It was a great match that sums up the progress that the boys made during our trip: ADO were actually the better side and typical of the first division academies that we saw over here—bigger, better footwork, better passing, very fast to the ball.   They did control much of the game, but our boys played tough and kept it even. When the clock wound down, we were tied and the match went to penalties, three each.    (I promised drama and I’m sticking to it.) 

 

They went first and put it into the left corner. Our first penalty was stopped, but the keeper was called for coming off the line early, and our boy coolly nailed his second attempt. They clanged their second penalty off the cross bar and we made ours. (Note: it is considered impolite to cheer a missed penalty kick unless it is stopped by the keeper—especially so if the kicker in question is 12 yrs old. I learned this the hard way.)

 

The boys erupted when our third PK went in. They were really, really happy about the win and ended up in a big black and white dog pile in front of the goal. 

 

Off we went to the main field for closing ceremonies, where the boys received their trophy—surprisingly large and heavy, at which point we turned to each other and said, “um, does anybody have room for that in their bags?” The entire presentation was in Dutch, but we could pretty much figure out what was going on. The only English came when our boys accepted the trophy with a gracious “We would like to thank our hosts for this trophy and a great tournament. We have had a great time here in Holland.”

 

So that’s it: seventeen games and three workouts in nine days. Fourteen of those games against first division professional academies. Six wins, five draws, and six losses against consistently good (and older) teams. (By way of comparison, that kind of point production--23 points from 17 games—would have put you in the top half of the Premiership last year…WELL ahead of Bolton…)

 

I have to say it again: our hosts have been great to us, and the parents and boys from the other teams very warm. Our boys have been changed by this—the interactions, the perspective, the challenge, the intensity of the matches, the time spent working together. We are so pleased that they’ve had this experience.   Ready for the stat of the week? -- first tournament result: 1W-3L-2D; final tournament result: 4W-1L-2D.    My son summed it up when I asked him how he liked the trip:  “It was great!”     [pause]     “I’m tired.”    

Lights out at 10:30pm. The bus to the airport leaves at 6:30am tomorrow.

 

Day 9:

http://www.victoria1893.nl/Wedstrijdprogramma_2008.home&su_subonderdeel_id=693&pa_pagina_id=1347 - Tournament Web Site - Group D  - Tournament Web Site - Group D

Today was the first day of The Good Old Tournament, hosted by HC and FC Victoria in Hilversum. Our hosts are very gracious and are taking excellent care of us.   This tournament is bigger than the Jeugd Cup and more like a Sixty Acres tournament. There are three age groups and about fifty different teams participating here, with food stalls, espresso stands, play areas for the kids, etc.   Also here, of course, is a great clubhouse with a big balcony that overlooks the fields. (Like the others, this one serves beer.  While we think it is extremely unlikely that King County would ever give Crossfire a liquor permit, we are designing it into our dream plans for Sixty Acres anyway…)   What this clubhouse has that the others do not, though, are pictures of the club dating back to the early 1900s. (poetically just to the right of the Playstations that are set up for the kids to play between matches). Lots of color and lots of people. Like the Jeugd Cup, the brackets include teams here that associated with famous Dutch and Danish First Division or German Bundesliga teams—Sparta Rotterdam, Werder Bremen, Ajax, PSV Eindhoven…

We had three games today, which together pretty much some up what the boys are learning over here: we played a very solid first game against a very good RBC team, but lost 2-0; we came out slowly against a team that we should have beaten handily, and drew 1-1; we played hard against the host team (first place in our pool), that has older, HUGE kids, and were clearly a better team—but beat them 2-0.   The boys are learning that the best team doesn’t always win—but the one that works hardest usually does.   Our team is generally a less skillful than the European teams, but they are in many ways more athletic; when they come to play, they’re doing very well. 

They need to come to play every game though. The parents have noticed that the games are all very aggressive and we think it’s for two reasons: first, the kids are taught to play harder. We watched some U8s and they were slide tackling, slowing the other players down by holding their shirts, disrupting free kicks…at eight years old. Second, playing for a professional club is a huge honor, but it’s also a lot of pressure. The kids represent the program.   They wear the same kit as their club’s first team. I think the Werder Bremen kids were sponsored by Citibank.   They are being groomed for a professional career, but they can also be released from the club at any time and be replaced by another twelve year old.   They bring their “A” game every single time.   Playing against these teams has been a real blessing for our boys. We’re seeing good team after good team over here, and are having to work very hard—but it looks like the boys are getting used to playing at a faster, more physical pace.  Just like last night, the boys are exhausted from all the soccer.   The bus was quiet, dinner was subdued, and everybody was out cold by 10:30.

