Holiday and Sunset Soccer

Hey guys and gals,

 

We just got back into training today after a few days of holiday.  Days that for me were spent in Valkeakoski’s gym and my apartment, so not very exciting.  I did however get a chance to do some good workouts so I feel very good heading into these last three games.

 

Even though I didn’t go anywhere, I still did have some fun.  I went out with a few of the guys and had a few beers on Wednesday.  We were just about the only people in the bar, but it was nice to spend time with my teammates, especially the ones I don’t see outside of training that much.  The next night me and the foreign contingent got together and played FIFA 13 and ate pizza.  It was a bit reminiscent of my middle school and high school days, but a great time all the same.  Friday I don’t think I moved off my couch the whole day and Saturday I went for a run.  That was the most interesting thing I did that day.  Holidays are probably pretty glamorous for some soccer players, but for us a holiday is nothing but a few days off.  I’m gonna need to get a lot more assists before I can afford to vacation on islands in the Mediterranean!

 

Today we had our first training back, and in an effort to maximize our holiday time, the training was scheduled for 6pm.  I nicknamed the training “Sunset Soccer” for obvious reasons.  I actually don’t mind training that late (normally we train either at 11am or 2pm).  In Sweden we trained at 5:30pm every day because a lot of our players either worked or went to school during the day.  I thought it made it easier to keep the same routine on game days.  In America we always trained at 9 or 10 in the morning, so when we played games our daily routine was completely different than when we trained.  I always felt like that put us at a slight disadvantage.  Anyway, the training was at 6pm today.  The only problem was that our field didn’t have lights!  As a result we couldn’t train for too long before nobody could see anymore.  A positive though was that my terrible shots that normally get saved were all going in the goal because the goalkeepers could barely see the ball!  I guess there are advantages to Sunset Soccer!

 

After my last post where I mentioned the pimp cup I got from KuPS for being one of the stars of the game, a buddy informed me that I actually had already been named as one of the stars of the game against HJK.  So I thought that the KuPS game was the first time I had earned the award, but it was actually the second game in a row!  Which begs a single question: Where is my Haka Pimp Cup?!

 

Looking forward, we’ve got three games left in two weeks.  The good news is that our last two games are against teams that really have nothing to play for.  The bad news is that we don’t control our destiny, meaning we need Jaro to lose at least one game.  The next game is of course important and will be difficult as we’re playing FC Inter who is competing for the league title.  I’ve seen Inter play a few times and I know the names of a few of their players, but honestly I don’t know too much about the team.  I watched them play Haka when I first arrived 11 weeks ago and they didn’t seem amazing.  Good but not intimidating.  The coach says he has a plan so I’m sure he has a good path to victory for us.  I don’t know what the plan is yet, but I’m fairly certain my role in it will be to, “Run Forest, Run!”

In unrelated news, I got home after training tonight just in time to watch some guy named Felix Baumgartner do a skydive-type jump from the edge of outer space.  I have absolutely no idea why anyone would want to do something like this, and I was nervous just watching him open the door to his little capsule.  You couldn't convince me to jump down a flight of stairs, nevermind out of a small space capsule.  I don't really have anything to say about the space jump, other than that Mr. Baumgartner is insane.

The meme, in honor of US Vice President Joe Biden:

 

Matchday 28 and Terrible Boredom

I’m finally back.  I would post more like I did when I was in Sweden, but there is truly nothing to talk about most of the time.  People wouldn’t think that a professional athlete’s life would be boring, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my entire life.  I can’t even do extra workouts because I’ve been specifically instructed by Juha to stop that so that I’m fully ready to play when called upon.  Speaking of Juha…

 

As soon as my post went up last week, I looked at the tv and Juha was on the screen analyzing a Champions League game between Manchester City and Real Madrid.  It was ironic because I spent most of that post talking about how nothing interesting ever happened.  I’d tell you what he said, but I have no idea because I don’t speak a word of Finnish and because the tv was muted.  That’s just how I watch tv here.

 

Fast forward to now, and things are better than before for me personally.  Not good per se, but better.  I played in the last game, albeit only for a few minutes at the very end.  I only touched the ball once, and that was to win a 50/50 ball that we didn’t keep.  I didn’t even have enough time to break a sweat.  It’s for sure better than not playing though.  Unfortunately, we lost the game 1-0 and now sit at the bottom of the table since the team previously behind us won.  Once again we played well, but we just didn’t get the results.  I have my ideas on how to improve things, but they’re not really important because no one listens to me anyway.  Maybe one day I’ll reveal my secret formula for success!

