Chapa Dimba Na Safaricom All-Stars today held their third football training session at Futbol Salou a head of their second friendly match against Gimnastic de Tarragina on for Monday.
The trainings conducted by La Liga’s Jose Ruiz and Ismael Rodriguez were tactical and technical-based, with much focus on ball control, recovery from a goal, speed and field decision-making by players.
“The players are physically fit and that is why most of our trainings are more on tactics and not much on their physique. Based on their last friendlies, we decided to improve their ability to recover from a goal and focus on their speed as well,” said La Liga’s Ismael Rodriguez.
The team will tomorrow have an opportunity to watch a Barcelona-Gatafe match live at Camp Nou before playing their second friendly match against a La Liga division two side, Gimnastic de Tarragina on Monday. Yesterday, the All-Stars had a tour at the Camp Nou stadium, went to the Museum and had a great picnic at the Barcelona Park.
“Our team is learning a lot here. We are bonding well as a team and our ball coordination is greatly improving. We scored goals in our first friendly match against Reus and we are confident to score more goals in our next friendlies on Monday” said John Atem Kato.
The All-star boys lost their first friendly match on Thursday against Reus Deportiu of Spain conceding 5-3 goals in regulation time. The ladies on the other hand drew against Reus Deportiu ladies scoring 3-3 in regulation time.
The 32 players – 17 boys and 15 girls were scouted from across the country during the eight regional finals of the Chapa Dimba Na Safaricom tournament. Their technical bench consist of two coaches – Pauline Awuor of Acakoro Ladies and Ted Amumala of Lugari Blue Saints. The two were selected through a draw conducted on 28th April at Gymkhana Grounds during the Nairobi regional finals