The adidas Timbers Alliance team has had some great experiences so far in Germany: training under Bayern Munich coaches, a visit to the FC Bayern Munich museum and a small-sided game against Team Italy. We've asked the players to document their trip in Germany. Here are their posts from Days 3 and 4.
adidas Timbers Alliance Team in Germany | Day 3: Tuesday, May 20
by Brandon Olvera and Chris Nicola
Today was day three in our incredible Münich trip. Having lost in ping pong last night, we all had to wear khaki pants and a polo to breakfast this morning. We definitely got some very funny looks from the other countries!
The morning training helped us interact with players and teams from other countries. The team that we were partnered up with was Thailand/Myanmar. It was fun and challenging to communicate with a team that spoke very little English. After our team ate lunch, we went on two of the Bayern Munich buses to tour Allianz Arena. We got to see the actual locker room of the first-team players. After, we went to the Bayern Munich museum. Right when we walked in to the museum all of our jaws dropped; trophies all around us, the Bayern Munich hall of fame and life size pictures of the first-team players. After the museum, we went to the fan shop. In the fan shop, everything had a Bayern Munich logo on it, even a dog bowl! After the fan shop we went back to the dorms to eat dinner. At dinner, Joe presented Coach Mike with a trophy for winning the previous night’s ping pong tournament. It will be passed on if anyone can wrestle the next tournament away from him.
When all the teams finished dinner, Italy invited us to play a friendly soccer game! It was the best experience seeing the Italian's style of play and having so much fun playing with another country.
adidas Timbers Alliance Team in Germany | Day 4: Wednesday, May 21
By Kevyn Lo and Dominic Fewel
Today in Munich, we started off with our typical morning breakfast. We all ate the food and then hung out in our rooms. Some of us went down to the gym and played a couple basketball games. Obviously, we conserved our energy for the training session we had coming soon. Sadly, it was our last training session of our time in Munich. We started off with a passing warm up. We quickly moved into playing a 4v4 plus one keeper each on a short field vs. the German team. We held our own against them, playing very evenly. This is what we did the rest of training. After training was over we got a team picture with the Bayern coaches. We headed back to the hotel and had our lunch. After lunch we headed out to our bus to tour Munich. We saw things like the first stadium in Munich. We stopped at a giant castle where we got out and took many pictures. We also rode the bus by the Olympic center. We saw many more cool places in Munich on this tour. After the tour, we went back to our dorms and then had a quick dinner. We then hung out until we had a team meeting about the tournament the next day.