Me slightly happier than before.

 

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That was the ‘Line of Relevance’

 

Everything above it has at least some relevance, everything else I’m about to write isn’t relevant to anything.

 

Today I did absolutely nothing.  It was a day off for the team and those are the worst days for me.  They drag on forever and I spend most of them just at home.  Today was no different.  In fact, I didn’t even leave my place today.  Normally on off days I go for a run, but the instruction from Juha means that I’m not doing any extra running of any kind.  I barely even ate today.  I’ve just been sitting in my living room playing PS3 and surfing the internet all day.  I downloaded and watched Prometheus, and I wasn’t impressed.

 

Times like these make me really miss living in America.  While of course I had times where I was really bored in America, I always had something to do.  Baltimore (and more specifically Towson, MD) was fun and exciting and Harrisburg had a few things to do as well.  I also had a lot more in common with my US teammates than I do with the guys here or in Sweden.  I miss watching college football on Saturday afternoons on TV.  Now I can still watch games, but only on a crappy internet stream and at 8 o’clock at night.  It’s just not as fun.

 

Another thing that sucks about being abroad is that all my friends from back home are going forward with their lives.  One of my good friends is getting married this weekend and I literally didn’t even know.  I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people back home and finding out about this wedding just kind of hammered that point home to me.  I knew he was engaged at least.  But it just sucks that I’m not going to be able to be there and show my support.  If I lived in say, Philadelphia, I’d be on a plane right now to go to the wedding.  Instead, I’m sitting in total boredom in small town Finland.  I knew what I was getting into when I left America though.  Most of the stresses I’ve gone through were fully known before I ever set foot in Europe.

 

Oh yeah before I go I have a quick question.  My house has been really cold on some of the colder days we’ve had here in Valkeakoski.  Does anyone know how to work the radiators?  It seems like it should be really simple since it’s just one knob, but I’ve turned them all to different points and none of them have any heat at all.  I just assume that there is some sort of central radiator and it’s not turned on yet or something?  I’m only living here for a month more, but I don’t want to spend that month freezing my ass off.  Hopefully someone has the answers!

 

 

The meme:

Summer is over...

It’s September!  In Finland, that means it’s officially the end of summer.  If you like the sun, then today was not your day in Valkeakoski.  Also if you like good weather, you’re out of luck.  All the good weather chose to stay in July and August.  Oh well, I’ll just get the radiators in the apartment going and live a toasty life in my apartment.

 

We play tomorrow against JJK.  I have absolutely no idea what JJK stands for, but then again I don’t even know what HAKA stands for.  It’s another road game, but I have no idea where.  I’m just going to get on the bus and then get off when it stops.  JJK is in the bottom half of the table and is slightly in danger of falling into the relegation picture if they drop a few games in a row, so they’ll be ready to play.  As for us, I think we’re ready to right the ship a little bit.  It’s been a rough time since I got here but there is light at the end of every tunnel and perhaps this next game will be our light at the end of the tunnel.  A win would put us in a decent position going in to the last two months of the season.

 

As for me, I don’t know if I’m starting tomorrow, but I know that I’m ready for whatever time I’m given.  This past week has been my best week of training and my confidence is very high at the moment.  I played especially good on Wednesday, when in my opinion I was the best player at training.  I don’t say that lightly, as I’m very critical of myself.  But Wednesday I didn’t put a foot wrong the entire training and it’s helped a lot for my confidence in the team.  I already feel more accepted by my teammates after that training.  They’ve seen how good I can be and I think that makes them more willing to really make an effort to make me feel comfortable in the group.  Now I just have to put in the same type of performance in the matches so that the fans will love me!

 

Off the field, I have to say that I am bored out of my mind in Valkeakoski.  There is nothing to do.  Normally when I move to a new place I can be busy for a solid month just exploring the area.  The thing is though, that I’ve already been to Valkeakoski twice before.  So, when I arrived last month I had already done the whole walk around the town and seen everything that a new person needs to see.  So now I just find myself stuck in my (very nice) apartment staring out the windows like the freaking Hunchback of Notre Dame!  The only time I’ve really explored has been on my runs.  I typically go for a run on our days off so when I do I always try to run somewhere that I haven’t been before.  In addition to seeing new places, it helps the time to go by while I run.  Unfortunately though I’ve gotten lost twice and ended up running much longer than I planned!  A bit of extra training is never a bad thing though.

