Melbourne Day 1

Monday, August 25, 3pm local time Melbourne

Our flight from Los Angeles left at 10:30PM on Friday night. On the flight were US Revolution members Jay Levesque (Baltimore/Washington Eagles), Zachary Weaver (Minnesota Freeze), Jon Loring (Philadelphia Hawks), Dustin Jones (Florida Redbacks), and trainer Steve Budrick. All excited to get going, the flight took off on time. I luckily fell asleep for the first 10 hours of a 12 hour flight.

The layover in Auckland was brief, enough to get a good stretch before jumping the four hour flight to Melbourne. Meeting up in Auckland to join on the flight were Danny Hansen (Minnesota Freeze), Jason Becker (Minnesota Freeze), Jeff Persson (Nashville Kangaroos), and Brett “Viking” Ullman (San Diego Lions). Once again flight on time and no problems.

We landed in Mebourna around 9:30 and headed to customs. Danny decided to buy a camera at duty free and tried taking some shots in the customs line. He was swarmed by officials within seconds and taken to the ground. Ok, not really, but he had to delete the pictures. Jay, afraid he would loose his beef jerky (due to strict customs/import laws in Australia) forced down a whole bag of jerky in 5 minutes. It was his third breakfast.

Coach Rob Perry met us all at the airport, loaded us onto our bus and off to the hotel we went. Most of the players had already arrived. We had enough time to grab our Revo bags and swag before a 12noon team meeting. Lunch, consisting of sandwiches, went down fast.

At 2pm we walked to the Telstra Dome to watch St Kilda and Adelaide play. It was a good tight first quarter before St Kilda put the pressure on and kicked many unanswered goals. Footy over here is much different than what is playing it in the US. Well, not different, but the players are all hughly skilled and the ball goes exactly where they want it too. Thus the game is much crisper. Disposals are on the mark 70% of the time. There are multiple supporters around the ball at all times, kicks are on the mark most of the time, and handballs are fast and many. What one would think would be a short kick is a long handball and off they go running. I’m used to the ball on the ground a lot more which makes the game more physical.

Slept came fast at 8pm. Luckily slept through the night till 6:30. Team breakie and then off to practice at 8am. Practice was two hours long and very focused and intense. We have a lot of experienced players here to guide the 16 International Cup rookies. The Revo’s are lead by Donnie Lucero (San Diego Lions). Its nerve racking for myself as a rookie – many questions come to mind (am I good enough?, have I trained right?, what will Denmark be like on Wednesday for our first game?). At this level, the game is very mental as well. At 3:30 today we meet up for a light run and stretch. Team meeting afterwards to discuss strategy. Tomorrow will be another practice with hitting as we prepare for our first match Wednesday against Denmark.