Training Notes: March 18, 2014

After snow kept D.C. United off the field yesterday, the Black-and-Red trained indoors at API in Maryland this afternoon. After a few days of rest, the team looked very sharp. The squad started with a passing drill. With one team in the middle and two on the outside, the middle team would check and either pass it back in one or two touches, or turn and find another outlet. Then, the fun began.

Sharp, Sharp, Sharp
If the subtitle didn’t make it obvious, we looked sharp. The same three teams moved to a possession drill, with one on the outside, limited to one touch and two in the middle. The goal was to get to 25 passes; it happened often and it happened in style. There was one round in particular that stood out. The blue team got to 25 passes, with no player taking more than two touches, and only one touch from the green team’s Perry Kitchen to break up one pass that was quickly recovered by blue. Every coach had a smile on his face, and every player on the blue team was high-fiving one another.

Shooting and Shouting
In the finishing drill to end training, the competitive juices were flowing—and so were the compliments. Each team of two had to keep track of how many goals they scored each round, which consisted of a shot from about 18 out and a finish off a cross for each teammate. After Conor Doyle and Luis Silva lead the way through that drill, Ben Olsen changed the rules.

First, each team had to make one of the four shots each round, if you didn’t you were eliminated; no one was eliminated. Then, it went to two out of four, three out of four, and four out of four. While no duo completed a perfect score, there were plenty of goals to cheer about.

Taylor Kemp got a “Taylor, I (explicit) love it!” after hitting a left-footed rocket.

And Conor Doyle got a simple, but very, very loud “DOYLE!” from the peanut gallery after one of his several impressive finishes of the day.

Michael Seaton got a “Mikey, you stop it!” from Bobby Boswell and “Mikey, well (explicit) done,” From Bill Hamid (whom he scored on) after a diving header.