The last couple of days have been amazing. The things that I’ve seen and the people I have met has made my stay at PSV truly first class. Pepijn has been a great host and a great friend to me on my visit to Eindhoven.   

On Friday, I watched many of the teams train before their weekend games. Pepijn also arranged for me to meet with Patrick Greveraars the assistant director of the youth and the A1 coach. He discussed with me the overall vision/structure of the club and the individual youth plans that every player does for himself. He showed me some examples of the individual plans and how PSV puts the responsibility on the players for their own development. The individual plans are truly unique and I plan on bringing this idea back to the players/coaches of SCA. At night we went to a second division game between FC Eindhoven and Helmond Sport. It was an Derby between two of the teams at the bottom of the Jupiter League.

    Yesterday was one of my best days I’ve ever had in Europe. I started out the day by going with Pepijn to the D3 (U11) game at RBC Roosendaal. I was able to go into the locker room and hear Jefta Bresser give his pre-game speech to the boys. The game was hard fought game that saw the individual talents of PSV beat RBC long/direct game 7-2. The game was very interesting to me as I saw how they talked to the players, and also what they said to the players. I also learned some new ideas on subbing players.

    After the game we drove back to Herdgang to watch more games. I saw the F1 (U9), E1 (U10), B1 (U17) vs. NEC, and the A1 (U19) vs. Sparta Rotterdam. All of the PSV youth teams were dominant to their opponents and one could see how the line from the U9 runs all the way through the club to the Professional team.

    At night we went to Phillips Stadium to watch PSV beat FC Utrecht 5-0. The atmosphere was amazing and I hope it is something that all the players/parents of SCA can witness at some point in their life. To go to a soccer stadium and hear 35,000 people singing/cheering is a powerful thing. It is 10X the atmosphere of an NFL, MLB, or NBA game. Pepijn got us seats in the box with other employees of PSV. After the game we got tickets to the business lounge where we ate and drank with some of the players.

    Today I’m going to watch the D2 (U12) play Schalke. This should be a very interesting game as Schalke is a very good team from Germany. After this we are driving to Pepijn’s home town to eat dinner with his parents. Well I have to go, the game is about to start.