video highlights from game 3

Here is the link to the highlight video from our last game, when I scored!  I am number 11 in red.

Highlight Video

I would like you all to notice the high quality sound of the inspirational song as we walk onto the field... if any of you have seen the movie "Victory"... I felt like I was a part of that movie.  Enjoy!! HA

3rd Game

Because I know most of you are itching to hear how the game went I will first give you a recap of the game and then I will get into what was more interesting to me than the game… our travel experience. We won 3-0 and I scored all 3 goals.  It was really exciting.  We played the same team that we played in our last game, FC Klubanochka. The field was a lot bigger than our field, which I think suited our style of play much more than a small field.  The first two goals were header goals and the last was off a long ball that I was able to beat the goalie with my first touch and had an open goal to pass into.  It was really exciting.  I only played about 70 minutes this game, which was a good break because we have our next game on Monday in the Russian Cup again!!

But, now to the more interesting stuff… our travel experience… So, we played Thursday at 4 and here was our travel itinerary for that…. Again, I feel quite deceived by the information I received about the travel time because I thought it was a 13 hour train ride… it was actually 19 hours.

We left Voronezh at 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon.  We got to the train station where we were given our compartment assignments and a bag of random food to share between the other person we were sharing a compartment with.  I was sharing with Simone, the Brasilian girl.  We were assigned to beds 26 and 28… so when we got there we were delighted to find we had the top two bunks over two elderly Russian women (Babushkas) who had been traveling for quite sometime already, we could tell by the pungent, stifling aroma coming from the compartment. 

For our pregame meal we were given some ramen noodles and bread, a whole cucumber and tomato each, a piece of cheese, and some salami.  Luckily for me Simone didn’t like cucumbers or tomatoes so I ate hers and brought a yogurt.  So my pregame dinner was 2 cucumbers, 2 tomatoes, a piece of cheese and a yogurt (apparently, it worked wonders!). 

We got our beds all made up and tried to fall asleep in our little area.  We arrived at 630 AM on Thursday.  Upon waking, the only reason I knew we were still in Russia was because of the abundance of patched together houses, fenced in and broken buildings, trash on the ground and unpaved roads, other than that I would have thought I had arrived in some beach town. We woke up to 85 degree, humid weather.  It was like we left winter and arrived in summer.  All of the plants had bloomed and it was sunny and warm.  We got off the bus at 6:30 AM with sleep lingering heavily in our eyes and checked into a hotel for the day.  We had a bite of breakfast (yogurt) and went to our rooms to get some sleep (without being rocked awake every hour at train stops). We slept until about 12 in the afternoon and then woke up to get some lunch (yogurt) and get ready for our game at 4. 

At this point I had some coffee to ensure my eyes wouldn’t close as we left for the game… Then we got on a hot bus and left for the game.  In a large bus we drove down some tiny and bumpy dirt roads to get to a small hidden field, which turned out to be the WRONG field.  So, we had to get back on the hot bus and drive to the other side of town to make it to the right field with about 45 minutes left before the game.  We rushed to get ready and warm up.  Then we proceeded to dominate and win 3-0 to turn around get back on the bus. 

This time getting back to the hotel was even MORE of a nightmare than the ride there… the traffic was so bad that we literally moved 2 blocks in 30 minutes.  The bus was so hot and we were already so tired from the travel and game, plus we had to get back for our train ride home… so, we actually got off the bus with all of our gear and got on the street train car that was PACKED with people.  We took the train car about 10 stops forward and then got off on a street that didn’t have many cars and took 4 different taxis to get us finally back to our hotel.  We had to shovel in some rice and chicken as a post game meal and shower in 10 minutes, get back on the bus that, had now made it to our hotel, and head off for the train again. 

The team waiting by from the street car... notice the stream of traffic next to us

The packed street car we piled onto

The bus ride was obviously a happy one!

The team waiting for some taxis

Piling into the taxis

Our train departed at 930 PM and I took a Tylenol PM to make me pass out this time.  I awoke again to a sweltering, stinky compartment shared by 4 people with the same yummy food to eat.  We arrived back in Voronezh at 4:30 PM on Friday.  So, overall we traveled about 40 hours to play 1 game.  We might as well have flown back to the US to play a game and turn around and fly back.  Needless to say, I have already gotten to the 7^th Harry Potter book with all of this time and I have spent the rest of my time trying to catch up on sleep and food that I was not able to get on the train. 

