We woke up yesterday at 8 and grabbed a quick breakfast. From there we walked over to one of the many fields at St George's Park to play our first match of the week against Strachan Football Foundation. Unfortunately for us, we lost 1-0. Ultimately though, this trip is about improving as a team and preparing for our season in the fall. From this point of view I felt there were many positives that we were able to take away from the game. After the game we showered and ate lunch quickly then packed onto the bus to head to Manchester.
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In Manchester our main stop was at Old Trafford. This is the stadium for Manchester United and it was quite breathtaking. We took a tour which was over an hour due to the immense size of the stadium. It can hold 76,000 fans. One of the humbling points of the tour was seeing the locker room for the players before games. It was simply a rectangular room with no lockers. There were only hangers for jerseys and then a bench surrounding the walls.
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After the tour we made our way to downtown Manchester for dinner. A group of us decided to have dinner at a local pub with our tour guide for the week, Alec. We enjoyed a good bit of banter discussing the different stereotypes we had about Americans and British people before it was time to head to our hotel for the night. The plan for today is to train at St. Georges before packing up and heading to Liverpool for today.
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Cheers,
Kevin Schafer
Walking around St. George's Park this morning, it was impossible to not appreciate the tremendous footballing culture that is celebrated there by the English Football Association.Â
Every room and hallway at St. George's is decorated like a football museum, with tribute to the great players and teams that have represented the English national team. Â The idea of 'being a part of something bigger than yourself' is clearly evident in everything here, and has been a key foundation within our own Purple Aces soccer program. Â Being exposed to that served as great motivation heading into our first exhibition match of the tour.
The League Managers Association (LMA) is the trade union for the Premiership, Football League and national team managers in English association football, and there were hosting some coaching education programming at St. George's today. Â It was amazing to get to see former Premiership managers Alex McLeish (most recently at Birmingham) and Steve Clarke (most recently at West Brom), who were serving as speakers in the LMA programming - I didn't know if our players realized at the time, but McLeish actually listened in to part of our pre-game team talk before our match today.
Our first match of the tour was against the Strachan Football Foundation, which is an organization that was created by Scottish national team manager, Gordon Strachan. Â Strachan is a former standout for Manchester United and the Scottish national team, and the group he and his staff assembled are players that had been recently released by professional teams or their youth academies, but still have aspirations of catching on with another team. Â They were a mature and committed group that were very organized on both sides of the ball. Â Where they provided stiff opposition, the match was fairly even - a 22nd minute goal by the SFF proved to be the difference in their 1-0 victory, but I was encouraged by how our team conducted themselves. Â Our guys played hard and competed, and showed encouraging signs against top level competition.Â
Following our match, we headed up to Manchester for a tour of Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United. Â Our first stop on the tour was in Manchester United's museum, and I had a number of guys come up to me and referenced how they couldn't get over how amazing it was to see UEFA Champions League, FA Cup and English Premiership trophies on display. Â No English club has won more than Manchester United, and the pride in the club was clear in every facet of the stadium - from the level of professionalism, to the motivational signage on the walls, to their commitment to helping the handicapped, to the tributes of the great players that have passed on over the years, it was clear that we were walking on hallowed ground.
We finished the evening off in downtown Manchester for dinner before heading back on the bus for the evening. Â Tomorrow should be another fun day - highlighted by a training session with English FA coaches, and a trip to Liverpool.
Yours in soccer,
Mike Jacobs
