Peter Sanger, a senior on the 2010 Milwaukee men's soccer team, will be blogging all season long on the UWM website. Today is his second blog entry.
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As we creep closer and closer to September 1st, the anticipation is definitely growing. Since my last post, we started Coaches Preseason and the three-a-days have now come and gone. Having only done two-a-days in the past, this preseason has really been a full emersion of soccer.
Each morning begins with the alarm going off and wondering where the night went. Following that, you crawl out of bed and make your way over to Engelmann, where the coaches have provided us with some light breakfast food to get you through the morning session. The potential treatment session with our head trainer John Ochsenwald is thrown in there too before you even get underway with any soccer. A short jog over to Shorewood High School around 9:30am gets your legs warmed and we usually the next hour and a half is spent refining the technical aspects to our game. Crossing, finishing, passing, dribbling; all areas are covered. Next, lunch is delivered to the locker room from either Qdoba, Noodles or Jimmy Johns is usually on tap to refuel our bodies with some much needed energy. I usually spend the next hour off passed out on the couch in the locker room, only to wake up for the afternoon session at 2:00pm. I look forward to the afternoon sessions though, because the majority of it is pure playing soccer. From small-sided to full field 11v11 games, the quality of play is improving daily and it really gets me excited to get our season going. Following the completion of the afternoon session, we usually take a ride over to local Downer restaurant VIA for some delicious pasta and pizza. With an evening fitness session looming, it’s always tough to know when to cut yourself off at the dinner table. The wait for the 8:00 p.m. fitness session is pretty painful, you don’t know exactly what’s coming, but you know it’s going to be painful. Upon completing the final team activity of the night, you just about have enough energy to crawl back to your apartment, house, dorm, etc., to crash for the night until you start it all back up again the next morning…
Tonight finally brings our first real opportunity to showcase all of the hard work we’ve been putting in since the beginning of August. Convincing wins over the Alumni and Whitewater were steps in the right direction, but the hunger to test ourselves against another fit, well prepared, Division I team is at an all-time high.
Marquette is one of the biggest names on the schedule every year, as we prepare to do battle for the Milwaukee Cup. Unfortunately, this season we’ll be playing away for the second year in a row, but hoisting the cup on their field will make the victory that much sweeter. Thus, I implore any of you who read this to make your way down to Valley Fields for a 7:05 p.m. kick-off to the 2010 season for the UWM Men’s soccer team.
Joga Bonito
