Monthly newsletter - July 2023
Hi all,
Quite a lot has happened in the last month: we’ve run our first week of the holiday camp, the Women's World Cup has started, more signings and rumoured signings and more - so let’s get into it.
I’m taking a break…
After 20 or so years of playing for a team every year I have decided to take a break from playing (for a while at least). I don’t see this as a negative or sad, one of the main reasons for this is so that I can focus more on the coaching, something that I absolutely love! This means I’m a little more flexible for one to ones and I can put more focus into the holiday camps and hopefully bring back term-time group sessions too.
I’ll be spending my spare time trying to emulate Tour de France riders, minus the incredible fitness…
First week of our football camp done
After a great first week of the holiday camp, where we had the typical English summertime weather, I’m already looking forward to the next one! We still have space on the next two weeks (Monday 14th - Friday 18th Aug & Tuesday 29th Aug - Friday 1st Sep) - click here to book your space now.
What I’m liking at the moment
Let’s start with the Women’s World Cup.
The two favourites have started well; England and USA both winning 2/2, while Germany, my pre tournament dark horse to win it all, surprisingly lost to Columbia - I’ll link to Colombia's first goal at the bottom of the blog - it’s a stunner!
I’d like to touch on injuries for a moment… Kiera Walsh picked up what looked like an ACL injury which, after having a scan, turns out that while still somewhat serious, thankfully isn’t an ACL injury. Many female players have spoken out about the lack of research into injuries in the women’s game - in December 2022, 5 of the 20 female Ballon D’Or players were out with ACL injuries, I could only speculate in saying that if that was in the same in the men's game that something would be done pretty quickly….
Many of the Prem teams have gone over the USA to compete in the inaugural ‘Premier League Summer Series’ and I would say it was a big success… it was a good chance to see how some of the teams might fare this season. One team I am very excited to watch is Brighton - De Zerbi has done an incredible job and the all seem to have really bought in to his style of play. Another team I think could do really well this season are Aston Villa - the signing of Moussa Diaby could prove to be one of the signing of the season! The other great thing about the Summer Series is the player a ref cams, it’s great to see a first person perspective!
Finally, Mbappe… numbers seem to have just gone out of the window when you are talking about players going to Saudi now; 700 million euros for a one season deal. At what point is enough money enough? I mean, what is the difference in him earning 50 million a season and 500 million a season? And, before you say ‘450 million’, I would ask you what can you buy with 500 million that you can’t with 50? Surely things like legacy and competition should be more important to a player who some regard as the best in the world.
Worth a watch
As mentioned above - this goal by Colombian player Linda Caicedo is ridiculous! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGObrEOiB3g
Great view of Yuri Tielemans ‘player cam’ during a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2K-oDLfOiA
Thanks for reading,
Jesse