The group has been extremely busy in the last couple of days. On Friday morning we went to Eindhoven to watch PSV’s first team train. After the training we headed to Venlo to watch a game between VVV Venlo and Emmen. We had a special lecture with the head coach of VVV- Andre Wetzel. He talked with us before the game on his pre-game talk and what information he was going to share with his players. The amount of information blew our group away. He prepared his players for many different situations that could arise in the game and how he wanted them to adjust. The interesting thing was watching the game and seeing the things that he had prepared for happen right before our eyes. His team ended up winning the game 1-0.

The next morning we headed to Germany to watch Dortmund versus Wolfsburg. The atmosphere at the game was tremendous with 63,000 fans singing and chanting songs. Dortmund scored the only goal in the 90th minute to win 1-0.

After the game we jumped in the car and drove to Arnhem to watch Vitesse versus PSV. It was an exciting game with many scoring chances and individual actions. PSV was outplayed for much of the match, but their experience and individual players ended up prevailing in a 1-0 victory. On Sunday we went to Rotterdam to watch Feyenoord versus Herenveen. It was a high scoring game with Feyenoord winning 4-3.

Today we had a busy day. We first went to Ajax to watch the youth and the first team train. After that we went to an amateur club SV Huizen. We had a lecture with Ruud Wetzel a coach that has been coming to the United States to help us in our club. He has a lot of experience as he has coached with Vitesse and Utrecht. He is now the Head of Education for the youth at SV Huizen. After this we went and watched the youth and the 1st team train. We ended the night with a lecture from the 1st team coach.

It is important for us to visit amateur clubs because they are more realistic to look at than top professional clubs. This was the 3rd amateur club that we had visited. We have many of the same problems and deal with many similar situations. First of all the budget is similar and in many situations we in the United States have a larger budget than the amateur clubs. However, it seems they are much wiser with their money. They tend to spend there money on things that will make a difference in the players playing ability, not materialist things such as clothing or backpacks. Ruud told us there were 57 amateur clubs in a 50 mile radius of their club. All of the clubs have fields and a clubhouse.

The other difference I saw was how clear the vision was for this particular club. They are not trying to compete with Ajax or PSV, yet they have goals and objectives that are achievable at their level. The mission and aims of the club are very clear and one can judge the success of the club on whether or not they are achieving these goals.

The other conversation that was interesting was the talk on development of young soccer players. The first team coach felt 1-4-3-3 was the best formation for development because the field is completely occupied. The 1-4-3-3 also creates a lot of triangles and has many 1v1 situations. He then talked about why the 1-4-4-2 was not ideal for development. He stated that this system is best for results but not development because the field occupation is not as good. The system leads to players having to run into spaces instead of already occupying them. This tends to lead to more long balls and more direct play.

Well I better get some sleep. Tomorrow will be the biggest game of my life. I go to Barcelona to watch the Champion’s League game between FC Barcelona and Werder Bremen. The hype over here in Europe is huge and many are calling it the game of the year. Hope everyone gets a chance to see it.