 

I have no idea what I’m going to do for entertainment over these next two months.  I’m not really buddies with anyone on the team except Kris.  But he lives with his girlfriend and they don’t want me around all the time.  So I’ll probably end up just buying a couple of PS3 games and just play video games all day.  Hey, it’s definitely not the worst life a guy could live.  I certainly won’t be doing too much more exploring if the weather stays like this or gets worse.

 

I’ll be back to report on the match either tomorrow or Monday.  Then I’m going to London for the week so I may not have any posts up during that time.  Hopefully we’ll get the win.  Lord knows we need it!  See ya soon with some good news!

 

The meme:

Backslide

They just couldn’t stay away!

The cat’s already out of the bag for many, but I’m happy to announce to the rest of you that I’ve signed a contract with FC Haka of the Finnish Veikkausliiga.  The press release is up at www.fchaka.fi.   I’ve already put the value of the contract in another post so I won’t go there again, but the contract is for the rest of this season (October 31).

Haka vs. Inter Turku

For my long term readers, you will remember that club name.  That’s because when I started this blog I was actually planning on playing with Haka.  I thought that my European adventure would start at Haka.  It didn’t, but I’m here now and happy for that.  I’m now quite happy that I took the opportunity to talk to Sami Ristila (the head coach) when I left in February.  At that time, I told him that I enjoyed my time here and would happy to come back if he ever needed me.  Fast forward four months, and he needs me.  Well, he needs strikers so hopefully that means he needs me.

For those wondering, the ankle is fine now.  I was able to do a proper training yesterday and it felt good, so I think that injury is behind me.  It will still need a bit of time before it’s as good as my other ankle, but there’s nothing that my ankle limits me from doing right now so it’s no problem.

I signed my contract officially yesterday and I will be available to play come our next match on Sunday.  I still haven’t gotten clearance from the federation yet because I can’t get anyone from Enkoping SK to email over a release letter.  It’s annoying because the letter would take literally 30 seconds to write.  Even more annoying is the fact that my contract is finished with ESK and I can’t understand for the life of me why I need anything from them.  My leaving ESK was cordial, but it still seems weird that I must rely on them for anything to be available for my new club.  It would be like me breaking up with my girlfriend, then asking her to write me a letter saying we’re broken up before I can date anyone else.  I’m sure it will get done in the next few days, but I wonder how this process gets done with players who leave their club under less-than-ideal circumstances?  Like what if your contract ended and then you went and trashed the club in the papers?  Would you then have to come begging back to that club for a release letter?  It all seems quite strange to me.

Back in Valkeakoski, the city where Haka plays, I’ve been spending most of my time as a vagabond.  I was staying in a hotel, but the entire freaking place got rented out by a Russian hockey/skating club.  They’re not using every room, mind you, they just booked every room so they could have the whole hotel to themselves.  What a Russian thing to do.  I don’t even know what that last sentence means.  Anyway, I got booted from the hotel where I was loving life and now I’m sleeping on the couch of one of the goalkeepers.  I really don’t want to be an inconvenience though, so I decided I’d spend most of my day in the town.  Kris Bright, a fellow new signing and striker, is essentially in the same situation.  Our brilliant plan has been essentially to just live at the stadium until we get our housing situation sorted.  In the stadium there is a nice room with a huge, custom built sofa that could seat like 20 people, a big screen tv and wireless internet.  So we’ve just been sitting here eating food, watching the Olympics and Skyping people.

There’s really not much more to say at the moment.  I’m not quite settled so there won’t be so much more to say until then.  We’ve got double training the next few days and I should be into an apartment by the end of that.  At least I hope I am.

Now here’s today’s meme!

Can I get a high five for getting a contract? No?

My First Match in Sweden

Thank God I am in Sweden.  Finland was okay, but Sweden is a country in which I feel at home.  For those who don’t know, Sweden is a bit more populated than Finland.  In addition, the teams in Sweden seem to be in larger cities/towns than in Finland.  For instance, Stockholm has roughly 10 teams in the metropolitan area in the 1^st-3^rd divisions.  Helsinki has three teams over the same range of leagues.  Even Enkoping has 40,000 people.  That’s double the number of people in Valkeakoski or Jakobstad and even more than double the number of people in Myllykoski, all cities of Veikkausliiga teams.  Of course being American I’m used to living in big cities.  The smallest place I’ve ever lived was Harrisburg, PA and that city had over 100,000 people.  So it’s nice to be in a place like Enkoping and also to be so close (50 miles) to Stockholm.

