Matchday 7-9: So many games

It’s been quite a long time since I posted here, and boy has a lot happened.  Now if you’ve been wondering why I’ve written so little this month there is a simple answer: life just hasn’t been that interesting.  We’ve had games twice a week for the last month and we’re continuing on the same pattern.  That pretty much means that I have no life.  I can’t go out to bars or even the beach because I have to constantly recover from the previous game and prepare for the next one.  I could write about what’s been going on in the games, but honestly I think people have their own opinions and don’t much care about how I feel.  Besides, when you’re in the game it’s a bit difficult to be objective about the performance.  I’ve talked a lot about our games in my recent posts and will do some more again today, but in the future I’ll go away from that.  Anyway that’s the recap as to why I’ve been away.  I’ll try and post more frequently in the future!

Sonera Stadium

 

I think the last time I posted was after our loss to KuPS a few weeks back.  Since then we’ve played a Finnish Cup game against JJK (loss), away to Inter (draw), away to HJK (win) and away to MYPA (loss).  Now I know people are most interested in hearing about the HJK game, so I’ll spend the most time on that, but first I’ll go over the other three games briefly.  I’ll be mostly referring to my individual performances because it’s my blog and I feel like talking about myself.

 

The Finnish Cup quarterfinal against JJK was an absolute disaster.  I thought that we were totally dominated for most of the game and my performance was the worst of the season thus far.  I can’t explain why, but I just couldn’t get a foothold in the game at all.  My passes weren’t crisp, I gave a lot of balls away and generally just didn’t help VPS to win in any way.  I worked reasonably hard and had a handful of good moments, but that’s not good enough in a cup match with everything on the line.

 

Later that week we traveled to Turku to play Inter.  In contrast to JJK, I thought this was my best performance of the season.  Not to toot my own horn (which means I’m going to toot my own horn), but I felt like I was the most dynamic player on the field.  I say dynamic and not best player because even on my best day I’m never the most skillful player on the game.  My influence comes from being active and dangerous, which I was against Inter.  If you watch the highlight video you will see that 4-5 straight clips are my contributions.  In other words, for about a 30 minute span in the second half I did everything exciting.  It didn’t lead to anything so that’s a concern, but I was quite pleased with that game.

 

The biggest game so far in our season though was clearly our win in Helsinki against HJK.  They are the perennial power in the league and have an outstanding home record, even though they lost their previous home match to TPS.  We came in as big underdogs, but I wasn’t sure why.  We clearly have a good team capable of winning any game in this league and we have the league’s best backline and goalkeeper.  Add Anthony in with that group and I think our defensive-thinking players stack up with any group in the league.  When you have that sort of defense you are capable of having great success no matter what league you play in.  We started the game poorly though, and after nine minutes we were losing 1-0.  Things only got worse from there and we were lucky to get through the first 25 minutes without giving up more goals.  From about 30 minutes on though, the game was very competitive.  We made a few half chances for ourselves in the last ten minutes of the half and went into halftime with a bit of confidence despite being down a goal.

 

Jyrki before the HJK game.

The second half was much better for us, with our ball possession getting better and the game being played more and more in HJK’s defensive half.  I was told at halftime that I’d be coming on early in the second half for Tomi Ameobi and I was to play as the striker.  I thought that this was a great idea since HJK had substituted one of their stoppers and put in a guy who looked like he was 45-years-old.  There was no chance in hell that guy could do anything to stop me running for breakaway after breakaway.  However, Tomi’s play at the end of the first half and first few minutes of the second half earned himself more time and I came on instead for Jesper as the left winger.  The move turned out to be correct, as while we were changing the sub card Tomi scored the equalizing goal.  I like to think that, much like Lionel Messi, the mere suggestion of my substitution motivated the team to play better, but I don’t think I can take any credit for the first goal.  It was a good move to get the ball wide and crossed in, and then good composure by Tomi to settle himself and hit a good shot.  We were lucky to get a deflection for the goal, but who’s to say that Tomi’s initial shot wouldn’t have gone in anyway?

