ORLANDO, Fla. — Heading into last year's playoffs, the mood around training was confident. The team had just locked up second place in the standings, and the team was playing well heading into their matchup with Nashville SC.
This year, it feels like the confidence and vibes are even higher.
Wednesday morning's training session at the Orlando Health Training Ground at Osceola Heritage Park started a little bit later than usual. At points this year, training started as early as 7 a.m. ET to try and avoid the hottest parts of the summer heat. Now that the weather has cooled down a bit, a later training start was a bit more doable.
Usually, players come out of the locker room 5-10 minutes before training is set to start. Today, all the players were out early, getting some warmups in and pinging the ball around before things officially kicked off.
Duncan McGuire and Mikey Halliday were the first two out of the locker room, with the majority of the team coming out within five minutes after them. Duncan was in an especially playful mood today, messing with players and staff as he warmed up. Ramiro Enrique came out of the locker room singing "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, which had been playing in the gym as he was stretching.
Always the competitive bunch, the morning rondo sessions had a little bit of spice to them. The teasing of players as they missed a pass or turned the ball over was more playful than usual. The overlapping Spanish (and occasional English) from Rodrigo Schlegel and Wilder Cartagena, who seemingly never stop talking during warmups, as well as the counting in Spanish by Dagur Dan Thorhallsson, was all you could hear as the ball pinged around the players.
As the boys moved into drills with Fabián Bazán, the team's strength and conditioning coach, the teasing continued. Although, it was mostly drowned out by Bazán's yelling at the players. "Tac Tac," "Eso Es" and "Si Señor" are his go-to lines that he barks out as he tries to encourage the players to go through a good warmup before training.
After a quick meeting with Head Coach Oscar Pareja, the team broke out into two sides of the pitch. One side worked on defensive and midfield shape and ball movement, while the other worked on combination play in the attacking third. Facundo Torres pulled out some clinical finishes in the drill, constantly teasing Javier Otero every time he beat him. That patented laugh of Torres could be heard every time he scored a banger past the Venezuelan keeper, which was pretty much every shot he took. To Otero's credit, he pulled out some impressive saves during the drill as well.
From there, the boys went into their usual shape for the final 45 minutes of practice, working on 11-v-11 and practicing situations with and without the ball in preparation for Friday's game. That early fun and playful attitude from the beginning of practice went away, as all the players brought a competitive edge to the scrimmage.
That led to the final part of the practice: penalties. It was two teams mixed together as each one stepped up and took their shots on goal from the spot. Felipe had one of the best penalties of the game as he smashed it upper 90. It ended up coming down to a save from Otero to win the round for his team, who all celebrated like they had won a trophy.
