My trip to England - Feb 09

My son Dan and I took a trip to England in February. What better way to celebrate a 12th birthday than to see an English Premier League Game in person! Not only was the tour of the stadium (Old Trafford) a highlight, the game was nothing less than spectacular. Blackburn gave them a great game with ManU getting the 2-1 result. Our seats (8 rows up in the players' family stand) couldn't have been better ... yards away from Rooney's corner kick and Ronaldo's spectacular finish on a free kick just outside the box. And it was capped off with Berbatov and Tevez signing Dan's soccer ball!

I was able to spend a day at the Manchester United academy training grounds, where the 1st team as well as the U8-U18 teams train. We watched their U18s play Stoke and then the youth training sessions going on around them on the specific age group fields. Once all training was done, I got a tour of the training facilities with the U16 Youth coach, Tom Martin. We compared philosophy and talked about what is focused on at the various age groups.

I left re-energized that our program is on the right track; staying focused on balance & coordination, technical skills, discipline at the young ages ... allowing the small sided games to teach elementary tactics ... keeping all activities fun and dynamic, finding the right balance of challenge and success for all players ...

See you on the field.

Maureen