 

After our equalizer I was really proud of how we played.  Instead of going into a shell and just hoping to get a draw, we played even more aggressively and put pressure on the HJK players.  Ironically, the same external pressure that I complained about in my last post came on the HJK players in that game.  The crowd, instead of spurring their players on, starting to boo and hiss at them anytime something went wrong.  You could just look at some of the players and know that they were more worried about making a mistake than actually making a big play.  We VPS players on the other hand fed off that energy and forced HJK into mistake after mistake.  Finally, in a play that really sums up how good our team can possibly be, we scored a goal.  The play started with me, Antti and Anthony on the left side of the pitch.  HJK had the ball and was trying to go down their right side.  Antti stepped up to pressure the ball and I did the hard running to cover him in case he didn’t get the ball.  Then Anthony ran over and made a great tackle to win the ball and start us going up field.  Antti picked up the ball and ran 60 yards with it, drawing three HJK defenders.  Instead of working together and doing a bit extra work, all three of the HJK guys just kind of jogged alongside Antti assuming that one of their teammates would make a play.  Instead, Antii found a gap and slipped the ball to Jarno, who unselfishly played the ball over to Sebastian (who had sprinted 70 yards to get there, by the way) and “Seba-star” scored his first goal of the season.  It was a great counterattacking move that was worthy of winning a game like that.  When the final whistle came, I learned that this was VPS’s first victory away to HJK in 51 years.  I was surprised by that, but then again Sonera Stadium is not an easy place to win games.

Going for a run the day after HJK.

 

Heading to MYPA.

Three days later, we played MYPA and got killed 3-0.  There’s a lot of things you can say about that game, but I’ll only mention a couple.  First, MYPA is a really good team, much better than I thought they were.  They were fresh after a 9 day break between matches and we were playing our 4^th game in like 11 days or something.  Second, I think that the HJK win meant so much to some of the players and staff that we could never get ourselves mentally ready for the challenge that MYPA posed just a few days later.  While beating HJK wasn’t a big deal to me (I’ve played them twice now without losing), it was a very big deal to a lot of guys in this club.  It was the kind of win that you need to have a week to refocus, but we only had three days.  Hence we didn’t even start playing against MYPA until the second half.  By then, it was 2-0 and there wasn’t much that we could do.

 

The brofriends on the bus.  There were plenty of open seats but they sat together.

Tomorrow we play our hated rivals Jaro.  I don’t really have any ill will toward them, but if VPS hates them then I guess I gotta hate them, at least tomorrow.  I’ll be interested to see how physical or nasty this game gets.  Maybe a physical game will suit me since I seem to be the dirtiest player in the league at the moment.  I get called for two or three fouls every single game despite not playing any differently than I did when I was in America.  I think I was called for maybe 10 fouls in the entire three years I played in the US.  Meanwhile apparently nothing that happens to me is a foul anymore.  Against MYPA I got crushed three times and only once was anything called.  One of the three times I got elbowed in the eye and the foul was called on me.  Maybe tomorrow’s game will be one of the few that my normal playing style isn’t considered rough.  I hope so.

 

The meme and GIF:

 

 

 

MYPA a "no go" means I'm looking west

March 4:

We all know the drill at this point…I was not offered a contract by MYPA.  I didn’t post yesterday because I didn’t have any news and I figured no one reads this anyway so nobody got left hangin.  If you were on eggshells waiting for me to post, well then I’m very sorry.  Bad news can always wait though, right?

Now I’m in a very uncomfortable situation.  My Finnish agent doesn’t at the moment have anything for me and I haven’t heard from the Swedish agent I work with in 10 days or so.  That means I’m stuck sitting in Myllykoski, Finland with nowhere to go.  I can’t take a trip, because at any time one of the agents could call and I’d need to get my two huge suitcases and two smaller bags and go.  But sitting here isn’t gonna do me any good either.  The only good thing about being here now is that it’s rent-free.  If I had to pay for a hotel for a week out of pocket it would ruin me financially, so I’m pretty much stuck here until the next trial comes along.