Yesterday me and my new team (Enkoping SK, or ESK) played Sala FF, a team in the sixth division of Swedish soccer (division 4).  Since ESK is third division and yesterday was a good training, I expected the game to pretty much be a walk in the park.  I started as the right winger in a 4-2-3-1 formation, and for the first 30 minutes everything was going exactly how I expected.  We were all over them and had scored two goals and it was only a matter of time before we got the third.  The first goal was created entirely by me.  I intercepted a loose pass at midfield and ran on the counter at the two center backs and left back.  Our striker ran into the space left by the other team’s right back who was behind the play and I played him a pass which he controlled and fired into the net with the next touch.  1-0 to the good guys.  The second goal came off a deflection, but it was well deserved.  However, after 30 minutes things changed.  We made 8 subs and the only players who stayed on the field were the goalkeeper, the striker and myself.  Within a minute of the subs, the other team’s striker got on a breakaway because of a terrible offside trap and our center back had no choice but to take the striker down.  He got a red card and Sala FF got a penalty kick, which they scored.  Ten minutes later they scored a header off of a set play.  We went into halftime 2-2.

In the second half I played 15 minutes as the striker.  It was pretty uneventful.  I barely saw the ball since the team refused to play through the middle at all.  I was frustrated, but the center midfielder playing underneath me was furious.  He was screaming at his teammates to give me and him the ball.  It was actually pretty funny.  I came off after 60 minutes and the rest of the game was pretty uneventful.  It ended 2-2.

Overall I was pretty happy with my play.  I was the best of the wingers in the game and I feel like I impressed.  The head coach didn’t say a word during the second half, but in the first half he seemed pleased.  The assistant did most of the talking and he was very happy with me.  He didn’t have a negative word to say to me, which was very different from what he had to say to most of the rest of the players.  I don’t speak Swedish, but his tone toward the other guys was clearly a negative one.

Tomorrow we play AIK, the 2^nd place finishers in Allsvenskan last year.  I think that ESK is a good team, but we’ll see how we match up against a superior team.  I see this as an opportunity to impress and hopefully get some buzz around me.  If I play well tonight, there will be more than a few teams who will know my name going into this season (assuming I get a contract).  In a perfect world I would do well enough tomorrow night to get signed directly to AIK or another of the Allsvenskan or Superettan clubs in Stockholm who will surely have eyes on the match. Wish me luck!

Viedo Update!

February 8:

Today I am trying out a video post.  I kept this one very short, just showing the house where I’m living.  Anyway, if this works then I may well do some of my posts in video form rather than written form.  That will help me in moments where I don’t have a lot of time to write or I’m not close to a computer.  Here it is!

Small Town Finland

February 4:

Valkeakoski is a cool little town.  The population is around 20,000 and it definitely feels that way.  The pace around here is slow and there aren’t a ton of cars everywhere.  Despite the fact that it’s -15 degrees outside, people still walk around outside.  The government or whoever is responsible for snow removal have done a great job.  It’s snowed about 2-3 inches in the few days I’ve been here and the sidewalks are still easily walkable.  I mean they’re still covered in snow, but the snow is packed down so hard that you don’t even need boots to walk on it.  That’s good because I didn’t bring boots and the cheapest pair I’ve seen are 80 euros.  While walking around town exploring a bit, I took this picture of the city center.

As you can tell, the city is quite small. .  The smokestacks (are those called smokestacks?) in the back are from the paper factory that is essentially the reason that Valkeakoski exists as a town.  It used to employ most of the residents and was a major financial backer of Haka.  In the 80s and 90s, Haka was the best team in Finland winning multiple titles.  The only club with more championships is HJK Helsinki.  However, the financial crisis was truly worldwide and hit Valkeakoski hard.  The paper mill was forced to pull most of, if not all of it’s money from Haka and the club ended up in really bad financial shape.  As the result, the club has had to get a bit creative in signing players.  Hence, they’re looking to their youth team and cheap foreigners (ie. Me) to build a competetive squad.  In fact, I’m the only new signing for the club that isn’t from the Haka youth team or Yknonnen/Division 1, which are the 2^nd and 3^rd tier of Finnish soccer.  Playing at a club that doesn’t have much money isn’t really a problem for me though.  In my previous two clubs, Harrisburg City Islanders and Crystal Palace Baltimore, we didn’t have money either.  They were different situations, but the idea is the same.  Some of the luxuries that players may expect elsewhere are not going to happen with Haka.  Luckily (and perhaps obviously) I didn’t come to Valkeakoski for luxury.

