SEVENTH WEEK - A good day at Stoke City academy

As I've explained in other posts, the competition in England is only for the pair ages so they only have competition games and league tables the ages of U8,U10,U12,U14 and U16 in the academies. The impair ages are playing friendly games normally two times per week so that's why this weekend we went with U11,U13 and U15 to play against Stoke City.

Used to see the top clubs academies like Liverpool and Manchester United academy it was a bit strange to see such a small academy like Stoke City one is, they have 5 natural 11 size grass pitches, 1 natural 9 size grass pitch and 2 natural 7 size grass pitches. A part from that they also have 1 3D syntentic 11 size grass pitch and a small grass zone to train the goalkeepers.

Talking with the coaches, they told me that Stoke City is a club supported by hard worker fans so they can't pay lots of money to have a big complex training center, they understand that with the complex they have it's enough to compite and play against the best teams of England.

The results of the matches weren't very good, three matches lost, 3-1 for U11 and U13 and 7-0 for U15 but the great experience for the players and for the coaches it's a really good opportunity that perhaps we've to think if we could do it in Spain.

At the end of the matches, we went together to lunch and see Manchester United cause it's one of the favourite teams of the coaches and we take advantage of being lunching next to bet365 stadium and we also visited it and took some photos.

And amazing Sunday for the players, coaches and for me to understand better the English clubs and the system of the academies.