Sonoma County Alliance Soccer Club - Andrew's Stagiere Blog

Saturday, Sept 8th – 4:30am, Lisbon , Portugal

It is now 4:30am and I am waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport. I am flying back through Madrid and then on to Frankfurt. We will have 2 more days of training and then Tuesday continue on to Helsinki , Finland.

I wanted to write a bit about the game day.

I woke up Saturday morning at about 10:30 am (the week had finally caught up to me) and made contact with Frans to see what time we could meet. On game day , we normally work for several hours together, because the games are at night and the players are resting much of the day. We made an appointment for 3:00pm.

Having missed breakfast, I jumped on Metro and headed downtown to exchange some gifts and have a nice lunch. I walked from the underground to the street and as my head came above ground, everywhere I looked I saw Polish fans.

Friday night I had dinner with a Polish journalist that I met at the Portugal press conference. He had several friends with him. They explained that with a blood alcohol level of 3.2 or higher you die, unless you are Polish or Russian. The 6 of them had about 8-10 big beers each and informed me that they were taking it easy to be able to really party for game day.

It was now about 11:30am and every terrace, bar and open place in the square was filled with already drunk, drinking, singing, happy Poles.

I found a nice Portuguese restaurant ate the traditional appetizer of bread, olives and sardine pate followed by a salad and a whole grilled fish. I do not know the type, but it was incredible.

As I walked to exchange the gift, many Polish fans were yelling at me. Some of them recognized me from the training sessions. I returned by Metro to my hotel, got my computer and briefcase and headed to Hotel Solplay.

I arrived in the lobby and started to work and wait for Frans. The other 3 coaches came down (Aram, Bobo and Andreyz) and asked me to see the papers (every country I go, I buy every soccer magazine and paper that comes out for the time I am there) to see if the line-ups for Portugal were in the paper.

Frans informed me that he was finishing something so the 4 of us spoke about football (mostly in Poland). Marta Alf the team manager came down and was super upset. Someone had leaked the Polish line-up to the press (it was not me). She used my computer and sure enough it had just been posted not 30 minutes early. Trainer Leo had announced the line-up in the team meeting earlier that day and now the press had it.

Down came Don Leo (they nicknamed him Don Leo during his time coaching Club America and Chivas Guadalajara in Mexico). The players also arrived for light team snack at 5:00pm. Leo pointed to me and motioned for me to leave. I quickly started to clean up my work (I was surrounded by both team managers and 3 assistant coaches) and then he started to laugh. “Sit back , relax and enjoy the flight” he said, “Are you always so serious”.

The team went in to the meal and I decided it was time to get to the stadium. I asked the front desk to order a taxi and asked the 2 younger guys if they were attending the game. One had to work and the other did not have a ticket. His name was Jose. I offered him my spare ticket. He got off work at 8pm and said he would be on time since he lived in the Benefica area (a neighborhood around the club Benefica) and knew his way very well.

The taxi dropped me off in front of the stadium. All the Poles had met to continue their drinking and singing outside the stadium. I walked with a few in the crowd and spoke a bit, hung out with them for about 20 minutes and then left to meet Pepijn and his girlfriend Danielle. The fans informed me that for the first time in years the public was satisfied with the National Team coach. The felt so confident in the fact that they could play structured and have a game plan against each opponent. The Poles have a lot of respect for the Dutch and say that between Don Leo and his experience and Frans Hoek organizing the defense they know they will qualify.

I met Pepijn who is now coaching at FC Porto in the north of Portugal. Frans had arranged tickets and since Pepijn was coaching all day, he could not make it to the hotel. We had a drink and discussed futebol in Portugal. Pepijn loves it a lot and say’s the kids have a great mentality. “They will do anything to get better and to win” Pepijn said. “Many times they are playing so hard they are killing each other, and I have to hold them back a bit so they do not get hurt”.

FC Porto is a very rich club and their cross town rivals are Boavista from the poor neighborhood. FC Porto has Frans Hoek’s top Goalkeeper coach (former Ajax gker coach) who is the 1st team gker coach and now 2 youth coaches, Pepijn Lijnders and Patrick Greveaars both who have come to the U.S. as part of the Hoek Club Concept Staff.

It is such small world, I ran into Francisco Marcos (very involved in the politics of US Soccer and former owner of all the leagues under the MLS) and his son. They were all decked out in Portugal uniforms and scarves. He asked how Benjamin (my brother) was. I told him that I was here with the Polish team and he seemed surprised.

As I approached my seat, I recognized several Polish people and 3 Dutch guys (friends of Jan de Zeeuw). They had some famous Polish artists singing and then one from Poland who got whistled. The atmosphere was incredible. 10,000 Polish fans had made the trip and 45-50,000 Portuguese.

