Postcard from Finland: July 15
U.S. Under-21 youth soccer national team participants Kelsey Carpenter and Stephanie Logterman are in Finland for the 2007 Nordic Cup from July 12-24. Moi! (hello in Finnish) It's Day 3 in Finland and it's still cold and wet. Yesterday was our first day of real trainings. We had one session in the morning and one in the afternoon. We focused on defending so the one v. one drill was great for Steph...not so much for me. We got to play the fun game during the afternoon session. For those of you not on the team and not familiar with the fun game, it consists of three teams in two grids with a middle zone and the object is to connect 4 passes in your zone with your team and then clear it into the other grid all the while trying to avoid the 2 defenders from the other team. Sorry if that's a bit confusing. The food here has been great. If you love red meat...you would love the food here. Meatballs, meatloaf, and any other form of "meat" you can think of, we have had. Today we had a training session in the morning. The forwards worked on combining with each other and everyone else worked on defending. We then transitioned into a attackers vs. defenders game. Intense, but short and sweet. Our wonderful coach Bill Irwin gave us the afternoon off so we rested, got massages, and went grocery shopping. Steph was in charge of getting Digestives which are European cookies that I tried for the first time today and must admit, are pretty tasty. Unfortunately, Steph came up short in the Bounty Bar department. Bounty bars are like Mounds in America except 10 times better. Tonight we had the opportunity to watch 2 Finnish Premier teams play. The home team of Vaasa beat the visiting team 1-0. Fun was had by all. The number of girls on this team who are part of this Harry Potter craze is growing by the minute. Everyone is reading all 6 books at one time or another. Well, that's it for this edition. Tomorrow we play FC Sport in our friendly game before getting our Nordic Cup games underway. Wish us luck and we will hopefully report back with a good result! mina rakastan suomea (We love Finland). Hook 'em!
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