Under-17 team fly off to Reading
BERMUDA's Under-17 football team will go on a week's training camp this weekend to Reading, Pennsylvania ¿ the former home of Derek Broadley, the new Technical Director of the Bermuda Football Association.
Broadley, who watched Bermuda beat the Cayman Islands last weekend in Cayman to go through to the next round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, said he wanted to gauge where the island's young players were at so he has also arranged two matches against the Reading Rage youngsters. Broadley, who originally was the Academy Director of Crystal Palace in England, was also the head coach of the Reading Rage for a number of years before accepting the BFA's Technical Director post recently.
Broadley said this week: "We are going to take the young players away to a training camp ¿ originally I think they were supposed to go away to Miami, but I have managed to arrange for them to go to Reading so they can get a couple of games against the Reading Super Y league teams as well."
And the Reading Super Y teams have excelled nationally in the United States.
Broadley said: "The Reading Under-17 boys have been to the national finals for the last four years so it gives me a good gauge to measure where the local lads are at."
And Broadley plans to be hands-on with the players conducting much of the training himself.
"I will actually be able to work with the players. Their coach Mark Wade will not be coming to Reading until Wednesday because of work commitments so it gives me a chance to physically work with the players and I also have a good training facility for the week."
Broadley has arranged two matches during the week's camp and those games will be played at the stadium where the Rage PDL team plays.
"We will leave Bermuda on Saturday and the camp starts on Sunday. On Tuesday Bermuda will take on Reading's Under-16 team and on Friday they will play the Under-17 team and then return to Bermuda on Saturday so it should be a good week's camp."
Broadley watched Bermuda's match against the Cayman Islands and also took in Trinidad's friendly against Jamaica last week. He said: "I went to watch Trinidad against Jamaica (2-2) in anticipation of us going through (against Cayman)."
And he was impressed with Bermuda's play against Cayman.
"It was the first time I had seen the guys play so that was pleasing. The result doesn't really give us credit. The field wasn't the greatest and to be fair the result was never in doubt. The first 10 minutes were really scrappy but after we got the goal I actually thought we played some very nice football. But the next challenge is Trinidad and that is a big step up ¿ against Jamaica they didn't have their big hitters."