“Bok” from Coach Matt and Cody in Croatia
Posted On June 1, 2013 by PUSC
“Bok” (Croatian greeting) from Zagreb, Croatia. As some of you may know, Cody Sundquist and I (Matt Bernard) are currently in Croatia with the Under 14 Boys National Team.
This has been quite the adventure thus far. Cody and I flew out from San Francisco on Sunday May 19th and arrived in New York City later that evening where we met up with rest of the players and staff. From NYC we flew to London where our flight was delayed for one hour (because they were waiting for us to get through customs). There is only one flight from London to Zagreb per day and thankfully we made it. Unfortunately not all of our luggage got on the flight with us.
We arrived in Zagreb with 99% of our luggage. Unfortunately our airline (who shall remain nameless) didn’t think it was important to send our soccer balls, bibs or cones on our flight. Regardless, we adapted and N.K. Spansko, the club where we were training, was nice enough to allow to use some of their equipment. The rest of our stuff has since arrived.
The team trained several times in preparation for our first game against Slovenia. We travelled to Slovenia for the match which is about a one hour drive . In reality it’s less than 40 miles but because Slovenia is a member of the European Union and Croatia is not (until July 1, 2013) we have to pass through the border crossing, making the trip longer.
Following our game with Slovenia we play against Croatia and Hungary. These matches are the first international matches for the Under 14 Boys National Team. We have 20 players in our roster including Cody and three other players from Northern California.
I hope that everything is going well at home. Congratulations to all the teams who competed and represented Placer United at the Placer United Cup last weekend.
—Coach Matt