Day 3

We got to sleep in a little bit earlier in the morning because training wasn't as early. We ate breakfast at 8:00 and then got ready for training. I was excited to get to actually start playing. We began training by splitting up the offense and defense. I was with the offensive group and we worked on passing sequences and then went to goal with it. The defenders were doing some small sided games on the other side of the field. With about thirty minutes left in practice, we came together to play some 10v10. At first there were some restrictions, like the forwards couldn't put pressure on the defense inside the eighteen, but eventually we got to play with no restrictions at all. I was happy because I got to play my favorite position, center mid, during it. After training we headed straight for lunch and then again had two hours of downtime. I caught up on all my sleep during this time and once I woke up, I picked up my bag and headed off to the Home Depot Center with the rest of the team for our second training session. Our second training session we focused on the instep. We juggled sitting down and had some little competitions with it. We also worked on driving the ball with our instep. After working on that, we worked on some combination play to goal and then finished off the session with some scrimmaging. I thought we were done for the day, but then I found out we had to take the always terrible ice bath. We got in directly after training and had to stay in for eight minutes. It was awful. When we got back to the hotel we ate dinner, where salmon was served. Then we rushed to take a shower and be back in time for the team meeting. At the meeting we went over the Nigeria vs South Korea u20 World Cup game, which we were instructed to watch prior to arriving to camp. We broke down the game and picked a part every aspect of each teams style of play. Nigeria was clearly the better team. After the meeting we went off to our rooms and I fell asleep almost immediately. The time change is really taking its toll on me.