Day 8:

So yesterday I said that Vitesse Arnhem was “the best ’96 team*** in Holland” but didn’t go back and explain the “***”.     The age groups over here are different. In Washington, like in England, the soccer calendar runs from August to July, so a U12 team has boys that turn twelve years old no earlier than August in a given year. Here, they run on a calendar year: Jan to Dec. We are typically playing “’96” teams, so to net it out: most of their boys are already twelve; most of ours won’t turn twelve until 2009.   Everything that Crossfire is accomplishing over here, they’re doing against teams whose kids are a full year older than a majority of our boys.

 

Other than that: no soccer to report today. We checked out of the hotel in Vianen and moved to a hostel in Bunnik—a small village east of Utrecht—in preparation for the next tournament tomorrow. A Belgian club is also here—a teen team, their ’96 team and a younger one. The hostel itself is in a beautiful location, set on a small river with the woods behind us. The main building is an old manor house, built in the 1700s (older than the US…), and we pass through a small gate house over another canal to get to our rooms.   Across the river is farmland and hedges as far as we can see.   Since it’s a hostel, all the rooms have 6+ bunk beds, which the boys think is cool.  

 

We had lunch in the hotel’s cafe right on the river—the boys all ordered pfankoeken (sp?), which are Dutch pancakes. I’m guessing they were thinking Denny’s-grand-slam-breakfast because they had some strange faces when the plates came out.   Three things are different about the whole pancake thing: 1) they come with syrup that looks like maple, but is actually more like molasses or dark karo syrup; 2) they come covered in various things like powdered sugar, fruit (ie apple or banana), ham, bacon, cheese... 3) they have the consistency of thick crepes.   This totally threw the boys off…burgers are back into first choice on the menu.   One group that DID like the pancakes: the goats and the pig to which Neil fed the leftovers.   They live right next to the café, a little further up river and behind a fence with a big Dutch sign that probably says “Please don’t feed pancakes to the goats and the pig”.

Dinner was a different story altogether: a good pasta buffet in the old manor house. Best team meal of the trip, and the boys snarfed down more food than we’ve seen them eat all week.  We retired to the rooms at about 9pm and the boys played a lot of poker. Hold ‘em is the game of choice and somebody (don’t know who exactly) brought real chips.   An eleven year old bringing poker chips on a trip to Europe…go figure… :)

Lights out at 10pm, and the whole team was asleep by 10:30. However, one parent down the hall reported that the Belgian U8 team (!) was giggling and having a pillow fight at 2am.

 

Day 7:

Ok, for any parents that sent spending money over with their kids…it’s probably gone.   We started the day with a great tour of the FC Utrecht stadium, guided by the club’s officers.    FC Utrecht is in the Dutch first division (playing against AJAX, PSV Eindhoven, etc) and they rebuilt their stadium three years ago. It is a beautiful ball park with 54,000 seats rising pretty steeply up from the pitch—a big sea of red with white seats strategically placed to spell out “FC Utrecht”.   The seats themselves were pretty much standard issue down by the field, but the higher we got, the more plush the seats got. The upper ones were a bit like big red lazy-boys, and since this weekend is the opening weekend for the season, workers were going around hand washing all the expensive seats with big sponges.

One thing stuck out about the sections: a 1,000 seat section for the visiting fans, surrounded by chain link fences, netting and plexiglass. The Dutch fans are fiercely loyal to their teams and apparently most stadiums segregate home/visitor’s sections to keep people from throwing things, scuffling, etc.

The boys were shown around pretty much the whole stadium: referees’ room, guest and home changing rooms, medical room, sponsors’ boxes, team offices, “friends of FC Utrecht” suite, the director’s suite, etc.   For anybody that is interested you can rent the “friends” suite—which looks like a nicely appointed small pub with windows overlooking the field and with all the Heineken you can drink—for 4,500 euros ($6,650 USD) a game.    Not surprisingly, while the guest dressing room is pretty spartan—lockers, showers, and a hypnotic red and white tile pattern on the walls--the home side’s was very well equipped including massage tables and what looked like a 16 person oval Jacuzzi tub.   (funny thing about the tub: it was surrounded by full sized, hard plastic shapes—a bit like somebody’s art project—including things like a teddy bear, some bottles, a vacuum cleaner (?!)…the boys got into the tub for a picture and one of them banged their head on a red plastic TV…)

 

Oh, the “spending money” part: the club was kind enough to open their team store 90 minutes early, just for us. In retrospect, we now understand how they paid for the stadium… Crossfire is walking around Holland in pretty much nothing but red and white FC Utrecht t-shirt, jerseys, and jackets.