Enough about Haka, I’ll tell more of their story another time.  For now, I’m just trying to figure out how to get my American shows to play on my computer.  I’m gonna do some investigating and I’ll have “The Office” playing on Netflix in no time!

First Training and the Valkeakoski Social Scene

February 3:

Today I had my first training with Haka.  The session went well, and it was nice to see some familiar faces.  I should mention that the reason I was able to get a contract here was that I trialed with the club last October.  Technically, I’m still a trialist since there is a termination clause in my contract between now and February 11^th, the day after the team’s second League Cup match.  The League Cup sounds prestigous, but here it's really just a glorified preseason tournament.  There is a trophy though, so it’s important.  That said, teams are allowed to play trialists and the winner of the Cup does not get a berth into any European competitions.

I’ll try to stay away from going too deep in detail into trainings since that’s not really what this blog is going to be about.  However, I will say that the training started with some passing drills, then went immediately into 7v7+1 neutral player matches.  We played 4 games of 5 minutes each, and then since we were tied we played a sudden death game that my team won after 30 seconds.  I scored a goal and did well, especially considering that I felt like it was the middle of the night. 

The jet lag is still a big problem, as is the cold weather, but I was able to get out to the grocery store.  In a small town like Valkeakoski, the grocery store is like the mall.  People go in there and just walk around.  There will be 100 people in there, but absolutely no one at the registers.  I honestly think people go just to be seen.  I, on the other hand, was on a mission.  Unfortunately, knowing what you want in a finnish grocery store is almost useless if you don’t understand finnish.  Most of the products have no pictures on the jars/boxes, so instead of getting some mystery foods, I just bought a bunch of cookies and potato chips.  Laugh if you want, but I’ve got to know what I’m getting if I’m going to spend my money.

Tomorrow we have one training in the morning, then I plan to explore the town a little bit.  Til then I’ll pray for the temperature to rise!

Arriving in Valkeakoski

February 2:

Hey guys and gals!  It’s been a long day and a half but I am now in Valkeakoski!  I arrived at the club office then went to a house that is owned by the club where I will be living.  The club is called Haka, but I'll talk about them more another time.  The house is actually quite big, which is a bit surprising because I figured everything in Europe would be smaller.  That doesn’t apply to the more rural areas of the continent I guess.  The coach, Sami Ristila, seems happy to have me here, which is nice.  There’s no point in going halfway around the world to play if you have a coach that’s not interested in what you can offer.  Here's a picture of the room I'll be staying in:

After meeting with Sami, I got a ball and walked a quarter mile down the street to the indoor hall where the team trains during the winter to do some individual work.  I haven’t run in three days and I’m supposed to train tomorrow and play in 4 days so I needed to do something instead of fall asleep at 3pm.  The thing though, is that it’s -20 degrees farenheight.  That's not just regular cold.  That is the kind of cold that would literally make you die.  In my hometown of Indianapolis it gets cold.  It’s not unusual to be 10 degrees or less.  But -20 is ridiculous.  It makes you not even want to do basic things.  I didn’t eat dinner tonight because I had no food at the house and it was just too cold for me to walk the half mile to the city center to get groceries.  I’ve brought big enough coats though, so tomorrow I will venture into the cold and get food!  Or, if there’s never any more blog posts, you’ll know I’ve died from going outside for too long.

Goodbye, USA

February 1:

Today is the day.  I leave my home country to play and live abroad.  My destination?  Valkeakoski, Finland.  More specifically, I am going to play for FC Haka of the Veikkausliiga, the top league in Finland.  I just got the contract sent to me two weeks ago, so all of the preparations for this trip have been made on somewhat short notice.  Of course I’ve packed my Playstation 2 and 3, as well as my slippers (you know, the important things).  I’ve also brought a ton of clothes and six pairs of cleats.  I’ve never travelled with this much luggage, but then again my entire life is packed in there so maybe it’s sad I could only fill 2 suitcases, a duffle bag and a backpack.  Oh well the point of this blog is to talk about my life abroad so there’s no reason to keep talking while I’m still in the US.  Next time you hear from me I’ll be in Finland!