TOO MUCH VERDY! Part 1

I always wanted to try and get out to the Verdy training grounds and I figured, hell, I'm close enough to get there and go to Ajinomoto at night so I'll catch both games. Whoa........what a long friggin day. Left Saitama at 1:30 got back at 11:30. All Verdy in between.

Anyhow, if you don't know about the Verdy ground, here is a little information. It's three stops from Chofu and about 6 stops from Ajinomoto on the Keio line. It is part of a huge amusement complex which includes a golf range, swimming pool, giant Amusement park with the longest friggin roller coaster I've ever seen, and the Yomiuri Giants training ground. Tucked in the corner is Verdy's training ground, which consists of two fields and a building which I'm guessing contains training, rehab, and tech for the players. You can stand very close to the field and see everything.

I think the best part of going is the gondala. In order to get to the ground you can either take a bus or the gondola. I took the gondola and paid 400 yen for a round trip ticket. I made the right choice. Yomiuriland is tucked into a hilly forest so it's trees all around. When you're in the gondola you can see everything in the area. The ride is about 5 minutes and the height was kinda freaky but it was still a good ride.

Anyhow, the training math took place between Verdy's B squad and a bunch of thugs from Korea University. While I was there, the only score was by thug 55 from Korea University on a nice breakaway.

Some thoughts:
Kanazawa- nice distribution and midfield skills in the game.....best player for Verdy.
Kuba-What a mess, he was all over the place.
Iida-Big boy.......huge, he was towering over the Ichiyanagi and I believe Shigemitsu
Hiroyama and Maatsura- Wow were they bad......not even close on the shots

It's interesting that they were running a 3-5-2 formation, I'm not sure why you run a different formation from what you do in games. Maybe that is causing some of the problems when guys get called up to first team duty.

They weren't wearing their normal numbers too so I'm not sure about who was in.

Game report tomorrow!