The club is in full swing Monday thru Friday. The entire staff and all the U14 and older players are on the campus. The professional (aka “First Team”) team trains in the center of campus with the youth and reserve teams training around the facility on different fields.
Our U15-16 players trained with the U16 players of Gimasia, since they train in the morning. The boys were integrated into the club sessions and the staff and players were tremendously accommodating. The trainer warmed the group up with technical and dynamic work before splitting the group in half.
One of the favorite activities of the staff is a game we call “over the river” so it was something our players picked up rather quickly. Another field of 11v11 was going on at the same time. They train all three U16 teams at the same time although they are not necessarily together. The players are moved up and down levels as it relates to their player development needs. On this day the “2nd” team was split with half the players playing with the top group and the other half training with the third group.
The club’s U14 players are on campus in the afternoon so we worked with our U14s separately after the U16 session. The professional team's goalkeeper coach, Gabriel Vega, stepped away from their training session and brought the club’s 3rd and 4th string professional goalkeepers to work with our goalkeeper, Sam Frohman, as well as coach Sabin and me to teach us how their goalkeepers recover to their feet so quickly as well as their side-volley punting technique. We expected them to spend just a couple minutes with us, but they ended up staying for well over half an hour. The players were very humble and Gabriel was unbelievable in the time he spent with us.
Javier Novarini has grown up with Gimnasia. He spent several years in the United States and played both in the MLS and USL. He has been our main facilitator with the Gimnasia technical staff throughout the week and stepped in to work with the U14’s while Coach Vega worked with us.
The parents came by earlier in the day and ate lunch with us.
Internet issues were largely solved in the afternoon so the boys could use the time to study and do homework.
Our composite team played the Gimnasia U14 team in the evening. During the first half we were unfortunately largely spectators of their possession game. Adjustments at half time made us more competitive in the second half and the boys were very receptive to the instruction given to them. The game was a great experience for everyone.
