As many of you know, I have joined two clubs this season which means twice as many games and twice as many training sessions. Plus that means twice as many registration fees, which have throttled my wallet and my account has come to the brink of bankruptcy. But it’s really good playing for two different teams who both play differently and train differently. On one hand we have the more professional Archangel Michael, who have great training drills and I am pushed very far in terms of my physical capability. However, we have equal time dedicated to ball skills and team formations. On the other hand we have St Patricks FC, which consists of unorthodox training drills.

What Do You Mean Unorthodox Training Drills?

Let me explain. Many times we do things that are questionable, lack structure and we ask the coach:

What does this drill have to do with football?

Then we are advised to keep going as he will let us know at the end why we did that particular thing. Let me give you an example. The other day we were advised to find a partner and grab onto each others shoulders. Once we did this, we had to try and topple the other person over purely by body weight and twisting etc. It goes without saying that this was weird and I had never come across this before. I didn’t ask questions and just did as I was told. At the end of the session the coach told the team:

The reason I got you fellas to do that was purely to develop you strength and above all, your balance and how to shift you weight when you feel as though you’re losing it.

He was right and I understood. Being able to shift weight from one side to another is a fundamental key in learning how to stay balanced on or off the ball. Ronaldinho does this all the time when he plays, especially when he does the Elastico. He taps the ball to the right and then drops his weight onto his right leg to meet the ball with his toes. My book covers this more in detail.

So Which Team is Better?

I can’t decide between the two because both give me very different things. On one hand we have a tough, professional squad who are interested in winning the league. On the other, a much more relaxed, easy going but demanding club. The two complement each other very well and I’m happy to be at both. But with playing for two teams comes some pros and cons. I play football 5 days a week and it can be both good and bad for you, so I’ve laid out the various points to consider if you ever decide to play with two teams.

Pros
+ Football becomes your life
+ Fitness rises dramatically
+ Different views on the game
+ Room for incorporation of both styles of play
+ Your mates double

Cons
- Playing 5 times a week can be quite tiring
- The week flies by with haste
- Time management becomes important
- Your social life takes a big hit
- So does your wallet

Well that’s all the different reasons why you should and why you shouldn’t play with two teams. But the benefits and cons are equal when you look at that list. But because I love playing football it was easy for me to commit to both. It doesn’t mean that you should. I have played football 5 out of the 7 days available to me and this goes hand in hand with work, studies, marketing and socialising. Now I’ll probably go and plan my weeks from here on out. Oh and by the way, I’ve played 3 full games this weekend and in all the games I’ve played, we drew every one Funny how that works. Plus I scored a great goal which I will illustrate in the next post in a few hours.