Now you may be wondering two things: 1. Why are you not getting signed by these clubs if you think you’re doing so well? and 2. What are you doing to help yourself?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

In all three of my trials now, I have been let go not for a lack of ability, but instead for a lack of fit within the team.  Now don’t get me wrong, ability does play a role.  If I showed up at any of these clubs and was head and shoulders better than everyone, then of course the club would find room for me regardless of how I fit into the system.  However, I’m not that player.  In fact I don’t think my game could be less suited to a trial.  I’m super fast, but when I first play with new teammates they almost never adjust right away.  Often my first couple of games with new teammates will feature a ton of underhit through passes or mistimed runs for offsides and so on.  Unfortunately, in a trial those first two games are always the only thing the coach sees.  Since a striker is almost required to score on his trial to be offered a contract, I’ve been put in a tough situation because I am virtually incapable of creating my own goals.  I’m more Darren Bent than Lionel Messi.  It’s ok, I accept that I won’t be the most talented player on every field I play on, but I do feel that I can be very effective at this level.  I don’t know if I mentioned a trial I had last fall in Sweden, but it was with a team called GAIS and they finished 5^th in the Allsvenskan, which is the top league in that country.  They told me the exact same thing that all the Finnish clubs have said.  To paraphrase, "We like you and you're good enough, but we have no need for a player like you at this time."  The reason I mention that trial is because I did just as good or better with that team as I did with any of the Finnish teams I trialed with, even though the Swedish team was a clearly higher level.  The reason is that better teammates make me more effective since I rely on quality service from the players behind me.  Maybe if I get a trial in Sweden I can put that theory to the test again.

As for what I’m doing to help myself, I’ve started an email campaign that would embarrass even the most ardent self-promoters.  If you want to know who I’ve emailed, look at the league table for Norway and Denmark’s top division, start at the bottom and work your way up to about 7-10^th in each league.  If I don't hear from them, I'll start emailing the second division teams starting from the top down. I haven’t emailed all the teams, partly because these email addresses can be quite hard to find, but at least 40% of them have gotten or will get an email in the next 3 days.  It seems crazy, but professional sports teams find players this way.  If you think that a top division Norwegian team getting an email from me and then offering me a trial is farfetched, I put one question to you:  How big do you think these teams’ scouting budgets are?  Most of the teams average 5-8k a game and put the majority of that revenue to player/coaches salaries.  The scouts probably aren’t going too far other than the occasional trip to a neighboring country.  An email from me is a free player with almost no downside for the club if they are indeed looking for my position.  I offer to travel to them out of my own pocket just for a chance.  Hopefully it works out.  I’ve also emailed a friend or two who may be able to help.  Sadly (I prefer humbly), I’m not above begging!

So now I wait.  I honestly don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  There are a few realistic things that could happen in the next week:  I could go on another trial in Finland (probably the Veikkausliiga, but I would consider the 2^nd division here if the city of the club was nice), a trial in Sweden, one of the clubs I emailed in Norway or Denmark could call, or less realistically Jaro could decide that I’m better than the new trialists they have and ask for me to come back.

The biggest comfort I have in my situation is that I have such a strong base of support.  My mom and dad are nothing but wonderful and encouraging.  I won’t make them do it, but they would support me financially and emotionally if I wanted to stay in Europe and keep taking tryouts for the next 7 months.  I also have great agents working for me both here in Finland and in Sweden, not to mention my actual agent in America.  Those guys have done a great job and had I been a bit better, we could have toasted a contract long ago.  I’m sure they’ll find a good place for me.

I can’t say when my next post will be.  If I end up leaving tomorrow it may be 2-3 days before I can settle in somewhere and put out a new post.  Or I might just be sitting in Myllykoski and have nothing to say.  You’ll know when the next post hits the presses!  Til then wish me luck.  I need it!

