Going to Portland

You can't make this one up...I attended the Northwest Conference S-AAC conference at Whitman on Sunday, and Jim Brazeau was there. He's the head coach at Pacific U and also the Timber's goalkeeper coach. We got to talking about the Timbers of course and he invited me out to train with the 1st team during the second week of March. Go figure. He actually called me yesterday and said that next week would be better for them, so I'm going to go to Portland next Sunday, training with the team Monday and Tuesday, and driving back on Tuesday afternoon/evening.

As far as training is going, today was the first day in months that I felt like myself and not a complete idiot. I've just felt like I was a 12 year old playing against college kids for the last 2 weeks. Steve and I have been training outside 3 times a week and working on fitness and lifting a total of 4-5 times a week. So, finally this morning it finally felt like this work has been doing something. I could catch hard hit balls, dive with some kind of form, had better judgement and reactions also. Again, FINALLY. This Sunday is going to come real fast, but I'm real excited for it...

Another Sweet Break

Originally, Stephen and I had heard that we'd be training primarily with Newcastletown. Then, we head that we'd have 1, maybe more sessions with Crewe Alexandra. Then, it became 3-4 with Newcastle town and 3-4 with Crewe. The most recent and by far the most absurd development in our trip came today, when Mike informed us that Ray had somehow hooked us up with two training sessions with Stoke City. Yes, Stoke City in the EPL. I wonder what exactly he's saying to these guys to get us to be able to train with them because I'm sure they're not in the habit of having relatively unknown players come and train with them in mid-season. We also found out that the athletics department wants us to keep a blog on our 2 weeks in England, so most of my updates from England will probably come on that, but I'll link that to my blog when the time comes. As for the Timbers, well, haha. It would still be nice to have an option in the U.S. and I'd love to have them turn down my skipping their PDL trials and training with the 1st team when I tell them that I'm missing the PDL trials to train with an EPL team. But, I'll be nice about it and not rub it in, just so I can leave my options open.

England over Portland

The game and tour at Stoke will be on the 28th while the 28th and 29th are the weekend of the Timber's PDL trials. I sent an email to the assistant coach asking him to give me a call so we can talk about the trials a bit further. I haven't heard from him and Stephen wanted to make plane reservations before going out of town this past weekend, so I made the choice to stay in England until the 29th and skip the Timber's PDL trials. Last year, the Yakima PDL tryouts were a waste of time, and I'm not going to spend the money to stay 2 nights in a hotel, be jetlagged, probably not be able to show my full game, and miss the weekend in England to come back to the U.S. early for the Timber's PDL trials. Sorry guys. I'll talk with them some more and hopefully they'll just let me train with the first team. Oh, and if you're wondering about the tickets, we're flying from Seattle on Sunday the 15th and arriving in Manchester the next morning via JFK. Same route coming back on Sunday the 29th. We won't get back to Walla Walla until early Monday morning after spring break. Long trip, but I'm super excited for it. Kinda wish it was March 13 right now...

Being sick

So I came back out to Walla Walla on Jan 6 and on Jan 7 started feeling a bit sick. Almost a month later, I'm through the flu and pneumonia and just getting back on the inevitably slow road back to being in college soccer player's fitness. I had to miss the tryouts with the Timbers, but they offered me a chance to come out on March 28-29 for their PDL team trials, and if I "impress" then they'll have me train with the first team. However, this will be at the end of what will be 2 weeks in England training with Newcastle Town, Crewe Alexandra of League One, and perhaps Bath City. Mike's friend Ray Evans, who played for several top teams back in his playing days, set up up with most of the two weeks, including lodging, training, going to a game at Stoke City and a tour of the grounds, and travel when we need it. Unbelievable. He and Mike have been such a great help to us.