Another quality day in France. Today we toured Versailles... this wondrous museum/castle left our coaches speechless and am sure the pictures that our players took, it will be astounding to you as well. Then off to one of the richest "futbol" clubs in the world, Paris Saint Germain.
[Versailles with Girls ODP]
A sprawling facility was on tap for the girl's games today with the 98s up first. We started brightly and soon realized that we were physically going to over match them. A couple of goals in the first half by Dinga and Yoo on balls played in behind resulted in a 2 nil lead at half. PSG came out the better team in the second stanza and kept the ball more than we did, they score after we can't clear a free kick on a header and we reply in stoppage time through Ferrantino on a breakaway to get our first international win, 3-1.
[98s and PSG]
The 96s were now up against an experienced U18 PSG team. The match initially had sprinklings of bright play from both teams and then settled into a see saw battle. The technical proficiency of the French side started to create some chances and they led 1 nil at the half. We tried to keep the ball a bit more and the French countered with a diagonal ball behind our backs and made it 2 nil. That seemed to wake us up and we played with a ton of energy, got back to 2-1 but ran out of time. Good lessons today for our side.
[96s and PSG]
Back to our hotel for some local cuisine and off to Paris site seeing on Day 8.
Day 8:
The day that we dreamed of became reality. The pictures will speak and our stories when we return will echo the sites of the day. We visited the Louvre, Champs de Elysess, the Eiffel Tower and of course, did a little bit of shopping.
[Photo op!]
Taking the subway into the heart of the city was great fun, imagine 4 teams making their way in the tunnels of the subway system, in blue jackets, moving like a river into trains. Yes, people were taking photos and asking us who we were. Great fun though.
Our last full day is tomorrow with matches and more French memories to come.
We would also like let you know that we had a female player who had contracted a staph infection while here in France. The player was taken to the hospital where she had the issue addressed and was subsequently kept over night for observation. The hospital determined that the strain was not contagious and she was released to her mother.
