The Under 18s have been preparing for their first game of their pre-season tour in Italy over the past two days.
Monday, August 1st - Day 1
The lads had a completely safe trip out there with two smooth coach journeys and an easy plane ride and no trouble at the airport.
We spoke to Brad to get his thoughts on the training facility that the young players are staying at.
“When we first pulled in it looked very nice, the grass was nice, saw a couple of the pitches, the grass one could be a bit better but the astro(turf) was nice.
“I saw another nicer grass pitch, and the hotel is looking really nice and the people were very welcoming.
“Tomorrow I’m looking to get fit, get ready for the season and get a couple of minutes in the tank.”
The lads were out in training this morning getting used to the weather and their first full day on Tuesday.
Tuesday 2nd August – Day 2
On day two we caught up with Bayan Aman who gave us some details of a long first day in Italy with the young midfielder just returning from injury.
“Today was very tough we had to wake up very early, we were up at 6am to be ready for a 7am jog. We jogged around the neighbourhood it was a two mile run. We came back, had some breakfast, got changed, then we had our first session which was very tough, and I’ve just come back from injury, so it’s been very hard.”
Even with the injury though Bayan was in a positive mood about the day.
“It was very hard, but we all got through it and it was a very good session. After that we had our lunch and got back out onto the field and did more of a technical session, which was good for the lads as well. After we finished we had our dinner and were ready to finish the day.”
Now it wouldn’t be a trip abroad without the lads immersing themselves in the Italian culture and learning some of the language. So in the afternoon the players sat down and had a little Italian speaking lesson.
“We had a lesson about Italian and tried to learn some of the language, some of the lads were good and a lot of the lads were terrible.”
Buona fortuna with the coming days!