November 30, 2007

Training at Liverpool and CL matches

It's been a couple of busy days the last two days.

Tuesday

Tuesday started easily with an relaxing morning and the of to a second training session with Eric Steele at Manchester City's training ground. Today only the injured reserve keeper helped with the training. But as a surprise the Man C. manager, Sven Goran Erickson was there for a press conference and he meet the group after.

The session was almost 2 hours before they ha a chance to see a video, made b y Eric and to have a short talk about the role of goalkeeping.

Both Chris and Andres had a dissent day but it can still be much better. After the training we then had a short stop to get a shower and then of to Old Trafford. We had ticket to watch the Cl game Manchester U vs. Sporting Lisbon. It is an amazing rebuild stadium with a crowd of max 76.000. We was at the front row and was very close to the players, quite an odd experience. The bout seems to enjoy it, but for me as an Liverpool supporter it was even more odd. The match was a bit boring and not that well played and Man U scored in the last minute as usual.

Wednesday

After an early breakfast we went to Kirkby where Liverpool have it's Academy. The group had a 2 hour session with one of the 1. team goalkeeper trainer and one of the academy trainer. They all seemed very tired and they didn't, if you ask the tour trainer, put in and it was not good enough. I think they where tiered but when your are training at Liverpool you should try to cope with that, you might never get that chance again.

Following the training we went back to the hotel and relaxed and had lunch. The tour guide, John had manage to get us ticket for Liverpool's CL match on Anfield against Porto so we left the hotel about 5 pm and was at Anfield 2 hours before kick off.

For me as an Liverpool supporter, this is probably the best soccer experience I ever had. When we where singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" I had goose bums all over and I would lie if I said that I didn't need any Kleenex. The crowd sang all the way though the match and the Kop just was just fantastic.
This is Soccer Mekka no doubt about that and I'm really looking forward to go there again this Sunday to watch Liverpool vs. Bolton.

Tomorrow the group are going to Liverpool again for their second training session and in the afternoon they have a session with Everton.
I will try to write again tomorrow and put some more pictures on the pictures site. There are some new pictures there to look for.

/Kaimer