I of course was taking notes (I analyzed Poland during the game) on both warm-ups for the technical report I am making and at 8:45pm I looked up an saw Jose. He is a very funny guy, a bit shorter with a wide smile that is constant. He sat down and started chatting. Within a few sentences, I knew I had invited a special guy and started writing them down.

Here are a few of the better Jose quotes –
About the Portuguese selection …..
“This is nice to see the selection and I like it, but for me you can not
compare it to Benfica. It is 10,000 times better when Benfica play because
they are closer to my heart”.

“I would rather see Benfica win the National competition than to see
Portugal win the World Cup”.

About the stadium……
“This stadium is the best in Portugal, outside I must admit it is not as
nice, because it is too modern, but inside it is without a doubt #1”.

About the Polish fans…..
“It is great to see Poland came in numbers, it is never good to see a game
with only one colour”.

About the match…….
“The match will be difficult for both team today”.

After the Polish goal to make it 1-0……..
“Now the Polish better watch it, because they have made Portugal mad. Now
they will wake up and come with power”.

After the 1-1 from Portugal……
“Now it is difficult for Poland because Portugal is feeling the power of the
goal”

After the 2-1 from Portugal…..
“It is impossible , because Portugal is a true World Class Power”.

After the 2-2 from Poland…….
“The problem with the fans and team is they give up when it goes wrong”.
“The Polish fans never stopped singing even when they were down”.

After the game…….
“Portugal deserved to win, Ricardo (the goalkeeper) is a donkey”.

At the end of the game , one of the Polish fans gifted me a Polska scarf to wear in Finland. I proudly put it on and exited the stadium to meet Pepijn. We walked with the crowd in pursuit of a free taxi. After walking 15 minutes, we found one and shared it. They were tired and went to their hotel and I continued on to Hotel Solplay to greet the team and coaches.

My taxi arrived before the team bus so I waited outside with the other 2 guys from the front desk and a security guard. The desk clerk was a bigtime Sporting fan and told me about their youth. I already knew that Sporting FC had the best youth development in Portugal and had produced talents such as Simao, Quarezma, Deco, C. Ronado and on and on.

Sporting is from the poor side of town and Benfica is from the rich side. Sporting must develop and sell players to survive , since they do not have the money to buy. I told him that in 2008 for the European Coaches Education Tour, we would come to Portugal and that I had contacts at FC Porto. He made sure that I knew that the best youth was Sporting , then 2nd FC Porto with Benfica improving and Boavista was 4th.

All of the sudden, we heard sirens (do not ask me why they need a police escort at 12:30am) and saw the flashing lights at the bottom of the hill.

The bus arrived and the players and staff came off. The players went quickly to their rooms and the coaching staff sat a while the equipment guys unloaded the bus.

I asked Leo, if I could celebrate the point with him and have a cigar. He laughed and said to Frans “I have know the guy for a week and he is has asked for everything except my bank number”, then he said , “of course my friend , come sit , let’s have a cigar “. How great it was to be a part as we discussed how strong Portugal was and the different good and not so good moments in the game.

The players came down to have a bite to eat, the staff joined them and I worked on the Blog. After they finished Frans and I stayed in the lobby together for a bit.

As I left the hotel it was silent. I got into the taxi at 1am and realized that I had not eaten much. I arrived at the hotel , and ran up while the taxi driver waited and when downtown to eat.

Once again , thousands of drunk Poles. The beer company (Sagres) may have the best month of profits ever, and will truly miss the business that the Polish fans have brought to Lisbon.

I packed and at 4am I hit the sack. A taxi was picking me up at 5:30am to bring me to the airport. My flight was at 7:05am to Madrid and then onto Franfurt.

I slept on the plane from Lisbon to Madrid , had a “bocacillo con jamon sereno y queso y café con leche”, and bought the AS, Marca y El Mundo Deportivo newspapers. I slept from Madrid to Frankfurt and arrived at the hotel at 2:30pm. I took another nap until 5:00pm and came into the hotel lobby to wait for the team.

The plane was delayed and would not land until 6:00pm. Many Polish fans were outside the hotel waiting. I walked and bought the new Kicker (german magazine) and while working on this blog, the team arrived.

Training will be at 8:00pm and dinner afterward. It is now, 7:30pm.

The last 36 hours seemed like 72 hours. So many little events. The first hour seemed like 2 hours and the 2nd hour seemed like 2.5 hours and ……. well you know what I mean!! I have it written down in my top coach notebook if you want to read it later.

Bis morgen alles.

Andrew Ziemer