I remember at UP we played on the East Coast once or twice and we left a good 2-3 days before to ensure the travel didn’t play a role in our performance… I can say now that there are ABSLUTELY NO EXCUSES for travel playing a role in performance.  You just need to be ready to do anything for 2 hours of your day.  Everything else can just be thrown to the side… I don’t care how tired you are… just get yourself ready for those 2 hours and then you can figure everything else out after.  That is, after all, the reason you are traveling that far… to win.  And that is exactly what we did… hope we can keep it up!!

Next game is on Monday as I said… keep posted!!

Cheers!!

Dani

Week full of Futbol

Well it has been a trying couple of days because, with the results of the last weeks games we are inching closer to the team that is in 1st place, Rossiyanka.  We are only 4 points behind now.  Not only has the amount of time the coaches want to see our faces each day increased but the volume level during coaching points has definitely risen above inside voices.  As professional athletes it is our responsibility to spend an adequate amount of time studying our sport, becoming students of the game... and so a few days ago we went to support the men's team in Voronezh...which reminds me... that "other thing that was more important than our home opening game" was in fact the stadium's way of saying that it didnt want us playing on the field before the men's game a few days later.... as though girls tear up a field, what ever.  Anyways, we got to go watch the Voronezh men's team play and that was a cool experience! 

 This is our stadium

 Me, Simone, Ximel and Tanya

The game was really fun to watch and Voronezh won 2-1!! But, while all of these pictures were being taken I was asked by a few of the Russian girls to take a picture of them.... they basically just handed me the phone with the camera on it and said "Zaneela, pazshalsta..." (that means... Danielle, please).  So naturally I said "Yea, yea" and took the phone to take the picture.  You know how there is always an awkward bit when you ask someone to take a picture on your phone and because everyone's phone function completely different they start to take the picture and push the button they think is right and then it actually doesnt take the picture but takes them to your messages, or your old photos or something... well that happened.  And it brought me to a bunch of options or settings or something... I have gotten so used to seeing phones and computers in other languages that I didnt even try to figure out what I was looking at, so I just turned the phone around to have one of the other girls help me out.... One of the girls who barely speaks English said "Zits in Ingleski" I said "What??" She repeated "You reab, zits in ingleski" as she was pushing the phone back to me... not really understanding what she was saying, I turned the phone back around and realized that all of the options were in fact in English and I didnt even take the time to look.  Everyone was laughing at me, including myself...and I felt pretty silly for not even knowing my own language anymore.  Thats when I realized I was getting a bit lax with my blogging or, reading or maybe just my brain functionality...

We leave for our next game on Wednesday.  We will leave Wednesday morning and take the train 13 hours to get to our game. We play Thursday against the same team that we just went into PK's with.  It is the second leg of this round in the tournament.  So, we need to win.  But I will write after the game!! Hope all is well back at home!

Cheers!!

Dani

Nail Biter of a Game

We played our second game today.  It was our first home match, but unfortunately we were not able to play in our stadium.  I was told it was because there was something more important that was scheduled at the field... but I thought that story had some loop holes in it. What could possibly be more important than the city's only women's futbol home opener (for the second half of the season) on a Wednesday evening at our stadium?  I couldnt find any answers... so I assume it is because our field is not in the best shape because of the late winter weather we have had.

Regardless, it was really nice that we literally played at our HOME stadium.  We played on the turf training field that is on the base.  It is a really nice field, so I didnt mind, plus we didnt have to travel at all.  We are playing in the Russia Cup right now, which is played in a similar fashion to the Champions League.  For those of you who dont know... that just means that you play the same team twice, once at home and once away.  The combine the scores of both games to determine who goes through to the next round.  So we will play the same team again next week at their stadium.  Which will be interesting after today's match.

Again, I started at attacking midfield and again, the game was really fast and very direct.  This was an intense game... we went into PK's and by the end of the 120 minutes I literally couldnt run more then 3 steps without my calves and feet threatening to completely cramp up.  For those of you who have been lucky enough to witness how ridiculous I look when that does happen... lets just say it is not a pretty sight!

About 35 minutes into the first half they had a throw in level with the 18 yr box and they threw it into my player who flicked it over my head (making me look rather silly) and then she tried to shoot... but miss-hit is badly and the ball went rolling slowly to the opposite of the 18 yr box.  But because it was so slow our defenders werent really expecting any danger when their outside player came out of no where and scored before any of us really knew what had happened.  We went into half time knowing our coach was NOT going to be happy about that.

