THE KREMLIN IN TURKEY      15th and 16th March 2010

The short time that we have been back in Norway, and then in Turkey has been an interesting few days.

On the 12th March, the day before we left for Turkey, Diana and our two roommates and I headed out to training as usual. We warmed up by doing a circle drill, which we always do. This drill involves using different techniques of passing the ball back to those standing on the outside of the circle, while the players in the middle do the work. It is a drill we have done many times before. However, on this occasion, D stepped wrongly and ended up fracturing her foot.

She has a break called a Jones fracture, a break I know all too well as I had one myself in 2002. A Jones fracture is when the break occurs in the fifth metatarsal, at the base of the small toe. It is in the mid-portion of the foot. So, she is currently walking round in a foot-to-knee cast, and she is working on her arm strength from all the crutching she has been forced to do.

On the 13^thMarch, D, I and most of the squad left for LSK Kvinner training camp in Turkey. In the past, the whole of the Topserrien league, leave for La Manga in Spain at this time of year, but thanks to budget cuts in women’s soccer funding, the trip was cancelled this year. Our team has been careful with their money though, and together with a few other teams from the league, and a team from Denmark, we have created our own training camp out here in Turkey.

We are staying in the city of Antalya, a city just north of Cyprus, not so very far from where we were before. We are on the coast, but I have yet to see it. However, I shall make sure to visit the coast today during some of our down time.

We arrived here at 3:00 am on the 14^th March, and everyone was looking and feeling awful. Even then though, we recognized that the hotel where we are staying is very weird. The hotel is called "the Kremlin Palace" and I am not lying when I say that it would not be out of place in Vegas, let alone Moscow. This hotel is in the middle of nowhere in Turkey.

This journal took longer than expected because the hotel internet service cut out for 24 hours. It turned out to be a good thing as now I can send a game report in, at the same time as the journal. Tonight we played Fløya, a Topserrien team, in our first match. We have one more game during the camp, and that will be against against Bromby (probably spelt wrong ), and then the training camp will come to a close.

We woke up this morning to a really strong wind, one of the worst possible things to face in a soccer game. I thought our team played really well against the driving wind though and we were very unlucky to go into half time down 1-0. Their score came thanks to a handball into the net off one of their players. We had some great chances to score ourselves, but when you don’t put good chances away, the whole complexion of the game changes.

In the second half we did not play well. We did not make use of the wind at our backs. We did not use the wind to our favour and we allowed them to dictate the pace and the tempo of the match. They scored again soon after the second half started, and this was how the game ended, 2-0 in the red for us.

Although I am disappointed about the result, I am also pleased about some of the play we strung together in the first period. We have MANY injured players at the moment, and we have to learn how to play together. I don’t mind losing pre season exhibition games. We just have to make sure we learn from them.