The main difference between the Sevilla FC game and the Real Betis game was the
atmosphere. The Betis game had a more energetic atmosphere, despite the Sevilla fan’s
reputation for being lively. This disparity was likely caused by the bad weather of the Sevilla
game. The Betis game was on a clear and warm night whereas Sevilla was cold and rainy.
Additionally, Betis was playing Real Madrid, one of the most famous soccer teams in the world,
and featured one of the most famous soccer players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Furthermore, the Betis game featured a whopping eight goals, with Sevilla took a 2-0 lead by the
32nd minute. Both games had a lively atmosphere and were great experiences but the
circumstances of the Betis game caused it to be more exciting.

Following the tour of the bullring, we continued into the new town of Ronda and saw views of the countryside, the new bridge, and the many small tourist shops that exist in Ronda. From the new town, we walked over the new bridge and entered the old town of Ronda. It was fascinating to see the many old buildings, learn more about the history of Ronda and it’s past rulers, and learn more about the local wine and olive industries that could be seen everywhere.

Being nestled between two mountain ridges and atop a mountain of its own Ronda was an ideal place for cities and fortresses since the Roman times. As we walked through the old town our tour guide pointed out where the Romans first settled in the area. After the tour we were given time to wander on our own through the city. Many of us hiked down the mountainside to see the waterfall and the river. Some walked through the spanish shops and restaurants. All of us eventually found a sunny spot to enjoy lunch and the beautiful day before jumping back on the coach to head home. Ronda is an incredible place unlike anywhere in the world. The Beautiful greenery and sharp cliffs matched with the white stucco facade and barrel tile roofs of the spanish buildings created fairytale sights all over the city.

Today We traveled to Wimbledon to experience the magic of one of the best tennis grand slams in the world. With the help of our friendly tour guide, we got to learn about the history of Wimbledon, see the grounds and imagine what Church Road looks like every two weeks at the beginning of July.

Wimbledon has grown based on the idea of tradition. During the first part of our visit, we learned about Wimbledon’s history, how traditions have evolved and how Wimbledon is trying to grow their brand.

Wimbledon’s full name is The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club which was founded in 1868. The Wimbledon Championship started in 1877, but only consisted of Men’s singles competition. Ladies’ singles and gentlemen’s doubles were added in 1884 and ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles events started in 1913. As the popularity of tennis grew, Wimbledon started to gain more attention. Traditions evolved such as wearing an all-white outfit, spectators enjoying strawberries and cream with a glass of champagne, and sitting on the hill to watch world class tennis matches.

Our tour guide, Patrick, showed us around the grounds of Wimbledon. We started by going to the Wimbledon Learning Centre, traditionally used by the ball boys and girls during the Wimbledon tournament.

There, we learned a little bit about the history of Wimbledon, how Wimbledon operates as a business, and the global image that Wimbledon has developed. We then went and toured the Wimbledon media center. While in the media center, Patrick brought us into the Sky Sports Deutschland studio as well as the BBC sport studio. While in the Sky Sports studio we were able to look out over court 18 where the longest game of tennis was played during the Wimbledon tournament in 2010 between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut.

From there we toured around the rest of the grounds including Center Court and ended in the Wimbledon Museum looking at both the men’s and women’s singles trophies. The day left us all dreaming about becoming professional tennis players and competing at Wimbledon.

On our first evening in Seville, we had the opportunity of a lifetime. Our group got tickets to see arguably the world’s best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, and his squad, Real Madrid square off against hometown favorites, Real Betis. The game was action packed and exciting from start to finish. Real Madrid took an early 1-0 lead but Betis took over the first half and entered the second half with a 2-1 advantage. But Madrid and Ronaldo’s dominance would be too much to overcome as Madrid went on to win the game, 5-3.

We interviewed junior volleyball captain, Jona Plevin, after the game to hear her thoughts on the action packed showdown between two of the top teams .