Changing Formations, and Crazy Grocery Prices

March 2:

The weather is getting better, so Finland is finally starting to get some color.  In the month that I’ve been here, I haven’t seen a single blade of grass.  However, the last two days have been above freezing so the snow is starting to melt.  Maybe sometime soon I’ll get to see the beauty of Finland that people around here have been talking about.

I missed yesterday, so I’ll recap that in ten seconds.  We had two trainings, I scored a bunch of goals in each and then I watched 6 hours of Netflix and went to bed.

Today we had training in the morning and it was pretty simple.  The coach today though inexplicably debuted a new formation that we’re going to play tomorrow against HJK.  We’re going to change from a 4-3-3 formation to a 3-4-3.  For those not so technically involved with soccer, that is ridiculous.  It essentially causes every single player on the field to have new or expanded roles.  In addition, the formation has forced two players in the starting lineup to play in entirely new positions.  That’s not a good thing.  We’ll be lucky if we don’t get killed tomorrow.

Speaking of the match, I have once again been selected from the pool of trialists to play in the match.  I don’t know if I mentioned before, but in the League Cup matches a team may only play two trialists.  Last week we had four trialists, but this week we have six, so I’m happy to have been selected once again.  I’ve even been selected ahead of the trialists who haven’t had the chance to play in a game yet.  I feel like this bodes well for my chances, but getting my hopes up is useless because I have no idea what the coach is thinking.  I’m not starting, so I won’t have much time to show my worth.  If I do well though, I expect that a contract will be offered pretty soon.  Send me positive vibes!

Other than training not much happened today.  I spent almost 30 euros today on candy and bakery products at the grocery store, which isn’t even saying all that much because groceries here have freaking heroin prices.  A couple of things, notably milk, are quite cheap.  However, everything else is very expensive.  In Europe, or at least in Scandinavia, food is more expensive in euros than the same food is in dollars in America.  For instance, in the US a 2 liter of Coke costs around $1.79.  You can argue the number but it’s close enough for my point.  Here, they sell 1.5L bottles of Coke for 2.19 euros.  Considering that a euro equal about $1.27, that’s a significantly higher price.  The same discrepancy goes for essentially all other food.  Of all the money that I’ve spent in the 30 days I’ve been here, at least 90% has been on food and train tickets.  The good news is that I’m becoming a Top Chef over here and I’m learning to make good meals from the cheapest possible foods!

I’m starting to get used to Myllykoski now that I’ve been here for 10 days or so.  I’m not saying that the town is any better than when I got here, I’m just accepting it much better than before.  I put a picture of the town center so you can see how slow it is. If I sign a contract here, I will just hole up in my room and watch Netflix all day.  Hulu too.  I guess if boredom is my biggest problem then I will be able to say that I have a good life.  Hopefully I’ll get to that point.

Next time you hear from me I will have played in my second match with MYPA.  Hopefully I play well and have good news for you!

Playing with MYPA: The Worst Thing Ever

February 25:

What a catastrophe of a day.  We played a League Cup match today against FC Lahti.  I played the last 30 minutes or so and was absolutely terrible.  Of course, I wouldn’t be a good whiner if I didn’t blame some of my performance on the lack of service from my teammates.  I literally touched the ball maybe a half dozen times total in 30 minutes.  To make matters worse, the coach (who yelled at everybody) yelled at me constantly to “wake up!”

One thing that I’ve noticed since I’ve been here is that the coaches seem to want me to be something I’m not.  Despite the fact that I played great in a two striker set during both training sessions, I was thrown into the match today as a lone striker.  Both of the center backs on the other team were big, physical players and they dominated me in the air.  The whole time I was in the game I never received a pass to my feet or into a space where I could get it.  I did have one bright moment when I intercepted a pass in midfield and carried the ball to the edge of the box before laying it to the winger, who promptly crossed it out of bounds for a goal kick.  It was that kind of day for myself and the team.

