Italian Home Cooking
It was an interesting day here in Rome. Tony Azevedo (our team captain) was awakened by a knocking on his hotel door at 5 am. It turned out to be four police officers who said that there were some problems with immigration and Tony would have to go down to the police station with them. As it turned out, he talked them out of going with them at 5 am and agreed to go down to the police station after our morning training. Obviously, when I found out about this I was a bit concerned and upset. 
Our training was set for 9 – 11 am at the competition pool. The first hour was with Germany and then we were to be on our own for the second hour. Our bus arrived at 8:45 and when we arrived at the pool we were informed that they had had changed our training time and we were now suppose to be in from 8:30 – 10:30 with only one hour in the competition pool and the other hour in the warm up pool. Apparently our host had been called last night at 10 pm but had never informed us of any changes.
After practice, Tony went down to the police station with Ryan Brown and the head of the USA delegation here. As it turned out - they had Tony sign a piece of paper that appeared to be some bogus document and he was done. It appears that they are doing whatever they can do throw us off balance. I think the guys rolled with it pretty good and if anything they all are saying that they would expect no less from the Italians. I believe that we are maturing. We are becoming mentally tougher. In the past this is the stuff that would have really got under our skin. It nice to see the guys just brush it off.
Training went well today. We also had training on our own tonight at a pool just outside the city and we spent the time walking through our 5 man defense. Once again, the 6 on 5 and the 5 man defense (man down) will be big keys as we get into this tournament.
Today was our first look at the competition venue. It was very impressive. They put a temporary pool inside a tennis stadium. The water polo venue seats 5,000 spectators and it is very nicely done. I have attached a couple of pictures so that you can get an idea of what it looks like. Regardless of all the home cooking (changes in schedule, etc.) going on it was exciting to be at the pool and visualize what it will be like on Monday night when we play Italy. When I close my eyes I can see a lot of Italian fans going home disappointed that evening. Anyway, we will see what they have up their sleeve for tomorrow.
To close out a good day we watched the USA vs. Italy game from the Olympics last summer. It was fun to watch and it definitely reminded us all of what a special experience we went through together last year. Here we are one year later – working together to create another great team experience. Look out world - here we come.
See you at the pool.
Coach
P.S. The food has been pretty darn good here – so not all the home cooking is bad.
Our training was set for 9 – 11 am at the competition pool. The first hour was with Germany and then we were to be on our own for the second hour. Our bus arrived at 8:45 and when we arrived at the pool we were informed that they had had changed our training time and we were now suppose to be in from 8:30 – 10:30 with only one hour in the competition pool and the other hour in the warm up pool. Apparently our host had been called last night at 10 pm but had never informed us of any changes.
After practice, Tony went down to the police station with Ryan Brown and the head of the USA delegation here. As it turned out - they had Tony sign a piece of paper that appeared to be some bogus document and he was done. It appears that they are doing whatever they can do throw us off balance. I think the guys rolled with it pretty good and if anything they all are saying that they would expect no less from the Italians. I believe that we are maturing. We are becoming mentally tougher. In the past this is the stuff that would have really got under our skin. It nice to see the guys just brush it off.
Training went well today. We also had training on our own tonight at a pool just outside the city and we spent the time walking through our 5 man defense. Once again, the 6 on 5 and the 5 man defense (man down) will be big keys as we get into this tournament.
Today was our first look at the competition venue. It was very impressive. They put a temporary pool inside a tennis stadium. The water polo venue seats 5,000 spectators and it is very nicely done. I have attached a couple of pictures so that you can get an idea of what it looks like. Regardless of all the home cooking (changes in schedule, etc.) going on it was exciting to be at the pool and visualize what it will be like on Monday night when we play Italy. When I close my eyes I can see a lot of Italian fans going home disappointed that evening. Anyway, we will see what they have up their sleeve for tomorrow.
To close out a good day we watched the USA vs. Italy game from the Olympics last summer. It was fun to watch and it definitely reminded us all of what a special experience we went through together last year. Here we are one year later – working together to create another great team experience. Look out world - here we come.
See you at the pool.
Coach
P.S. The food has been pretty darn good here – so not all the home cooking is bad.
posted by Dr. Terry Schroeder at
5:43 PM
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