 

In the afternoon, we hopped on the bus and headed about forty minutes east to play a “mini-tournament” in Arnhem. One club wasn’t able to make it in from Germany, so we played a longer friendly (35 min halves) against Vitesse Arnhem’s ’96 team. As we pulled into the sports complex, we learned that all of Vitesse Arnhem—from the professional squad down to the youngest academy team—trains at the Netherlands Olympic training center. As we waited to be let into our changing room, we watched their First Division team practice. Lots of wide-eyed 11 year olds on our side…

To make a long story short: our match was tied 2-2 at halftime, but Vitesse Arnhem scored four in the second half to beat us.   The longer version is a bit more interesting though…   In Neil’s opinion, Vitesse Arnhem is “the best U12 team I have ever seen”. They are also in fact the best ’96 team*** in Holland, having won the Dutch national championship last year.   Every boy was fast to the ball, and had complete composure and great footwork. They were really fun to watch (especially since we were watching with the First Division team who came down to check out the game.)

The Arnhem coach handed us a great, although somewhat sideways, compliment: “I didn’t expect an American team to be any good, but our games are usually over by halftime.”   Vitesse Arnhem is a truly exceptional team, and would probably beat us 99 times out of 100…but the fact that the boys played them even for about 40 minutes is very, very cool.

Day 6:

It’s been about 65 or 70 degrees here, and it rains a lot, but not like Seattle’s gray drizzle. When it rains, it chucks down for 15 minutes or so, and then the sun comes back out for a while. It goes back and forth like this all day.  

Today we had another light training session over at Veerwijk, and again the boys learned a few new passing and footwork drills. A few Veerwijk boys participated in their new Crossfire training shirts and everybody had a really good time.    We continue to appreciate how friendly these local clubs are being to us.

The main event today was a friendly against the Amsterdam Football Club (AFC). Here are a few things that you need to know about AFC: 1) the club has been around for over 110 years; 2) it has a big plot of land with perfect fields and a big clubhouse (sponsored by Tommy Hilfiger) smack dab in the middle of a fashionable business section of Amsterdam (read: $$); 3) AFC has EIGHT U12 teams.

We were playing team #2 of 8—called their Competitive AB team.   (I think it was also called their A2 team.)   Today, we all saw why we are here in the first place. In less than a week the boys have become better players and a better team by playing a lot of games against these types of teams. After nine games in five days, they are reacting faster, keeping shape, pressuring the ball, thinking better…it is REALLY fun to watch. The final score was 8-1. We were awesome. AFC were shocked. Right after the match, the AFC coach called the coach of #1 U12 team, who is checking his schedule to see if he can play us on Friday…

After that we started making our way back to Vianen (about 30 miles). A few folks took a detour on the way to the train and bought some AFC and AJAX kit, and then we hopped on the train south. My group of boys unanimously voted for pizza and we picked up a few slices at the train station.    The boys are working hard and are a little tired after the last few days, and the hotel was as quiet as a mouse after about 9pm. 

Day 5:  

This morning our boys participated in a practice session just over the canal in Nieuwegen, hosted by the local club called Veerwijk and led by their coach.   Nice light workout, with a couple of new passing drills and a lot of volleys. We returned to the club later that afternoon to play a friendly with one of their youth teams.   The Crossfire kids were in pretty good form before the game and were very relaxed. 

Two things stuck out prior to the friendly: first, the opposing team was made up of a pretty diverse bunch--some 13 year olds, a few of which were huge (over 5’ 10”…no lie…) and a mixture of other ages.   The second thing was that Neil commented before the game, “you guys are getting a little cocky” and pretty much said that they would get their behinds beaten in the match if they didn’t get serious.   Turned out to be prophetic.  

We were the better side, but came out slow. Veerwijk scored two goals in the first ten minutes before we got it together. It was a really well played, tight game after that—and it ended up 3-1.   Good lesson.

Other than that, it was a relatively light news day, so I thought I’d pass along some thoughts on two things: clubhouses and bitteballen.