What did you think of the game?
I thought it was a lot of fun. The fans were really energetic and the game was action packed. It was super cool to be in that sort of environment where everyone is constantly on the edge of their seat.

Was this favorite game so far?
Yes, this was most certainly my favorite game of the trip so far. It was a really fun environment, our seats were close to the field, we got to see a lot of goals and of course it didn’t hurt that we had some great weather during the game.

What did you think about Cristiano Ronaldo?
I thought it was really cool to see a big superstar playing live. It was interesting to see how he carried himself on the field. He was walking around like he was the king, like he knew he was the best player in the world. And it was funny to see how much the Betis fans hated him; they would boo him every chance they had.

After seven weeks of experiencing football and seeing some of the biggest stars in the game take the field, do you think you will join Carleton Women’s Soccer next season?
I will definitely stick with volleyball. While I might be a big fan of soccer, I think Heidi, my coach, would prefer me just to player volleyball my senior year. But, I will continue to be CWS’s biggest fan!

Once arriving in Southampton we walked through the industrious town to kill time before kickoff. Liverpool was overwhelmingly favored in the match and brought a strong and vocal crowed with them. Even though Southampton seemed to dominate ball possession early on, Liverpool scored in the sixth minute which provided the Liverpool fans with plenty of energy and swagger for the rest of the evening. Up one nil it never really felt like Southampton could capitalize on their few opportunities to score. Before the end of the half Liverpool scored again on what seemed to be from defensive mistakes by Southampton. Although I do not believe Southampton and Liverpool are rivals, there was much animosity between the club’s fans. Perhaps it was because this loss for Southampton nearly sealed their ticket to relegation. Nonetheless there were at least three fights which police had to break up and escort out.

As the match ended we had fifteen minute to get back to the bus otherwise we were liable to be fined. Surly this was another rule to avoid conflict between the opposing fans. Overall, it was an exciting game and a beautiful day. It was very cool to contrast our stadium visit from two weeks ago to a game day atmosphere.

Part of our community engagement on this overseas venture starts in London.  Over the past five weeks, each of us have gone with two or three classmates to Dragon Hall in order to volunteer for one four hour slot.  We were both trepidacious and excited at the prospect of working with about thirty eager boys and girls in a community based after school program serving an important need in the local community.   Our Dragon Hall friends are from families that affording the cost of after school care is a significant challenge and, like London, were from families very diverse backgrounds. The charity as it states on its website and we discovered first hand is “inclusive, innovative and passionate about what we do – committed to making a positive difference to people’s lives.” Please see the following link to learn more about the community it serves: http://www.dragonhall.org.uk/about-us/

Instead of the elementary school children staying at daycare after school, we, the volunteers for the day, would go escort them from their nearby school back to Dragon Hall.  While most were content to walk in a straight line, we ensured that they were safe from any oncoming traffic.  When we all arrived back at Dragon Hall, the children would sit down amidst the activities we had prepared earlier with the other volunteers.  Some days, we would play a large game, like charades or bingo, in which all the children would interact together or in a few small groups.  Others, however, we would jump straight into the meat of the afternoon.  The children would disperse and go to various stations, and we would oversee, help, and even participate with them.  For example, I enjoyed a few rousing games of Uno before moving to Connect Four.  The ping pong table and the Nintendo 64 were the hottest ticket items, and I dared not enter the queue.  If none of those options interested you, there was fussball, drawing, and other board games.  Not only that, but there were healthy snacks served throughout.  While four hours had seemed like a long time at the start, it went in a flash.  Volunteering at Dragon Hall not only taught us how better to interact with the children, but was also a blast!

In Bob’s words, our abroad program is “basically a minor league baseball team”. In total, our travel time to Manchester added up to around 10 hours. Despite a long bus ride, the travel was worth it to experience what game night feels like in Manchester. When we arrived at the stadium and got our tickets, we browsed the Manchester City store. There are a few die hard Man City fans on our program, so it was essential to purchase some match day attire. We then set off to find a place to grab a bite to eat. We found a local pub where most of the locals go before the game. The environment was toxic; filled with passionate fans who are eager to watch good football. We enjoyed being a part of that atmosphere.

