A t 3.45am on a cold morning in December, 25 U15 football players and four Dulwich College staff met on the South Gravel ready to embark on a six-day tour to Barcelona. A few hours later, we arrived to the kind of beautiful sunshine and warm weather that we hadn’t seen on our shores since late September and were taken by our guide Cristina to the Hotel Azul in Plaza Espanya in Barcelona. Once the boys were allocated their rooms, showered and had lunch we set off for our first training session at the picturesque 4G Astro Field overlooking the whole of Barcelona. Inspired by the setting, the boys played some sensational football and we all walked away knowing that it would be a good six days if they carried on training as hard as they did in that first session.
U15 FOOTBALL TOUR BARCELONA
The second day saw our first training session with the FC Barcelona coaches. The boys were suitably impressed by the location of the training ground, only 400m from the Nou Camp and right next to the Mini Camp Nou where Barcelona ‘B’ play their home matches. This was a very valuable session: the two Spanish coaches delivered instruction that epitomised the philosophy of the modern-day Barcelona team, with possession valued highly, and the boys developed well. The evening soon came and it was time for the first game of the tour against local opposition. The first was against FC Vallirana, who played at Penya Barcelona Vallirana stadium. The boys played two matches back to back. The As started off extremely
well and an early goal by Nathan Emoike set the tone for a thrilling evening. They continued to play some excellent football and kept possession well under high pressure from FC Vallirana. The pressure was rewarded in the second half, when a Freddie Maher free kick made sure that the boys won 2–0. Unfortunately, the Bs were in for a tougher ride on the same pitch immediately after and lost 4–0. The third day was another full day that included another training session with the FC Barcelona coaches in the morning and then one with Dulwich College staff in the afternoon. By the final session of the day, the boys were exhausted after four training sessions and a match in only three days. We managed to find time for some rest before
118
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker