The End of Preseason: Preseason Matchday 3

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but to be honest that’s because not very much has happened over the past week.  When I last posted we were on our break and I was preparing to do some extra training during the holiday.  I did that, and I believe it helped since I felt very fit in our most recent game, a 1-0 loss to Haka.

 

Speaking of the match, it was yesterday in Valkeakoski and was not a very great performance from us.  I played roughly 80 minutes as a right winger.  I wouldn’t say that I was overly dangerous, but I think I was one of our brighter players.  Even though we lost, I was happy with my performance and especially happy with my fitness level.  It sucks to lose, but to be honest it’s preseason and the focus is more on preparing for Veikkausliiga than winning every match.  Because of that we started with a team that while strong, probably won’t be the same 11 that start the season opener next weekend.  I haven’t looked on the VPS website, but I’m sure it has a better write up about the game than I care to give, so you can go there if you want to know more.

 

In off the field news, Anthony Dafaa and I are both still living in an intermediate apartment while we wait to move to our new place.  The place we’re in now is nice and has everything we need except a working washing machine for our clothes.  Unfortunately, the current apartment is literally 100m away from the new place which we’ve already seen and is amazing.  Imagine how antsy you’d be if someone drove you one day to a mansion and told you, “You’re gonna live here soon,” and then took you back to wherever you live.  After a few days, you’d go crazy wondering when exactly “soon” means.  That’s what is happening to me and Anthony right now.

 

Outside of the apartment, I’ve spent quite a bit of the last week walking around Vaasa.  You’ll be happy to know that I’ve finally taken a few pictures so I’ll put them in here.  I’ve also gotten to know my way around the town quite well, so I’m really excited about summertime.  I love living near water, and Vaasa seems to be just about the ideal place in Finland for that.  Turku and Helsinki don’t have so much uncluttered coastline.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that once summer comes it should be easy to spend a few hours just hanging out by the water without being surrounded by a huge crowd.  I used to do that in Harrisburg, PA when I lived there and that was just a river.  I imagine it will be so calming to look out at the sea here.  Maybe it will help prevent me from getting homesick.

 

By the way, thank God the preseason is over.  From here on out, every game has real meaning.  I can’t stand preseason, especially once I’ve reached a decent fitness level.  Obviously I’m not 100% ready to play a crazy up-tempo game yet, but I’m exactly where I should be fitness-wise at this point.  I’ve only been doing preseason here for a month, but I was doing preseason by myself in Indianapolis from the middle of January.  That’s just about four months of training just for the sake of training.  From our Cup game Tuesday until the end of October, all of our games will be meaningful in some way.  Important games are the reason that we play.  I understand that preseason results may be a source of pride for some fans, but for the players they are just a tool to prepare for the actual season.  No trophies are handed out in preseason (ironically as I typed that I realized that in Finland they actually do hand out a trophy for the preseason League Cup.  The final is today, no less!).  I’m ready to spend the next six months playing games, getting goals and assists and winning.  Our team is not perfect, but we should be able to beat any team in Veikkausliiga.  That should make for some exciting times in Vaasa this summer and autumn.

 

I told you there was nothing going on!  But hey, you sat here and read everything I had to write so maybe it helped the obvious boredom that brought you to my blog.  Things should get more interesting as the games start.  I travel to Helsinki for the first time on Monday so hopefully I’ll have a chance to get out into the city for a bit.  That should make for a half decent blog post.  Who knows though.  Today I’m going to put a GIF in with the meme.  Hopefully it works.  If not, then I guess I just won’t be putting GIFs into my posts.

 

The meme, from my favorite truth-telling duck (and the GIF):

 If you're having a bad day, remember...