Second Day

For the second day, James and I did a similar session as yesterday in that we trained with the U-18 in the morning and then younger players in the evening. In the morning, we warmed up with the U-18's doing sprints and stretches. Then, we went off to train on our own working on quick short passes, volleyed passes, volleyed passes after a control with the knee and so on. Next, we went on to work on passing, controlling and dribbling. There were two more activities that were new to me and would be a great exercise back in Hong Kong. The first one involved four mannequins in front of you forming a square and then a board in front of the square. The activity involved dribbling up into the middle of the square and passing at the middle of the board. The ball should come back to your feet if the ball hits the middle and then we would turn on the right or left side of the square and pass back for the next person. The second activity was much simpler. You had to slalom past three mannequins in front of you and then pass against the board. The ball will come back to you if well passed and then you can pass back for the next person. These two exercises were fantastic for working on technical skills.

Skills are not my forte. But in my opinion, despite making mistakes, I can sense that I have improved since a few weeks ago. The most important thing is to keep working on these things and then I will perform well back in Hong Kong.

For the evening, we started training with players who were probably around 12. We went to the Senior Training Centre's astro turf, the same place we did the beep test, and the youngsters had training so we played with them. With them, we did a lot of short passes at first. Then we moved on into a game. After we trained with them, we went on to train with the U-14 for the next hour. They were at the gym when we were playing with the young ones, and now they were switching over. With the U-14, we did some possession work and then finished with a game. Funnily, the U-14 team seemed the most welcoming.

When I played with the U-14, I thought I generally did quite well. The players are definitely fantastic for their age, but I had a solid performance barely making a missed pass. And, these passes included some good through balls.

The players in Blackburn Rovers are clearly better than me and the level is much higher than in Hong Kong. These players play everyday and therefore become so skilled and fit. But, after playing with the U-14, I feel that I have improving physically and mentally. I obviously have improving physically since my legs are sore but I can tell that I have also improved mentally since I'm feeling confident playing with players in Blackburn Rovers who are much better than me. After the two weeks in Blackburn, I can guarantee that I can make an impact when I come back to Hong Kong.

Tomorrow, since the U-18 players have college (their contract states that they need to have at least one and a half days of college), James and I will be doing some individual training.

Also, I came across this on the Blackburn Rovers website. You should check it out. http://www.rovers.co.uk/news/article/hong-kong-starlets-in-rovers-reunion-350826.aspx