After dinner we entered the Etihad Stadium. The stadium was large (55,097 capacity) but was not as grand as Tottenham’s Wembley stadium, which holds around 90,000. The shape of the stadium looked similar to Arsenal’s Emirates stadium. We had seats higher up in the stadium that were located near the halfway line. Our great view let us see the pitch and fans better which, in our opinion, made for a better overall experience. Before kick off, the players did a traditional World Cup walk out. They held children’s hands as they walked out. Due to Man City’s nickname, there was a blue moon located at the center circle.

The game kicked off at 8:00 and from the begining Manchester City held possession of the ball for most of the game. The technical aspect of Man City is down to a science. Their pristine football is beautiful to watch. Whenever West Brom had the ball Man City would steal the ball back in seconds. After checking post-match, we found Man City had possession for 74% of the game. In the end, this ended with a 3-0 win for Man City. Their three goals included Fernandinho scoring at the 19 minute mark, De Bruyne in the 68th minute and Aguero in the 89th minute. There was dirty play on West Brom’s side who received three yellow cards. Despite the match being very one sided, the crowd was enthusiastic for the whole time. We enjoyed watching the crowds reactions to calls, goals and fouls.

It started to snow on our way back to central London. It reminded us of the cold Minnesota winter that we get to skip to take this amazing trip.

Monday January 29th, we had the opportunity to visit St. George’s Park where all of the different English National Teams train. In total there are 24 English teams that train at the 300 acre, £105 million, 12 pitch facility. We began our day by visiting the locker rooms that the national teams use when they come and train at St. Georges’ Park. We then took a tour of the facilities. We were able to see the wall of signatures with autographs of some of the best players in the world, including Leo Messi, Wayne Rooney, Luis Suarez, David Beckham and even Prince William.

We then were able to see the recovery rooms where the players utilized both a hot and cold pool, and an underwater treadmill to help with injury recovery.

After this they took us to the futsal indoor court and we learned about the rules of futsal. Futsal is played with five players on each side on a hard floored service and with a heavier ball than a usual soccer ball in order to keep it on the ground. Apparently futsal is becoming more and more popular in England as coaches believe it helps players develop their touches and speed of play. After this we got to see the strength and conditioning gym where the athletes workout which overlooks an outdoor grass pitch that is an exact replica of the Wembley stadium pitch. By having glass windows overlooking the pitch it is a reminder to the athletes of why they are training. The next stop on our tour was the indoor turf soccer pitch. The pitch was being used for a training session in which a coach was being evaluated for his UEFA A license by other coaches. He was coaching a group of boys from some of the local teams and there was about ten coaches watching him. He was also being filmed so that he could watch it and see what he could improve on. It was clear that making sure there coaches are well prepared was a huge emphasis of the facility. After this our tour was complete and we were taken to one of the soccer pitches outside for a training session with two English coaches.

We started our practice with a lot of movement to get us warmed up including some running and jumping. After this they let us play a game of 11 v 11 for the next hour. It was an incredible experience to be able to play on one of the pitches that some of the English National Teams also practice on. We were split into two teams of 11, a blue team and a pink team. The pink team got off to a quick start going up 3-0 in the early parts of the game. The blue team however slowly made their way back in the second half evening up the score 3-3 with five minutes left in the match. As the final whistle blew, we all thought that we were going to end in a draw, but our coaches had another idea for us. We then went into penalty kicks to decide which team was going to win and which team would lose. The two teams tied in penalty kicks 2-2 after some incredible goal keeping by Aaron Prentice of the blue team and Dylan Rye of the pink team. We then went into sudden death penalty kicks, where Anna Huber scored a goal in the bottom left corner to seal the victory for the blue team. It was an incredible day being able to walk in the shoes of the English National teams, and be able to train in the exact location that some of the best players in the world train.