 

Every club over here has a great clubhouse—no matter how big or small the team.   Changing rooms, kitchen facilities, a bar, offices, main rooms with trophies and pictures of old teams… The club today is tiny by Dutch standards, but the boys still had their own changing rooms, and our hosts were still able to entertain 50 or so people in their main room with beers, sodas, and ham and cheese sandwiches after our match.   We’ve agreed to defer trying to find a Crossfire team song in order to focus our attention on how to influence LWYSA to build us a clubhouse…

Now…Bitteballen. During the tournament, one of the parents brought back three baskets of bitteballen during lunch.   A bitteball (singular?) is an inch-sized fried ball that looks a lot like a small falafel.   About ten people took simultaneous bites and about two seconds later ten people spit out those bites and said either “arrrrgh!” or “bleeccch!”   Turns out that a bitteball is a massively popular, but acquired, taste.   After some research we found out that it’s basically “meat”, flour, and butter blended into a runny paste, then deep fried. The outer part gets falafel-ish, but the inside remains runny paste.   We also found out that “meat” might mean “beef”, but it also might mean “loser of the Preakness.”   Nasty.

 

I bring this up today because after our evening match most restaurants were closed, so we all went to McDonalds for dinner. They had an interesting burger-looking-thing on the menu called a McKroket for only two euros. Turned out to be a bitteball the size of a Quarter Pounder.

 

Day 4:

We didn’t have anything scheduled for this morning and afternoon and most of the families took advantage of that by either sleeping in, or sightseeing, or both.    A group went into Amsterdam and walked the city, toured the canals, and shopped.   Gorgeous city and everybody speaks better English than most of us.    A good deal of time was spent trying to buy Ajax and PSV Eindhoven kit.    On the way home the train passed the Ajax Stadium that we are visiting later this week.

We regrouped and hopped on the bus at 6:30 to go play the FC Utrecht U12 team. (We needed to take out a little revenge for our loss to the U13 team in the tournament. Neil thinks that the boys played perhaps their best match ever as a team. The final score (we won 1-0) didn’t reflect the actual game.   Neil knew that the boys were playing well because our locker rooms were right next to Utrecht’s, and the coach’s shouts could be pretty clearly heard…

For a youth football facility, the stadium was pretty unbelievable. Turns out that somebody donated a small golf course to Utrecht for their youth program.    The main stadium holds about 1,500 people. We played on the smaller field—only four changing rooms and about 500 seats… The coach, not too happy, said a terse, “Great game. You have a wonderful team and some wonderful players.” Hate to say it but we had to settle for McDonalds for dinner—nothing else open at 10pm.

Day 3:

The weather’s turned a bit and the tournament started in a cool rain, but that didn’t impact the pace at all.   We played (and also watched) a very good set of games today.   OK, so we have a bit of a bad news, good news situation here. We ended up the day with a win and two losses—all really solid. We won our first game of the morning against the host team—Nieuwegen—and dropped the next two against Heerenveen and Utrecht (all Dutch teams). The boys continued to play hard and fast—and at this level any kind of mistake is punished. So at the end of the tournament we ended up with one win, two draws and three losses. Not a bad result at all against the Europeans. In fact, when we spent time with the Scottish parents later that evening, they said that this is the one tournament that they go to every year. This one is the one to be at because of the quality of play.

 

But… it turns out—much to our surprise—that this wasn’t actually a U12 tournament as advertised.   We were only one of two teams here that are actually U12—just Ajax and us. Fourteen of the teams—including winners Groningen and runners-up Glasgow--were U13, and Nieuwegen was U14. The tournament director had no idea that we were U12, and said that our play was exceptional.

It was a fantastic experience for the boys. To be waiting to kickoff our first game and to hear “on field 1: Ajax vs Groningen or “on field 3: Glasgow vs Cologne” was pretty cool.

 

The closing ceremonies were a lot of pomp and circumstance. Each team was called up individually to receive their trophies and some of the host club’s past soccer players and the team’s president co-presented the awards.   You all missed a great look: after the first team was called to the podium, they passed a microphone to the team captain who gave a small thank-you speech in Dutch.   From across the field, we saw Mitch and Emilio spin towards each other and mouth “we have to give a speech?!?” Mitch stepped up and gave a very gracious “thank you” to our hosts.