I haven’t spoken to the coach but I don’t anticipate getting good news.  While it’s still possible that my performances in training will earn me a contract, it’s more likely that the match performance undermined my chances.  If so then I’m not too concerned since I’m not too big on the idea of playing here anyway.  I think my next move will be to go to Sweden, since my name is probably losing a bit of weight in the finnish league.  I’ve been essentially cut by two teams and MYPA would be the third so I don’t know what my options will be with other clubs in the league.  I’ve had trial offers in Sweden before so hopefully I can arrange one or two this week and next.  I would prefer to live in Sweden anyway, so maybe things will still work out for the best after all.

Tomorrow is likely a travel day, so I’ll be in touch soon but maybe not tomorrow.

My First Training With MYPA

February 23:

Myllykoski is an extremely boring place.  The team had two training sessions today, and still I’ve had a depressing amount of free time with nothing to do.  There’s only so much Netflix and Hulu that a person can watch in his apartment kitchen!  Actually that’s a lie; there is no limit to Netflix and Hulu.  Those sites are amazing.  I love them so much.  In fact, I don’t know how I would have survived living a year in Harrisburg or how I’ll live anywhere in Finland without on-demand movies and tv.  People think that professional athletes are out all the time doing events and expensive dinners, and perhaps those players at the top level do, but most professionals I’ve ever known spend most of their free time at home watching movies or playing video games.  The top 100 rankings of most video games are predominately professional athletes.

When I actually was doing stuff today, I was doing pretty well.  In the morning we did some physical training in the team clubhouse.  It sounds more difficult than it was, mostly yoga movements and ab exercises.  We also did some strength exercises using various weird moves with a partner.  One had my partner run up and jump into me and I had to catch him ten consecutive times.  In another I had to hold a plank position while two teammates did push-ups on my back.  Things like that.  It was unusual but a decent enough workout.

In the afternoon we had the first training with the ball since I’ve been here.  It was pretty fun, as all we did was play 5v5 games then a 20 minute 11v11 intrasquad scrimmage.  My team was 2^nd out of four teams and I performed well in the small sided matches.  In the full sized scrimmage, I played with the reserve team but was very dangerous.  I scored a goal (on a cheeky backheel, no less) and we finished tied 1-1.  As I’ve said with the last two clubs I’ve trained with, I’m definitely good enough to play here.  Whether or not I’ll be offered a contract is a totally different story, I’ve come to realize.

One interesting thing about my time here at MYPA is that I really couldn’t care less about the opportunity here.  The disappointments of Haka and Jaro have caused me to not get my hopes up at all about the opportunity at MYPA.  Even though I’m here as a trialist, I feel almost like I’m not playing for anything at all.  If I get offered a contract, fine.  If not, well then I have options that I’m more excited about elsewhere anyway.  This whole experience has taken an emotional toll on me already and it’s only been three weeks.  I can only imagine how things will be if I indeed get a contract and I’m here for a long time.  Hopefully I will be.

I have training tomorrow (Friday) and a match Saturday.  Maybe my carefree demeanor will be what I need to get a contract?  You never know.  Weirder things have happened.  Til next time.

Going Crazy at MYPA House

February 22:

It was my first day meeting the new team, and they’re a good bunch.  Today was just a recovery day so all we did was some dynamic stretches and easy movement exercises to help the players’ bodies feel better.  Nothing out of the usual except that a) the coach wasn’t there and b) everything was done at the clubhouse.

