Day 7: Wednesday, August 16th

Woke up for breakfast to a cloudy, cool morning. No rain but definitely a little more like some expected typical England weather. Later the clouds would burn off for more blue skies and beautiful weather in time for the games.

After breakfast, we all headed down to the fields for another morning light training session.

Both the boys and girls groups centered their drills and activities around the theme of transition play after a warm up. The girls played handball and then went into a multiple goal field transition play.

Meanwhile, the boys did one large group warm up with transition running/sprints before breaking up into separate transition drills involving 3v3 games with overload bumper players and multiple zone team transition play.

The goalies also took part in their individual group warm ups and then took part in a goalie specific receiving and passing drill out of the goal switching fields as well as more shot stopping drills. 

After lunch and a rest, all of the kids headed back down to the fields for their second round of games. But first, during the rest period, we had all of the girls and boys tidy up their rooms. After six days, the dirty clothes and piles of clothes and general smells had started to take over so a forced clean was long over due. Below is an example of a girls room vs a boys room. I will name no names but we are all cleaned up now. 😀

The girls played Horsham Sparrows Football Club. A few more days into the trip and we can really see the girls group gelling and bonding. The team shape and unity was evident after a few more days of getting to know each other and training together. They beat the Horsham team 8-1. Regardless of the score, it was great to see the massive team improvement in such a short period of time.

 The boys group played a round robin mini tournament of games with a Portsmouth Team. They too seem to have made great strides over the past few days of training and have risen to the standard of aggressive play here in England.

Now that we are a few days into the trip some injuries have hit the squads. Some hurt knees, slightly sprained or swollen ankles and very tender blisters. Physio Martha has been very attentive and great in her assessment and care of the kids. We are very lucky to have her looking after everyone right here on site day and night.

Tomorrow we head into the Brighton Pier to enjoy the town, arcade games, rides and sights.