In the evening we ended up spending time with the Scots—the boys running between various rooms and the parents down in the hotel lounge.   The Ranger’s fans, knowing that we had no song, tried to teach us a few of their songs.   “Bouncy, bouncy” and “The Bluebells are Blue” came first, and then they rewrote a Glasgow favorite and presented us with “We will follow Crossfire.”      Lights out came a bit later tonight because we have a light day tomorrow, and the boys earned it over the last few days.

Day 2:

Everybody was downstairs for 8am breakfast and we hit the bus at 9 for opening ceremonies.   The MC started his introduction at the center of the main pitch, and he spoke mostly in Dutch to introduce each team.    He turned to English though to introduce Crossfire, and to thank us for making this a “truly intercontinental tournament”.

 

The boys were pretty nervous because the European teams were clearly very good, and the tournament is pretty serious and very professional.   Nervous or not, they came out hard.   We led off with Bolton and for the entire game—literally--every boy on both sides of the ball flew in and challenged everything.   Great passing, aggressive defense, constant challenges… Bolton got four shots off against us all game.     The other two games were played at the same speed and at the end of the day—between the soccer, the jet lag, and the sun—the boys were exhausted.

We ended up with two draws with Bolton and Waaldijk, and a loss to FC Twente/Heracles, the winner of Group B—which put us in the middle of our group and set up three matches tomorrow.   The parents are pretty pleased for the boys. They have travelled a long way to face some tough opponents—and have shown that they can run with some of the better teams in Europe.

After the matches we went to another hosted dinner and sat next to the Glasgow Rangers. Probably wouldn’t surprise anybody to find out that the boys ended up comparing Scottish v American “six packs” and had a few arm wrestling matches.   The Rangers kept breaking into their team song, “We are the People”. (Some of us are jealous and agree that we need to find a song of our own.)    As I write this, there is a lot of tough negotiation going on in the hotel: the boys are armed with last year’s jerseys, pins, some crossfire tee shirts…and are trying to trade for Rangers game jerseys.

We’re here!   It took a little longer to get to Amsterdam because of some thunderstorms on the way—but everybody is really excited to be in the Netherlands.   Lots of droopy eyes because pretty much nobody slept on the flight.   We got to the hotel at about 10:30am (1:30am at home) and even with a good dose of jet lag; there was a great buzz in the lobby, especially because we arrived at the same time as the Glasgow Rangers’ academy team.

We’re staying at a hotel in a village called Vianan, about 7 miles south of the sports complex and about a half hour southeast of Amsterdam.    The hotel “buzz” wore off in about a half hour as everybody collectively realized, “man…are we tired…” and disappeared to our various rooms for a few hours rest.

The tournament bus picked us up and we went over to the football complex so that the boys could take a look around and work their legs out. It is a great facility. Big clubhouse with stadium seating. Four professional pitches that are perfectly cut and flat as pancakes. The whole complex is decked out in team and sponsor banners.   We looked up as the bus pulled in and saw something very cool: there on six flagpoles at the center of the complex were the flags of Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Scotland, and the United States—for each of the nations represented at the United Jeugd Cup.     (We found out that “jeugd” is pronounced “yeurrggggh’d” in Dutch…but haven’t been able to actually say it correctly.)  Our hosts prepared a great spaghetti and salad dinner and afterwards we retired back to Vianen.   Lights out at 10pm.

 

 Crossfire ’96 Holland Tour 8/2008                    

 

 

Q&A:

Why are you going to Europe at BU12, why not wait until the boys are older? Answer: Crossfire plans to be sending our BU12 and BU14 teams to European summer tournaments each year. This allows our players to experience profession Academy teams BEFORE the top players are identified and moved into the professional (paid) player teams.

 

Since the tournaments play up to three days per day, is the team taking additional players? Answer: Yes, Since Europe uses a calendar year; players born in 1996 make up the B96 team. This has enabled the team to have players from the BU13A, BU13 Black, and BU11 A teams that were born in 1996 or earlier. Similar to the ODP calendar.

 

How to the teams you are playing differ from Crossfire teams? Answer: In these countries soccer is the primary sport. Players do not have choices like baseball, football, and lacrosse in their communities.

 

How much do the parent’s players pay to be on the teams that you are playing? Answer: The teams we are playing are all part of professional clubs.   Many have are over 50 years old and their own stadiums that seat up to 15,000 or larger. If you make the team, players do not pay for coaching, uniforms, shoes, or travel expenses. Players are easily moved on and off the team. Many players come from mid to lower income economic situations.