I should note that MYPA’s clubhouse is quite unique.  First, it is a three story building plus a basement and it houses a (very old) gym, club offices, the locker room and a sauna.  In addition it also houses a bowling alley and the awful apartment I’m staying in.  You may or may not have noticed a problem there…allow me to clarify: THERE IS A BOWLING ALLEY ABOVE MY APARTMENT!  I didn’t notice it last night because I was picked up so late that I arrived after it closed.  For the past 7 1/2 hours, (it’s 8pm now) I have been hearing bowling ball after bowling ball crash into pins and be returned to the top of the lane.  Now I must admit that the bowling balls sound an awful lot like thunder, so in a way it’s kind of soothing.  Something like a thunderstorm going on outside while you’re comfortably indoors.  But in another, more real way, it is incredibly annoying.  If a writer were trying to create a terrible apartment for a novel, he or she wouldn’t even dream of putting a bowling alley upstairs.  It’s just too ridiculous of a thought.  Surely, the author would think, no one would put a dwelling underneath a bowling alley.  Or better yet, surely no one would think to put a bowling alley on the third floor of the building!

Oh and remember when I said I was working in the kitchen?  Well the outlet that the freezer was hooked up to stopped working.  When I got back from training there was a huge pool of water coming from it.  It smells great.

Tomorrow I get to actually play soccer, which should help me to be more comfortable here.  There are actually going to be two sessions, and one of them is an all-or-nothing, make-or-break session with myself, another trialist and the two goalkeepers.  I’m pretty sure I will be judged for better or for worse based on that 60 minutes tomorrow afternoon.  But why shouldn’t that be the case?  It goes with the theme of this trip.  I’m confident though in my ability and one of the trialists here is someone I’ve actually played with long ago when my future was much brighter.  You’ll never guess who it is so don’t even try.  I’ll ask him if he minds me mentioning his name in this blog and if he says yes then I’ll mention him and tell a bit of his story.

Wish me luck!  I sure could use some right about now.

Coming to Kouvola...uh, I mean Myllykoski

February 21:

Today was pretty boring but noteworthy because I have now arrived at my next trial with MYPA (mee-pa).  The club is located in Myllykoski, which is part of a group of towns that form Kouvola.  Of course, things being the way they have been thus far in Finland, I had no idea that the club was not in the center of Kouvola.  What that meant was that instead of staying and training in a relatively good sized city (Kouvola’s city center is upwards of 50,000 people in a space about the quarter the size of Indianapolis or Tampa’s downtowns), I was staying in a village of what can’t be more than a couple thousand people.  Myllykoski is by far the smallest town I have visited in my time here.  It makes Valkeakoski seem like a metropolis.

That said, at least I’m here.  After waking up and schlepping my luggage to the rail station, I took three trains and six and a half hours to reach the Kouvola train station.  There I awaited my ride…and waited. 

And waited. 

After two hours finally, mercifully, a player came to the rescue and picked me up.  The player was really nice though and put my mind at ease.  That is, until I got to the place where I’m staying.  It’s an apartment that is connected to the club office and it is a nightmare.  In stark contrast to the nice hotels I’ve been staying at up until this point, this place is more or less a dump.  The electricity isn’t even working is most of the rooms.  I’m writing this blog post from the kitchen, since the room I’m staying in has no lighting whatsoever and the plugs in the room don’t work.  My room doesn’t even have a door.  If I had a normally functioning laptop I could just charge it up and then work from my room, but like a big dum dum I bought my laptop on craigslist and therefore it carries no charge and shuts off the second it’s disconnected from the charger.  Oh well…

Complaining aside, I’m ready to get this trial going.  Tomorrow probably won’t be much as the club just played a match today (they won, 2-1).  Maybe the sun coming up will give me a sunnier disposition.  I hope so, because the way I feel now makes me wonder if coming to Finland was even a good idea.  I had a lot of optimism in traveling over here, but a series of bad things happening has made me wonder if maybe success here just isn’t in the cards for me.  I was a starter with a contract at Haka and they let me go, then I played well and was dangerous in a position of need for Jaro and they let me go as well.  Hopefully MYPA will see that I’m good enough to help and offer me a contract based on that, but even then I don’t know if I even want to stay here.  If I get an offer I guess I would have to take it since there are no others, but I have to weigh my unhappiness against the small salary and relatively long odds of moving to somewhere bigger and better.  But those are tough decisions that professionals have to make.  And I’ve got a ways to go before I can even get to that point.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.