Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

;DOWNTIME 20th June 2008

I know that it is sometimes hard in Canada to receive news about what is happening on an overseas Women's soccer tour, so please forgive me for missing a journal yesterday on 19th June. I usually find that writing the journals is a good way to analyze and concentrate on games and preparation and even to think about team dynamics, but there are some days that I can't, or don't, feel like writing. Yesterday was one of these days and I felt really tired.

Also, nothing much happened. We had a workout at the gym in the morning, followed followed by an afternoon off to ourselves. I had a long nap, and managed somehow, to feel even less refreshed after waking up from it. I hate that. Then a group of us decided to call a cab and head off to a local market and to see some of the sights.

There wasn’t much for us to buy there, just piles and piles of clothes, and one of the shops was called "Riahn!" obviously a Korean translation of my name.

We did manage to buy some great T-shirts with some AMAZING slogans on them (for example "Pee all that you can pee."). These T-shirts and their slogans are something we have come to love about Asia and finding the most hilarious one is a bit of a competition within the team. Of course, there were sunglasses to try on as well.

This morning, Friday 20th June, has been a quiet one, with the usual breakfast with a Euro 2008 game on the TV. I think the Germans deserved the win over Portugal. No one on our team likes Ballack, so I spent much of the time cheering for him, pretending that I actually like him, just to be difficult. It was hard to continue supporting him throughout the game though, as he exaggerated more than one slight foul. This type of behaviour drives me mad! The Portuguese were a great group to watch, and I was sorry to see them knocked out. On this day, the Germans were fantastic and deserved to move ahead to the semis.

Training today was at 1:30 pm and it is a scorcher outside. Whoever started the rumour that it was going to be raining here for the next month was just a little off in their prediction. Ever since we had the downpour during the match against New Zealand we have had insanely hot days with blue(ish) skies overhead. I don’t love playing in rain, but I have found myself hoping we get a bit more of the wet stuff in the game tomorrow. I would try anything. just to get rid of some of the humidity.

After training, we initiated a few of our local Korean staff onto the team, which was so, so funny. All this initiation consists of is to make the newcomer spin around a ball ten times, then run to the penalty spot, and try to score a goal. It sounds easy enough, but once you have made yourself crazily dizzy from spinning round the ball, the whole exercise becomes quite the challenge. We had some great sports out today, and we all enjoyed the entertainment of our Korean security guards, the camera crew and the CSA delegate being welcomed into the National Team family.

The fun of the initiations got people in such a good mood that mischief was bound to follow. Amy Walsh managed to find herself a Peace Cup flag and persuaded D to get into it while the whole team threw her up into the air. This is easier to picture when one thinks of a child in the window of a burning building and firemen down below holding a net-like thing, or Inuit tossing a person in a blanket, but I am trying to give everyone a mental image here. At first, the whole episode involved just a bit of air time, as D was thrown up high.... but then, people became excited. By the time the camera crew discovered what we were doing, D was being thrown several metres into the air. One toss was so high that Randee Hermus herself had to put a stop the shenanigans. I enjoyed myself, but I have yet to ask D what she thought about her flying time.

Tonight will be spent re-hydrating after the copious amounts of water we sweated away during training. A few people have other T-shirt shopping excursions planned, but for the most part, time will be spent resting up for the finals tomorrow.