Then in the second half we got a free kick outside the 18 and one of our forwards took it... she chipped the wall of players standing in front and our outside back Dannilova brought it down calmly and scored a pretty sweet half volley to tie it up.  Then, I cant really remember how it happened but they scored another goal in about the 80th minute to go back up 2-1.  So we started throwing everything forward to try to score.  In about the 85th minute there was a long ball that was going out towards the side lines.  I chased it down and saved it just as it was about to go out... I dribbled into the 18 beat a player as the goalie was coming out, diving to the far post, leaving the entire near post open.  So I scored tying it back up 2-2.

Because this is a tournament we went into over time.  We had plenty of chances and probably could have scored and put it away a few times.  But it went into PK's.  They shot first and made their first, then I was the first on our team to take a PK and I scored.  Then they missed their next two.  All of our players made theirs and the score ended up 4-1... FC ENERGY WINS!!! Wahooooo!!!

It was a very exciting, very exhausting day to say the least. Not to mention I have decided to check another thing off my bucket list by reading the Harry Potter Series.  I am not joking when I say this, nor am I trying to brag about my reading abilities... BUT, I figured this would maybe help pass some free time in the next 2.5 months.  I am not sure if it is because these books are so good, or because we have so much down time, or maybe the combination of the two... but I have made it through the first 3 books in 3 days.  At this rate, this series wont even last me 2 weeks! I am going to try to slow my pace... but I doubt that will happen!

Anyways, CONGRATS to another win for FC Energy and here's to everyone back at home for following!

Cheers!

Dani

Easter Epiphany

Last week, while the rest of the Christian religious world was celebrating Easter, we were driving 10 hours to Moscow. My parents asked me “What is the traditional celebration for Easter in Russia?” My response was “Apparently nothing…?” But, I found out this week that in fact, Russia follows the “Old World” calendar and all of the holidays are celebrated late.  They celebrate Christmas on January 7^th and they celebrate Easter today, a week after everyone else. So, most everyone went home to spend time with their families this weekend. With the extra free time our translator, Tanya, and I went for a walk in downtown Voronezh yesterday.  She took me to the City Center, which I had walked around with Ximel the day we got lost… but this time Tanya showed me things I hadn’t seen before.

She showed me some of the major landmarks in Voronezh….

This is a sculpture of a hero dog (like Balto) out side of the main theater.  You are supposed to touch it and make a wish. Tanya told me she did it and her wish came true in 2 years….

This is a monument where people come when they are married and put a lock with their names on it.  It stands right next to be big bridge (which is called a “most” in Russian)… everyone used to attach locks on the rails of the bridge, but they erected this monument because the bridge was too full of locks.

She also took me to two of the main Orthodox churches in Voronezh.  This is when I found the Russian tradition for Easter.  All of the women bake a special type of bread that is tall and circular (kind of like a giant muffin).  It has raisins in it and then is frosted with white frosting and colorful sprinkles.  Then after the women finish baking it, they take it to the churches where holy people bless the bread. There were lines of women with their bread all the way around the churches. These are two of the churches we saw. 

Then we walked down to the waterfront where we walked along the Voronezh Sea for a bit.  With the bridge, the grey sky and the walkway by the water, I felt like I was back in Portland walking on the waterfront. 

Then this morning, on Easter morning, I woke up and took a walk in the surrounding neighborhood from my apartment back to the base.  On the way, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of happiness because I realized how unique of an experience and a culture I am living in. I was walking next to broken down houses on muddy dirt roads.  But the sun was out and there was the smell of spring in the air.  There was so many people and families out walking.  They were all in their Easter best and were carrying their bread and a bouquet of synthetic flowers (because nothing grows here) for their loved ones.  And, I realized, as I was walking that all of these people live so simply and they are happy with that.  They don’t care about the mud on their shoes, or the broken wood on their homes, they care about sharing the time with their family and celebrating the traditions of the culture.

Yesterday on the bus ride home with my translator I was trying to get money out of my wallet to pay for the bus, so I couldn’t hold on to anything to keep my balance.  As we were bumping over the pot holes and screeching to stops I was falling all over the place.  I ran into several people… after the 3^rd person I hit I started just laughing at myself.  I looked at the woman I accidentally sat on and smiled, but she didn’t smile back… My translator said this “In Russia, you don’t smile unless you truly have a reason to smile.  People are not fake and don’t give smiles generously.”

