The annual Leonardo pre-season tours are now underway.
Scunthorpe United, Walsall, Watford and Wycombe Wanderers all landed safely in Holland and have now departed to their host clubs Feyenoord, FC Utrecht, ADO Den Haag, and NEC Nijmegen respectively to set up camp ahead of a well structured two week schedule.
After a light training session in the evening of their arrival, free time saw Apprentices enjoy a mixture of activities from playing head tennis in the swimming pool to watching DVD’s. This was closely followed by a meal and a much needed rest ahead of the next day.
Tuesday saw professional coaches from the host clubs deliver much anticipated training sessions to the lads.
The purpose of the sessions is to allow the players to pick up on the differences in perspective, philosophy and culture towards football in Holland to England.
The players then took to the field again later on in the form of a second training session but this time conducted by their own club’s coaches. On the whole the coaches tried to reflect on what the Apprentices had learned previously that day and implement those Dutch methods into a light session.
Walsall Apprentice Jon Haynes is blogging for LFE throughout the tour and has commented in his first installment how the FC Utrecht coach enforced his beliefs as to how the game should be played.
Den Haag-based Watford Apprentice Michael Kalu will also be contributing with his insight to the ongoings of the camp and has already singled out two of his teammates.
You can follow their blogs here.
