What a day we had in Melbourne at Future Baller with Emily, Chloe, Alex, Luis, Amy, Macca and Emma – being well and truly put through our paces at the Veneto Club.
After a welcome introduction we began with a warm up which was a mix of ball skills and footwork. Already we could see there were some players there of a really high standard looking to put in more hard work to keep improving. Then we played some fun games which included learning to understand some Spanish (thanks Luis!!), passing drills and testing our reflexes with a bit of dancing mixed in.
Splitting off into groups of about 14, which were allocated at registration, we started working on four different drills. One was a mix of attacking with a transition straight into defending, running on to a pass to take a shot then immediately trying to close down an opposing player – lots of sprinting! The next drill focused on attacking movement, trying to make space and create angles, combined with some defensive strategies including recovering the ball and playing through the midfield or wide. I really enjoyed the shooting drills – including taking a penalty against Emily – as well as some long range shots. We also played some small sided games to help work on touch, movement and importantly using our voices to call for the ball (an area i’m keen to work on!).
After that we had a good lunch of sandwiches, fruit and water and took the opportunity to top up our Game Face Pro sunscreen www.gamefacepro.com.au which I would recommend trying.
We were excited to be joined by special guest, Melbourne Victory and Matildas star Alex Chidiac and Harriett and I were lucky enough to be in Alex’s team for some fun activities and competitions – which included what was not my finest first touch (second time around, our team won the first race!) that mum managed to get on video!! All part of the learning experience.
The day finished off with large sided games where the coaches and Alex all joined in….. at one point I was trying to get the ball from Luis who decided it would be a good time to juggle it on his head, making that quite a challenge – impressive!
I am so grateful to have had the chance to attend Future Baller and can’t thank Emily and Chloe enough for taking the time to let me interview them https://youtu.be/DDXxStxUKRE (and Alex Williamson for organising) and would encourage everyone to consider attending a Future Baller session if they are lucky enough to have the opportunity. Maybe we can entice them down to Tasmania!
