Ellis McLoughlin-My Trip To Bradenton, FL

When I first found out that I was going to Bradenton I didn’t know how to react because it was such a big step in my soccer career for me. This was the first time I was ever involved in a National Team function. I went down to Bradenton playing with the Super Y National Team.

When I arrived in Tampa at about 5:00 after a layover in Atlanta I had to meet the directors at the airport entrance to drive down to Bradenton. I drove down there in a big van with about 10 other players. The drive down there was great because I got to know a lot of the players that I was going to be playing with. After the two-hour drive from Tampa to Bradenton I settled down in my hotel room and unpacked my bags, after doing this I headed down to the meeting room to have a team meeting. At this meeting I met all of the other players that I hadn’t met yet and best of all I got to meet the coaches, Perry Van Der Beck and John Hannah. I liked both of them because they explained things very well and they both had a lot of humor. After the meeting, which ended at about 9:00, I headed up to my room for the rest of the night.

The second day my team and I had to wake up at 7:30 to eat breakfast. After breakfast we had training at the National Team training facilities. After this training I everyone felt a little more comfortable with everyone else. While we were training the U-17 National Team was training right beside us, so when I got the chance I looked over there to see what they were doing. After training we headed over to the IMG Academy for lunch at their cafeteria. This was really cool because I got to see where I would be living if I get called up to residency. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and we got to relax for a couple of hours until we had another team meeting. At this team meeting John Hannah, my coach, announced the starting line-up for tomorrow’s game against the U-15 National Team Second Team, and to my liking I was the starting left forward. This was great because after the Super Y National Camp I was announced as a reserve. After the meeting was adjourned the team and I headed over to the IMG Academy to eat dinner. After dinner I headed back to my hotel room once again and rested for the tough day to come.

When I woke up on the third day I was very excited because it was game day and it was my time to shine. My team and I woke up at 7:30 once again to eat breakfast and head out to a 10:00 training session. Everyone was focused and ready to play during the training and none of us could wait to play this afternoon. During the training our coach John Hannah explained to us what he wanted out of us during the match. He explained to us that he doesn’t expect the game today to be perfect but he does expect us to work hard and show why we are here. After the training we once again headed over to the IMG Academy to get an early lunch before the game. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and we got all of our gear together and headed over to the fields at 11:30 for the game. When we arrived there I had butterflies in my stomach because I knew that I needed to perform today. After we got to our bench and started getting our gear on and focusing on the game, we started warming up. The warm up went very fast and before I knew it we were out on the field about to play. When I ran onto the field ready to play I felt very comfortable, all the butterflies that had been adding up in my stomach all seemed to vanish as soon as I stepped on that field because when I am on the field I feel comfortable, it is where I was meant to be. When the ref blew the whistle and the game began we got off to a great start. About twenty minutes into the game a center mid-fielder on my team played a ball to me feet near the half line, I collected the ball and ran at a National Team defender, getting passed him all I had left was the goal keeper who I beat slotting the ball far post to put my team up 1-0. After this goal we gained momentum until the end of the half. The half ended at 1-0 Super Y. When the second half begun we started losing momentum and before we knew it the game was tied at 1-1. After the National Team scored we knew we had to work hard to keep a second goal out of the net, but with about 5 minutes left in the game the National Team struck once again and they got up 2-1. We could not find any momentum after that goal and the game ended 2-1 National Team. The game went better then expected because this was the first game that my Super Y Team had ever played together. After the game we headed back to the hotel and we rested for about two hours until we had another meeting to talk about the game. The meeting went well, John told us what we did well and what we did wrong. After the meeting we headed over to IMG Academy to eat some dinner. During dinner I ran into some of my teammates that I had played against earlier that day, Brandon Zimmerman and Brooks Hopp. It was nice seeing them and talking about the game with them. After dinner my team I headed back to the hotel and rested up for the big game that we had the next day.

After breakfast at 7:30 we headed out for another training, this training was great because it really helped us get ready for the game that afternoon. John really helped us out and helped us get organized. After training we headed over to the IMG Academy for lunch. After lunch we went back to the hotel and got all of our gear together and headed over to the game at 1:00 against the same team we played the day before, the U-15 National Team Second Team. We did the same thing as yesterday when we arrived, got all of our stuff on and started warming up. After the warm up the game was under way( I was once again starting left forward). The game started off slow for both teams, the game went into half time knotted at 0-0. The second half started off bad for us and we let in an early goal to put us down 1-0, but at the end of the second half we struck from a great cross from our left winger and a good header by our mid-fielder to tie the game at 1-1. This is how the game ended and this made us feel great because we had done much better then yesterdays match. I didn’t score in this game but the coaches said that I played very strong and after the game I got interviews by a representative at TopDrawerSoccer.Com. This was really cool because this was the first time that I have been interviewed. After the game and all the interviewing was over we headed back to the hotel to rest for a couple of hours. After we were done resting we headed over to IMG Academy for dinner once again. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and went straight to the meeting room for a team meeting. This meeting went great our coach was very happy with the performance that we put out today during the game. He told us that we did much better then yesterday and we responded very well to yesterday’s loss. After the meeting was over everyone headed back to there hotel rooms and rested up for tomorrows early wake up to pack our bags.

The next and last day started early because we had to pack our bags because we were leaving later tonight. After packing we went to a later breakfast at 8:00 and after breakfast headed over to our last training session. This session was very light because we all had to save our juice for our last game later this afternoon. After the training we headed over to IMG Academy for our final time and ate lunch before our last game. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and gathered all of our gear for this afternoons game against the IMG Academy 1989 Team. After getting all of our gear together we headed over to the fields to start warming up for our last game. After warm up was over the game began. The game started off bad for us having the IMG team score first. We didn’t get many chances threw the first half and the half ended 1-0 IMG Academy. The second half went under way and the older IMG squad scored once again putting them up 2-0. After they scored there second goal we struck back scoring off a free kick cross. The game was then 2-1 and that is what the game ended as. This isn’t what we wanted the outcome to be but we did play hard. After our last game we rushed back to the hotel to collect our bags and headed to the airport. Two hours later we arrived at the Tampa Airport and we got on our planes and went home.

Going to Bradenton was one of the greatest soccer experiences that I have ever had. I will never forget the goal that I scored in the first game and the great competition that I played against while I was down there.

WPS Soccer would like to thank Ellis and Jay his father. It's positive stories like this that make soccer such a great sport. WPS would like to wish Ellis the best in the future, maybe even in Bradenton soon.