In the second week of spring, on March 25, D.C. United practiced at the RFK Auxiliary training fields in snow. Not just some light flurries, but my-left-big-toe-is-frozen-because-I-stepped- in-a-deep-pile-of-snow, snow. While the highly coveted neon orange soccer ball would have been a nice touch, the Black-and-Red kept the traditional white ball out at training. Thanks a lot, #DCUEqpt
What started as small sided keep away turned in to several passing drills which then evolved in to nine versus nine to small goals with several neutral players. While several snowballs were thrown during water breaks, once the games started, it was all business. If the focus wasn’t evident at the beginning, it certainly was when shorts-wearing Conor Shanosky flew in for a sliding tackle to break up an almost-goal which was followed by “atta boy Shanosky!” from Head Coach Ben Olsen. Once the final whistle blew on the short sided game, it was time to get creative with the snow, especially for Cristian Fernandez.
Enjoying the wintry powder not often seen in his native country Spain, the United newcomer decided to see if he could balance one ball on top of the other while using snow as the glue to hold them together, which Perry Kitchen saw as a challenege and began trying himself. When that failed, he moved on to new and sneaky ways to throw snowballs without anyone knowing it was him, and he finally ended his snow fun by packing it into this hand without me noticing as he came to shake my hand after training. I will make sure to wear gloves next time.