Then last night, the Jamaican, the Swede, one of the Cameroon girls, and I were discussing our cultures.  What we grew up in, what our families were like, what our futures will be when we finish futbol, and other things of that nature….

I realized that culture is such an amazing thing.  There is NO right or wrong, NO black or white, there is only differences.  No one can say that one is better than the other because it is like comparing apples and oranges.  There is no way for comparing, only ways of appreciating the differences.  The Russian people may not be handing out smiles, but neither do New Yorkers, or even two strangers (no matter the country).  We celebrate Easter by letting a giant bunny break into our homes to hide colored eggs and chocolate, heaven forbid we dont find one of the eggs he hid...  WHY any culture does the things they do is not for us to judge, it simply is the way it is.  I have found a new love for my country. I love America but I also have a new appreciation for other cultures because most everyone loves their country.  There is a patriotic pride in all of us. That is all that need be said.    

Happy Russian Easter! 

We have our next game on Wednesday in Voronezh.  My first home game! In Russian you say “dome” for home... and I will of course give you an update ASAP! 

Nastarovia! 

Cheers!

Dani

1st Game = SUCCESS!!

I am laying in bed after another late night return drive from Moscow (remember the one that was supposed to take 4-5 hours and in fact took about 9?), exhausted from our game and a long drive.  We had our first game yesterday against the team that is in 5th place in the league standings.  We left Sunday morning and drove through the day to get to our hotel in Moscow.  We didnt get to see Moscow at all because of the short amount of time we were there, but from my bird's eye view of the city, I was ok with not exploring it.  It looked pretty cold and colorless.  Not to mention, we were there for one purpose... to win a game.

So Monday morning, we woke up had breakfast at the hotel and then had to prepare for the game.  We had a meeting before the game that covered the usual things... play fast, run fast, tackle hard, pass perfectly, shoot a lot and most importantly, win... you know the usual pre game talk.  We drove to the stadium just at the temperature warmed up to a pleasant 1 C which is about  35 F. The rain/sleet started coming down just as we started our warmup... it had no intentions of making it a pleasant game for either team.  Within the first 10 minutes of the warmup my rain jacket was soaked through and my gloves were more like weights for my hands than warmth givers. But luckily for me, I was used to playing in the rain (YEAY Portland!).

The field was turf and that combined with the rain made the game FAST! There was not much possession, although, I have found the style of Russian futbol is extremely direct and aggressive, so I dont know if the game would have been any different if it were not wet.  I started at attacking mid.  The game was full of fouls, yellow cards, temporary injuries and shouting from everyone. BUT... we won the game 2-0 and I scored both goals!  It was really exciting and a great way to start my official professional career!

The first goal came in the first half from a long ball played into the box and the goalie came out to punch it away but one of our forwards, Njoya from Cameroon, went up to challenge the keeper and the ball ended up bouncing in the 18 and I ran through with an open net volley from about 10 yards out.  The second was late in the game, we had a free kick just to the inside of the corner on the end line. Our outside mid, Elena Dannilova (we just call her Danny) hit a driven ball low to the near post where I ran in and got a touch to slip it in the near post. I must say it was a perfect ball played in, because their defense left the entire near post open.

Everyone was excited with the win and I got some affirming handshakes and cheek kisses after the game  for a good performance from the American. We went into the locker room to get cleaned up where there was NO HOT WATER.  We might as well have bathed in the snow... It was terrible, and it took my breath away it was so cold... all I wanted was to warm up after playing in the sleet... but that was just too much to ask for!  I put on all of the warm clothes I had and drank some coffee to try to warm up.  Then, we got on the bus to make the 9 hour drive home.  We got in at about 3 AM and now here I am writing to you all!

Good start to a pro career, and a good start to the second half of our season!!

Cheers!

Dani

Medieval Remedies

I must apologize for the lack of updates I have given you lately… the internet connection here has gotten progressively slower.  So, if any of you have tried to reach me recently and gotten no response please attribute it to this poor connection (unless you’re Brooke Hickerson, whom I have no desire to attempt to communicate with anymore anyways).  I have found that when it comes to helping someone else, Russians are not going to jump out of their seats… much less scooch over for you. Although, I must say, I am very impressed with their etiquette on busses because when you pay you just hand your money up to the person in front of you and they pass it up to the money taker… then if you need change the money taker exchanges your money and then passes back the change, the correct change always gets back to you some how! (sidetracking again… sorry!) Anyways, that means that I don’t think this internet thing will improve any time soon. Regardless, I will try to give you the updates of the last couple days.

