Cordia Family Blog

Janelle’s team came away with a 4-1 win in their home opener.   The season record is now 1-1-0.  Game recaps below.

After leading for most of the game, Janelle’s team fell behind and lost the opening game of the season 2-1.  The season record is 0-1-0.   Below are the the game recaps from a couple different sources.

Here is a recap of an interview with Janelle prior to their 3rd game of the season.

I’m having a little trouble with getting archived news stories to translate, so I am experimenting with posting the stories in the blog as a screen capture image.  Click the image below to increase the size of the image and make the story more readable.    When finished with the story, click your browser’s <Back> button to return to the blog.

Click here for a game recap from a friendly game a couple weeks back.

Click here for a game recap from another friendly game from 3 weeks ago.

Click here to see Janelle’s profile on the Aland United website.

Click here to see a news story I found on the web.

Click here to see a story published about Janelle and her two Aland United teammates from the USA.

Well today was an interesting day!

Woke up around 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got to skype with Mom and Dad, Brad, and Payge, and I got to facebook chat with Jolie!! Around 11am we found out we were going to the pool today. Not manditory, but a good number of the girls go. We were thinking we may swim some laps or stretch out like we do in the states on days after games. But no, this is more of a fun, relaxing time in the pool! There is a water slide, a jacuzzi, and half the pool is outside. We also got to do what they call an ice bath, or going in the sea hole. You run outside in your swimming suit and either jump or take the stairs into the Baltic Sea where there is a hole in the ice. It’s pretty cold, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Some of the girls do this every weekend after a game. Definitely an experience!

As far as the game goes, it is was a lot of fun to get out and actually play full field. Indoors of course, on a real indoor fotball pitch, not a football field haha. We played a team from the Swedish second division. They were pretty skilled, but didn’t put it together very well. We won 2-1 I believe, there was a debatable 3rd goal that was called back because they said it was finished cleats up. I got to play all 90 which was nice, although I definitely have some work to do to get in my best shape. I played at outside right back, which is where I will probably be most of the time. I also get to take corners and free kicks which is lots of fun!! We play in a 4-1-3-2, which kind of ends up looking like a 4-3-3 sometimes. It was tough this game because the other team was playing a 4-3-3 with their wing forwards staying very wide, but against a 4-4-2 our wing backs will have a lot of space to get forward because our center backs are responsible for the two forwards. It is interesting how much the ball was in the air, yet still under control in the game. People are very confident and comfortable with the ball which is enjoyable. Our next friendly is next Sunday against a Swedish team that is in the first division.

Outside of soccer, grocery shopping is still an adventure. Did some more today, got lots of different chocolate to try 🙂 Oh and some real food too. I’m glad I brought my peanut butter because it has been a lifesaver this first week. There is also a gelato place right next door, so that’s trouble. It’s owned by a couple from Germany. We’ve been there two times already!! We also went to a sports bar today and got some really good pizza! We have to walk everywhere right now, but hopefully we are getting bikes sometime this week. I don’t mind the walking, but 2 miles is a bit far to walk with groceries haha. To answer Mom’s question, we do have our own kitchen to cook in, so that’s what we do most of the time. By cook this first week, I mean eating peanut butter on flat bread and cereal. This next week I will be able to experiment a bit more!

We keep hearing how much fun the islands are in the summer, and the melting snow is giving hope for the future. The beach volleyball world tour or something of that sort is coming here in mid-August, so that will be really cool if we get to see some games! It will also just be nice to get out and explore a bit without deciding whether I need my snow boots or my rain boots. Well I’m off for now. Hope everyone is doing well!! Keep me updated about everything exciting going on at home!!

Hello again everyone!

It is about 9:45 here right now. Yesterday we had “gym” which is pretty much just lifting. I haven’t squated since my getting my knee scoped so I am super sore today from that. Then I tried to nap so that I could be up for brads game. Turns out I still think I should be up anyway, so I didn’t get much of a nap and I still easily stayed up for the game haha.

Today we had two training sessions. One was in the morning…outside…on a snow/ice covered field. We worked on throw-ins, so I had to take my gloves off so I could grip the ball, so my hands were frozen!! They had a snow plow thing that plowed the field before we started because it snowed last night.

We also had a second training session tonight. We got to scrimmage for 30 min, so that was fun. Besides us three Americans, there are 2 girls from England and a girl from Estonia who speak English. We all decided that we are going to see if we can take a swedish class to try to learn a little Swedish, and it will pass the time a little. I’m definetely not bored right now, but I think that’s because I want to sleep when we are supposed to be awake still. And it gets dark pretty early, so that makes me tired too. Everyone says it takes a couple of weeks to really start sleeping properly again.

I also learned today that our team takes ice baths. We also do this in the US in the cold tub to help with soreness. The difference here is that they actually have a hole in the ice in the sea water and you go jump in. I guess this will happen on Sunday, so I’ll let you all know how that goes and if I get a cold after haha. Hopefully not hypothermia!

We scrimmage a team from Sweden this sat, so that will be interesting to see how we all play as a team. next Sat the team we play from Sweden has one of the girls I played with this summer on it, so that will be cool to see her all the way across the world!

Talk to ya soon!

Janelle

If you haven’t heard, Janelle has signed a contract with a first division team in the womens league in Finland.  She is playing for the Aland United team, located on Aland Island, off the southwest corner of Finland.  She has just been there for the past week, and has been able to drop us a couple emails that I can share.  I will post the information that she shares in our blog so others can enjoy.