Houston Dynamo midfielder Stuart Holden and defender Patrick Ianni are in Bradenton, Florida at the United States Under-23 National Team training camp. They are sending their thoughts and experiences back to you via houstondynamo.com.
Hey Dynamo Fans, Stu and Pat back again from Bradenton! I'm sure it has been hard for you to keep up with our travels, because we have been racking up those air miles the last month or two. Our journey with the USA U-23 team has taken us to Los Angeles and China in December, Bradenton at the beginning of January, and then from Houston to San Francisco back to Bradenton for another one week camp! The good thing about all the training is that we will be in some good shape coming into pre-season, that is for sure!
Well this camp started with a trip to San Francisco for some United States Olympic Committee "Team Building" with athletes from all different sports that are already on the olympic team or have a chance, much like ourselves. There were swimmers, softball players, rowers, weight lifters, synchro swimmers, women's soccer, boxers, and some divers in attendance in San Fran. They put us up in the Five Star Hilton Hotel downtown and activities started almost as soon as we arrived.
Stu: Arturo Alvarez and I flew from Houston on a 7:25 AM flight, which was delayed a solid two hours because of weather. As I'm sure you can imagine, that is the last thing we wanted at that time in the morning!! We weren't the only people delayed, and the program had to be pushed back two hours or so to allow the other athletes to arrive. The day started with a late lunch and some guest speakers (mostly former Olympians and medal winners from various Olympic games), who recounted their experiences and gave us some ideas of what to expect when we were in Beijing. Then we split into assigned groups and played some funny team building excersises, which seemed a bit silly at first, but actually helped break the ice between yourself and some of other athletes and were pretty hilarious. Overall, it was a good experience and I really enjoyed meeting athletes that had competed in previous Olympic Games and hearing their stories about opening ceremony, winning medals, etc. Hopefully we will all be part of a team competing together as TEAM USA this summer in Beijing!!
Pat: Yes, Stu and I are together again. We have enjoyed five days off and a two day ambassador's conference with the USOC that Stu covered pretty well since we were last in Florida with the U-23's. We got into Bradenton from San Francisco on the Sunday morning after a red eye flight. We had a light training on Sunday afternoon, followed by double days yesterday and today. Training has gone well so far as we are focused on qualifying in March for the Olympics. I, for one, am sick of having to call ourselves the U-23 National Team and would prefer to say "Olympic" team. Well, that task will be up to us young men in this very deep talent pool as the qualifying team will be a group of 21 players under the age of twenty three selected by Coach Nowak and staff. I can't say that I have ever been part of a national team as deep and fun to be around as this one.
Speaking of which, as I type, I am also watching some guys play the game FIFA for Playstation 3 while others are on their computers. We are all friends and enjoy being around each other which should pay off on the field come March 11. Thanks for reading our blogs as I have yet to mention that to our fans. We appreciate the support you give us and our teams in this very exciting time in our career. God bless you all and look forward to something in a few days.
P.S. Stu and I's team won a very fun 7 v 7 tournament today that resulted in seven of our teammates having to clean off our plates and put them in a bin at dinner. Hardly humiliating but definitely humbling for a bunch of confident competitors.
Well everyone, I'm back in Houston for all of four days before taking off again on Friday with the U-23 team for another camp. Pat and I will be flying to San Francisco for a one day Olympic committee meeting (with team-building exercises) and then we fly the next day back to Bradenton to begin another week of training. We don't know the final roster yet, but I think we will have the guys that were with the Senior team back in with us so we can continue preparation for qualifying.
On Saturday, Coach Nowak took a little different approach to training with us. He had the four goalkeepers pick teams for a basketball tournament that took place in the gym on the IMG campus. I was a second-round draft pick, which I was happy with considering nobody knew about my hidden basketball talent! (Ha ha!)
I was fairly happy with the team our captain had selected until we actually started playing. It is a bit of a toss-up when picking teams for a sport that no one has ever seen their teammates play, and as you can imagine all the tall guys and athletes were picked first! That selection strategy didn't exactly turn out to be the best, because by the looks of things we had a pretty decent squad on paper, but as soon as play started our team just went downhill.
We finished the tournament in last place with 0 wins and pretty much 0 chance, which I am still a little bitter about!
Looking back on the last camp, it was a lot of work but it was definitely worth it for the group. We had three scrimmages down there, two against the U-17s and one against the U-18s, with the game against the U-18s coming on the last day of camp in the morning. We only managed to scrap out a 2-0 win, which very easily could have been a lot more if we had put away some of our chances.
After the game we headed back to our rooms, packed up our gear and met downstairs for lunch before heading off to our final destinations (with mine being Houston and Pat's Los Angeles).
Congrats to Brad, Eddie, and Rico for their performances with the Senior team against Sweden. We were watching it from Bradenton and I was definitely rubbing in the fact that you guys were all Dynamos!
Thats all for now, but look out for another blog from the next camp in San Francisco and Bradenton!!
Best,
Stu
Pat: Hey Dynamo Fans!
We are back to inform you on the last couple of days at the U-23 camp. We have been training very hard, as the coaches are looking at the various options for this team given that we are fast approaching qualifications for the Olympics in March. We have been doing quite a bit of crossing and finishing as well as shooting, which are things I don't normally get time to work on in practice. Some of this diverse training paid off today when Stu scored a nice header, which is something I wouldn't say is Stu's strong point, although he tends to think he is a beast in the air!! Anyway, Coach Nowak has given us the afternoon off as a chance to regroup for the remaining days and finish strong in this camp. A couple of us are looking looking forward to enjoying a movie and a good sushi dinner at a restaurant around the corner.
