Goodbye and Goodluck...

Today was the first early day of the combine. Well, early for my California College standards anyway (8am wakeup), and even that's not saying much because I played in the second game at 11am. So, we ate breakfast at 8 and left for the field at 945. Our final game was against team Tango, which my roommmate Robbie Findley played for. I didn't start the game but we again started in a 4-4-2 formation and looked much more solid and relaxed than we had during the previous two. We opened up the scoring with a rip from about 20 yards out from Rich Asanti. A few minutes later, Tango had a supect through ball (which our team strongly believes was worthy of an offside call; then again, if there is a goal against our team it is probably going to be suspect according to me) was crossed and then finished by Jarrod Smith, his first of two for the day. Nico Colaluca had the next goal for my team, taking a couple guys on with a run inside and nailing a well hit swerver over the keeper in to the back of the net from about 25 yards out, making it 2-1. The first half ended with my team dominating and playing well together, connecting passes and moving off the ball. Except for a few stumbles over the new, obnoxiously sticky adidas balls, both teams played well and showed less mistakes that Friday and Saturday.

I came in for the second half as a wide ride midfielder. I though my performance today was solid, with a few give-aways that should not have been made; one that ended up as a goal from John Cunliffe after a good through-ball from their left back. After that, I shook off any jitters that were left and began staying positive with the ball, coming in to the middle a number of times to receive it, which by the way I am finding is a habit of mine. It was my final ball that struggled the most today and I felt that throughout the weekend it was a trend for me. Not knowing the forwards well and having a number or different combinations up there didn't help. However, on a more positive note, I had a couple chances at goal on the near post and a few balls that could have been finished, and had the ref been more interested in calling penalties, I may have gotten an assist to Chris Loftus on a little chip through a couple defenders in to the box. The final goal of the day was off a shot from about 25 out on the ground from Tango's left midfielder, it was a slow shot and an unfortunate mis-read dive by our keeper Chris Konopka (probably his only true mistake of the day). With the score at 3-2, we took over the game and had the majority of the play through to the end of the game, but just as mot of the weekend showed, the final ball was lacking. Two corners ended the game, and on the last corner I missed just wide on bobbled front post in-swinger. The game ended as 3-2 loss, not a great result but a good game for both sides.

Now for the juicy stuff...some of my general comments about the combine:

We all stayed at the Sheraton, a very nice hotel with good amenities as far as food, pool/jacuzzi, and location goes. We were about 15 minutes away from the field which was cut down by the nice bussed that were provided. The food was good, for the most part. The hotel did a good job of feeding us the right kinds of foods at least; with those imperative power foods such as meat, salad, pasta, bread, fish, and chicken being served at just about every meal. The timing of meals also seemed ok, there was the right amount of time between meals and food waiting for us after our games (as you can probably imagine, food was about the second most important part of the camp for me). As far as the city goes, I didn't get to see much of it, I didn't really want to use up my precious cassh-money getting to see sights when I was more interested in staying focussed and resting up for the matches to come anyway. However, the view from the hotel was beautiful. There were high rises in the distance and a roller coaster rising just a short drive away, I could also just about see the ocean to the West (and by West I of course mean the East. I Swear i have a 3.7 gpa:-)!) from our room and the place called Las Olas (the only place that I heard a decent amount about from coaches and others walking around the hotel).

The guys were all great as well. There were no blatant assholes or guys that didn't get along with the rest of the group, which I think stemmed from the fact that all the guys here want the same thing (to be a pro) and they realize that in order to do so you need to get along with people. I passed the time watching movies on my laptop, reading John Harkes' book (not a bad read!), and playing video games in Tally Hall's room. The most excitement that went on in the hotel though was, by far, the hydro-therapy/regeneration cycles we did in the hotel pool, jacuzzi, and trashcans filled with ice-water. There were some that could take the ice, and then there were the others....i won't name anyone here to save them a lot of grief... panzies;-)

I'd say the only advice I have to the administrators for the future would be to bring in the guys a day or two earlier for a training session or two with their teams to get on the same page and establish some comeraderie. Today after the game I was bummed to see my team split, I think with those couple extra days the level would have been raised exponentially.

Overall though, this was a dream week for me, well, at least the start of my dream, and I am so thankful to have ben apart of it all. After saying our goodlucks and goodbyes, everyone has now gone their seperate way, hoping to see as many guys as possible this coming Friday, January 12th in Indianapolis. The wait has begun...