down in the morning while everyone
was waiting on the bus. We went back to the usual training facilities and
I was allowed to start playing again so I was pretty happy. Training was a
little different today because there was a heavier focus on technical work
so we started off working with cones. After the cones and dribbling
exercises we played a game where everyone had to hold hands with a
partner who was on the same team and they were not allowed to break
the connection. This was fun to see because there was chaos
and enjoyment everywhere. We went to Pavenellos which never gets old because
everyday they have new stuff that's still similar to what they usually have.
After lunch we went as a group to Falcao's Store (Falcao is the Ronaldinho of Futsal).
In his shop their were jerseys and his apparel for sale but everything there
was pretty expensive so I didn't get anything, but it was all very cool and a
lot of people ended up buying stuff. I went back to the bus early with some of the
other people and played some cards. I regret leaving the store now
because Falcao showed up at the store and signed a bunch of jerseys and
talked with some people. We didn't have any afternoon practice
today because there was a league Malwee game at the Arena
we played at earlier. It was a great atmosphere at the futsal game because
the Arena was packed with more people than were in the city. We went with the Aussi s
and some of the youth players to the game and watched intensely as Malwee fought to
keep with their world renowned reputation. It was a pretty good game for the
most part especially when Falcao rainbowed the keeper to take the lead.
Malwee was winning 5-3 with less than a minute to go. Then soon it was 5-4
with thirty seconds to go and then from joy to despair as Malwee gave
up the lead in the last ten seconds to end the game in a tie. There was a lot
of traffic coming back form the game so it took us a while to get to
Pavenellos for an eleven o'clock dinner. After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed.