Tuesday, August 7, 2012

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?

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