Friday, March 9, 2012

Hot Food and Cold Training


Well I’ve noticed that the blog automatically puts the date that I write my posts, so I’m no longer leading with that.  So let’s jump right in.

One of the worst things about these small towns in Finland where I’ve been staying is that they have no convenient fast food restaurants.  They also don’t have the super-easy meals that I lived off during my past seasons in Baltimore and Harrisburg.  This means that every single day I have to cook a meal in order to eat.  The result?  I eat a lot of cereal and chicken and rice.  In fact, I’ve had chicken and rice each and every day that I’ve been in Myllykoski.  You wanna see my skills?  Your wish is my command:


How good does that look?  I know, I’m pretty impressive in the kitchen.  If my future wife is ever hungry for a very specific set of meals, then I’ll be able to give her the best dinner ever!

Tonight I trained with PEPO, the club that Kenny is trialing with.  It was godawfully cold, but my feet unthawed just enough for me to dominate the session.  The level at PEPO is pretty low, and my talent shined through.  I did so well that after training the coach took me to meet the club president and talk about a potential contract.  I told them that I was planning on going to Sweden to play, but they still decided that I should have their information in case I did in fact want to come and play for them.  Tomorrow PEPO plays a friendly and the coach has invited me to play in it.  I don’t know if I will, mostly because the club doesn’t have the money to provide insurance for me during the game.  That means that if I get injured the club not only will not pay for, but financially cannot afford to pay for my treatment.  You can see how this would be a problem if God forbid I tore my ACL or broke my leg.  Even if I only turned my ankle, it would severely affect my chances of impressing on a trial in Sweden or anywhere else where the level is more challenging.  So right now I’m leaning towards not playing.  I’ll sleep on it and see if I want to take the risk.  I could use a game right now and the confidence I’m sure to get from playing in it could be what I need going into another trial.

One other thing: PEPO is fourth tier, not third.  They call it division two.  Even though PEPO wants me to play for them, I don’t think it’s in my best interest at all to play here.  Because the team is so low on the league ladder, even if I scored two goals every game it would still not get the attention of the Veikkausliiga teams.  My best hope would be to move up to the Finnish 2nd division, but if I was interested in playing in that I would just take a trial there now rather than sign two leagues lower and try to impress my way up.  I have no problem starting at a lower league, but I have to have some sort of belief that wherever I’m playing is just one step away from somewhere much better.  I couldn’t honestly have that feeling at PEPO, so I think one day playing with them is enough.
If I don’t play the game tomorrow I think I’ll go into Helsinki for the day.  It’s supposed to snow though, so maybe I’ll just spend another long, boring day at the apartment in Myllykoski.  I’ll keep you posted!

No comments:

Post a Comment