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A first-class facility it may well be but Centre Nutrilait is just like anywhere else in a torrential downpour... dull, damp and dreary. Noisy too, if you are under the steel roof trying to stay warm close to the heat-lamps.
There’s only one thing to be doing on a day like today and it’s not standing around outside. Running around the park with the players, who all looked like drowned rats, is the thing to do, had we been allowed of course. After all if rain stopped play when growing up in Ireland, we’d never play sport in the first place.
It wasn’t pleasant, but if you’re out there running about, it doesn’t matter about sticking the pace, you barely feel the rain, or maybe even start to enjoy it!
It was a pretty full session despite the weather, however Mathieu Choiniere and Lassi Lappalainen, each returning from injury and Romell Quioto and Erik Hurtado (experiencing pre-season niggles), sat out the physical contact exercises.
Instead the quartet lapped the perimeter of the complex several times on a light jog.
Again we didn’t see Luis Binks on the training ground at all this morning and believe it’s precautionary after leaving a session early last week before having an ice-pack attached to his left knee.
It was certainly difficult at times to identify players from a distance through the heavy rain, although Keesean Ferdinand was a reporter’s dream. The coolest hair-do in MLS made him the most recognizable player on the grid.
But it was good to get back home again and a nice, hot cuppa’ tea...
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Check out the latest, The Ball Is Round Podcast (Episode 21). Recorded Wednesday (24 March), the TBIR team discuss the National Team’s Road to Qatar, the U23s in Mexico, a return for Jason Di Tullio and Florida pre-season plans... Plus all the usual favourite features... including, Eve’s Time Machine... Don’t miss it!
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