We have our first game on Monday in Moscow, so this week we have been preparing!  But this doesn’t mean we play or talk about tactics… instead we work on dribbling by zig-zagging through randomly placed obstacles and we do some strengthening exercises that improve our ability to use medieval torture devices by running down the field whilst swinging a heavy ball and chain (like the one that “The Trenchable” uses in Matilda) in circles.  Although strange, I will be able to beat Rossiyanka player in a hand-to-hand combat come Monday (Rossiyanka is the team at the top of the Russian league right now). Bring it woman!!!!

This leads me to a bigger update I have for you… I have had two epiphanies about the Russian culture, which have helped me understand and make the most of my experiences so far.

The first is that they treat every ailment, sickness, injury, abnormal-cy, or symptom with heat.  Obviously, they like saunas and they like to dress and especially train in layers… but, what made me understand the amount of importance they place on heat was recently when I was getting treatment for a hamstring issue that I have been battling for a few years now….

This same situation also brought me to the second epiphany of the Russian culture, which is that they are a very resourceful country.  They have an innate ability to find uses for any archaic artifact by successfully applying the artifact in an unintended way that may or may not be beneficial.  (As explained above in the running drill with the ball and chain)

Here was the situation…

As I said, I was getting treatment on my hamstring. As I laid down to get a massage the massage therapist picked up what looked like another medieval torture device. It looked like a lint-roller with rows and rows of dog collar spikes on the rolley part. My eyes opened wide and I think a large question mark and exclamation point appeared above my head because she looked at me and said “etta normal….”, which means “this is ok” as she rolled it across the palm of her hand.  I just buried my face in my hands and prayed that I wasn’t going to fall victim to the same unknown fate that Anastasia did. 

She spiked the entire back of my legs with this "deWice" (this is how they pronounce device) until my legs were thoroughly bothered and covered in red bumps.  My interpreter told me later that the spikey deWice used to be a meat pulverizer but my coach found that it increased blood flow if you role it on your skin. I thought… Of course it does...what a great idea that is…!?!! 

Then she put that down and got some massage oil.  It smelled like that icey-hot gel, so I thought, ok, I am not the biggest fan of that stuff but that’s alright.  Turns out they forgot the “icey” in the icey-hot because my leg instantly lit on fire.  I am not kidding, I felt like the heat seeped right into the holes the spikey deWice had just made all over my leg.  We had lunch right after I got this treatment… so the first day I got treatment I was pretty uncomfortable while eating… the second day the heat seemed more intense, I imagined there was a troll sitting under my chair roasting some mallows over his fire… but the third day it was so hot that after the massage was over I had to take a walk outside and cool off my leg.  I was tempted to take my one leg out and walk with only one leg in a pant hole. I probably would have if the watchman sitting in his watch box wouldn’t have been staring down at me when I started to unbutton my pants.  That made me nervous, so I problem solved by just sitting in the snow.  Needless to say, I am doing all I can to stay away from the “non-icey-icey-hot”… its not working.  Like I said, they like heat.

On a completely different topic, the Swedish girl (Ximel) and I were able to take a long walk into Voronezh on our most recent day off.  We me-oggied (which is a verban dictionary term meaning “to meander”), (also for those of you who are not aware, myself and one of my closest most clever friends have started our own version of the “urban dictionary”.  We call it the “verban dictionary” because it only includes fictional verbs with useless and ridiculous meanings) all around Voronezh, stopping to take a walk on the frozen Voronezh Sea, to look at one of the most beautiful Orthodox churches I have ever been in, and also to take pictures in front of the statue at the center of the city of Lenin.  It was a bit longer of a walk than anticipated because we took a few wrong turns, but we figured there was no better way to get to know a city then to get lost in it! After a long three hours we finally got to our destination, the main shopping mall in Voronezh.  Here we sat with some hot cocoa and rested our legs and tried to regain some energy for shopping.  It never came, so we got on the bus and went home.  But it was fun nonetheless.

Other than that, the days are flying by!! We leave for Moscow on Sunday and play on Monday… I hope to get another post up before then, but if not you all know why!

Cheers!

Dani