Slept in one hour later than usual. This wasn't a problem of course since we ate breakfast at 9:00 am not with the U-18 team but with the first team! Today, we got to watch the first team train.
So when we got to the players' lounge, there were quite a few first team players sitting around eating their breakfast. I took a simple a baked beans on bread and, what I thought was a yoghurt at first, a rice pudding. Gradually, some of the players left and came in and it was interesting to see the real life of these professional players. It's very easy to tell who's friend with who, who's a quiet player, who's a bright one and so on. For example, you could see that quite a few Portuguese players sat around together for breakfast including the veteran, Nuno Gomes. Later on, we got a tour of the training centre and saw things such as the rehabilitation pool, the gym and all the players hurt at the physio.
After the tour, we went onto the training pitch to watch the first team train. They started by warming up their bodies by doing sprints, then they got their football touches ready by doing some possession game. Half of the team was split with one half doing some passing, crossing and shooting while the other half played a game. Finally, all players joined to play a game. The thing really impressive about these players, and I may have mentioned this already before, but is their touch and how quickly they can play the ball. Plus all the shouting and movement helps this a lot. What else is interesting is how there are players who put 100% in everything and worked hard to get to where they have and there are others who don't try as much but just are naturally skillful. It was fantastic to be able to watch the Blackburn Rovers F.C. first team train, an opportunity most people don't get, despite standing there freezing to death. We were lucky as well in that we were able to get a picture with the players and the coaches. Pictures will follow soon.
Following lunch at the Senior Training Centre, we got do some more touring, this time at Old Trafford, Manchester United's home stadium. The stadium was massive compared to Liverpool's Anfield or Blackburn Rovers' Ewood Park. The tour was brilliant as we were able to see the pitch, dressing rooms and were told about the history of Manchester United as well. The difference though compared to Blackburn's one is that there were others. The tour involved a tour guide and about 40 customers. And these tours take place every twenty minutes for six hours a day when there are no games that day. You can do the maths. Due to the huge reputation of Manchester United compared to Blackburn Rovers, Blackburn Rovers' tour is a bit like a nice little happy sight seeing in the stadium while the one in Manchester United is a business. That was quite interesting to me. Before going back to the academy we did stop by Manchester United's "noisy neighbours", Manchester City's, stadium, the Etihad Stadium. We only looked from outside but it was nice to see another large stadium again.
Finally, we had our training with the U-16 and then the U-15. It was our last ever training session with Blackburn Rovers. With the U-16 we did some keeping possession at first and then moved on to three against threes. In a way, the game was fun but the toughness made it frustrating as well. Therefore it was more fun with the U-15 team. We warmed with some moving and passing and then moved on to some one on ones (again). My defending wasn't bad as sometimes I tackled at the right time and got the ball, but my dribbling was just appalling. I was slow with my feet and never got past the defender. We finished off the training with a game which I did alright in, at times at least. I did some make careless mistakes such as passing it through the middle and getting the ball intercepted, but I made some good through balls at times and even came close to scoring once, hitting the corner of the post and cross bar. After training was finished, I was exhausted since I wanted to put everything in my last session. Overall despite not quite matching the players in Blackburn Rovers, this was not something I expected, I was able to achieve my goal in that I wanted to work hard, learn, improve, do my best and most important of all, enjoy. And for these two weeks, I definitely had a spectacular time.
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