Stu: We had a nice off day earlier this week, which was a nice chance to relax and get away from the IMG campus. We set off around 11:30 for the beach (Siesta Key) and found a nice little sports bar/restaurant where we ordered some lunch and watched the Colts/Chargers game before setting off to the beach just down the street. The weather wasn't the greatest, with a bit too much fog and not a lot of sun, but that didn't stop us making the most of our off day on the beach. We jumped straight into a game of 5 vs 2 on the sand, full of slide tackles, rugby tackles, and pretty much any kind of tackles that got people covered in the white sand. That then progressed into a juggling game, with the loser having to chase the ball after one of the other guys got to PUNT it as far as they could in any direction. We played for a solid hour, with people punting the ball a country mile into the water and the loser having to swim through the freezing cold water to get it. Needless to say, the standard of juggling was a lot better and more intense the closer we got to the water!!
Pat: Well, like Stu said, we are having a good time training with some of the best players in our age group from around the country and abroad. It has been very satisfying to meet new players and see the excitement from the guys in this year's MLS Superdraft. We wish them all the best tomorrow. In addition, we wish Brad, Rico, and Eddie all the best tomorrow as they take on Sweden. We hope they get a chance to show everyone that they can shine on the international stage like they do week in and week out with the Dynamo.
Stu: As it nears the end of camp, it is important to do our best to stay sharp mentally, because as our bodies tire our play starts to slip. The coaching staff has done a good job of giving us adequate rest, but we have been doing a lot of work this week and we have one more game on Sunday. We will be looking to finish the camp on with a solid performance against the U-18 national team and then we will head off back to the Dynamo!!
We scrimmaged the U-17 national team Saturday morning with two different line-ups for both halves. Pat and I were both in the first group, and came close to connecting on a corner kick for a goal.
Pat was jumping up and down waving his hands for the ball, because he was pretty confident he could outjump the young kid that was marking him. (This kid was probably only 5'7", so it was a slight mismatch with him marking our big MEATBALL center back!).
We won the game 7-1, with one of their kids scoring a pretty impressive volley off a cross. We had no training in the afternoon and had a chance to regenerate in the pool. Five players from camp left in the afternoon for the combine in Ft. Lauderdale to show their stuff in front of all the MLS coaches.
We want to wish them the best of luck in the upcoming draft, and who knows maybe one of them will end up in Houston!
Hey, Houston Dynamo Fans, its Stu and Pat again, but this time from sunny Florida on Eastern Standard time and not China on 12 hours ahead of our normal time. We also wanted to send a special shoutout to Brad Davis over there in L.A. We miss you too buddy, and thanks for the love in your blog. You must have been on the website a lot over the past few weeks checking for your picture and we are glad you have finally accomplished that by producing a blog from L.A! We love you brother, and a Big Hug from Pat Ianni who is waiting for you when we start pre-season next month!!
Anyways, back to business! Practice has been tough down here in Bradenton, with double days every day so far (much like the Senior team where Brad, Eddie, and Rico are) and yesterday we had a day that was solely devoted to fitness testing (FUN!!). Although the work has been tough, there has been a lot of good soccer played and we really feel the team is making some good progress.
Stu: This is Pat and I's third camp with the U23's and we are part of the "veteran" group in this camp. There are a lot of younger guys who are looking to make the jump from college to the pros this upcoming year. For most of them it is their first camp with this team and part of our responsibility as "veterans" is to pass down some of the rules, habits, etc. that have been enforced on the previous trips. So far, I think we have done a pretty good job!!
We are traveling as a team for the first two flights and then when we arrive in Los Angeles everyone has different connecting flights to their final destinations. I know Pat is staying in L.A. for a little while so he doesn't have another flight. (Lucky, lucky man!)
Pat: Hi Dynamo Fans. I hope you all had a great Christmas with your families and friends. I certainly had a nice break from soccer. I took advantage of the break to spend quality time with my family and girlfriend, woops fiance! Yes, it's a process getting used to that new term but I am really proud to be able to call Christine my fiance. Well, here we are again, Stu and I that is, back to work with some of our teammates from China as well as some new players, many of whom we have played with or against at some point in our young careers.
Stu: Congrats to Pat on his engagement and I wish him and Christine all the best! The fitness test yesterday wasn't as bad as we intially thought. The coaching staff flew in a Doctor from Germany to do the testing, that involved 30 yard sprints in the morning and then an endurance test in the afternoon. The first set of testing was on the track with three sensors that recorded times(basically your speed) and then after five sprints we went to the Doctor and he drew blood from our ear. We haven't received the results yet, but apparently Chris Seitz (goalie from Salt Lake) put a $5 wager on me being faster than Pat in the 30 yard sprint.
Pat: I'm looking forward to that five dollars from Chris Seitz. As for the afternoon session, we ran a lactic acid test that is commonly performed for professional soccer clubs in Germany as a way to measure one's ability to recover quickly (both in terms of the lactic acid that builds up in one's muscles and the lowering of one's heart rate). For this test, we ran three laps around a track four different times. The first one was a slow jog and they progressively became faster. After each run we got blood drawn from our ear as Stu mentioned before. The fifth and final run was actually four laps and was the fastest of them all. I would say that everyone did well, but I guess we don't really know until we get our results back. This morning we focused mainly on technical work for our warm up and tactical work in our playing as we are preparing for a game tomorrow against the U-17 National Team. I think we forgot to mention that we are staying at Bolliteri Academy, the home to the residency program for the U-17 National Team and a camp site for many MLS teams in preseason each year.
That's all from us. Check back with us in a couple days as we will keep you updated on what we can with our preparation for qualifying for the Olympics with the U23 National Team in March!!
Best,
Stu and Pat
