Bascome Football School (BSF) tours Long Island and New York City with their Under 9 and Under 11 players, after completing two successful tournaments at the USL Academy Cup in Tampa Florida, Bascome Football School felt it had the routine and structure in place to give their younger players a similar opportunity on an annual basis. Preparation for the inaugural tour, called the New York Easter Football Extravaganza, started end of last year, when Peter Zaratin, the president of Long Island Rough Riders, a USL 2 Franchise club out of Uniondale on Long Island, was going to visit Bermuda for a day, arriving on a cruise liner from NY. The purpose of his trip was to explore the opportunity for an exchange program between the two organizations. The meeting unfortunately became a zoom call as the ship never docked in Bermuda due to rain and high winds.
However, Zaratin is no stranger to Bermuda, having been on the island a few times to play against the Hoggs and playing the Bermuda National Under 20 team. He had a vision about bringing his youth teams to Bermuda during their off-season.
Long story short, BFS’s first Under 9 and Under 11 tour kicked off, arriving at JFK, and a 30 min transfer to a hotel close to their training grounds. The first match for each was played that evening on their stadium pitch, followed by a potluck dinner, organized by their youth organization Long Island Soccer Club.
Day Two started with a high-intensity coaching session with Gary Brook, Adelphi University’s Head Coach, where the players were taught thoughtful things for their future development, predominately focused on how to simplify the game, and to focus on pace and one-touch play decision-making.
The second match of the tour was played in the evening at their Indoor training facility. This was a great experience for players and coaches, playing high-paced seven-a-side games on Kappa-size fields and goals for 2x30 min. The opposition was the Long Island Rough Riders youth program.
Andrew Bascome only has praise to give everyone involved, saying, “Our host has been very welcoming and accommodating, making us feel at home. The itinerary for our four-day stay was planned down to the minute. Our parent group organizing the trip has done a fantastic job with a rather short preparation time, as many of us just came back from the USL Academy Cup in Tampa. As we all know, the amount of time and energy you put into something usually corresponds to similar output. And it certainly has, the players and the coaches have been very focused, and they have had to quickly adjust and adapt to all local variations to the game; playing on a large stadium field, playing 30-minute halves instead of our three times 20-minute “halves”, playing fast-paced 7-aside indoor turf games with no through-ins. Our teams have been victorious in all matches, but more importantly, they have been well-behaved, asserted themselves, and shown great respect for the game and the opponents. Equally, our coaches, Sergio Goater and Martin Brown for the Under 9 team, and Ken Mahadeo for the Under 11 team, have done a great job so far, but also learned a few things that will help them improve as coaches.
We are now heading to New York and Manhattan, and we will play two different clubs over the next two days. We all feel good and prepared, and we look forward to the challenges of the next two days.”
|
