Remember paper calendars?

I just got a club press release firming up Louisville City’s preseason schedule! This is fun! LET’S LOOK AT IT:

  • Wed., February 6 – at Orlando City SC (TBD | Orlando City Stadium) – closed to the public
  • Sat., February 9– vs. Nashville SC (3 PM | IMG Academy) – open/closed TBD
  • Thurs., February 14– vs. New England Revolution (3 PM | IMG Academy) – open/closed TBD
  • Sat., February 16 – vs. University of South Florida (10 AM | IMG Academy) – open/closed TBD
    Wed., February 20– vs. Memphis 901 FC (TBD | TBD) – open/closed TBD
  • Sun., February 24 – at University of Kentucky (TBD | Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex) – open/closed TBD
  • Sat., March 2– at University of Louisville (TBD | Lynn Stadium) – open to the public
    • Ticket info TBD

And now, my quick thoughts:

  • Seven matches! That’s three more than normal!
  • Why would you have a friendly at Orlando City’s big stadium and not invite anyone? Couldn’t they just do that at their training facility? Or is there a security issue there? JOC’s involved, so chances are high he doesn’t want anyone scouting his guys. Either way, that’s super interesting.
  • We already knew about the Nashville and New England friendlies at IMG. Last year, Nashville and Cincinnati played a friendly down there and streamed it on their website, so maybe one of these two will do that again. New England’s involved, and they’re very cheap, so I’m guessing they won’t be streaming anything.
  • The college friendlies are fun!
  • I’m laughing a little at the idea that Louisville City and Memphis have picked out a date, but not a location or a time. It’s like a middle school date at the movies but no one’s picked out the movie or even the theater it’s in. So cute!

One thing that I’m interested to learn about is how Hackworth conducts his preseason camp. O’Connor, who, yes, is gone now, basically made the preseason camp into boot camp, emphasizing fitness and conditioning. I seem to remember Hackworth, who has a degree in kinesiology or something like that, being a bigger fan of the periodization approach to fitness. I think.

Periodization is the planning of athletic training using a progressively cyclic format with the goal of timing peak performance during the athlete’s major competitive events. Cyclic training organizes a team’s approach, protects against overtraining, and enables athletes to continue to improve. In other words, training is based on a cycle where athletes are more apt to be in their best physical condition on game days.

This is a little different from JOC’s approach, in that O’Connor tried to build base fitness at camp with the idea that the guys would be used to running their asses off all season long because they’d basically done it just about all day, every day for two weeks in Florida. That may be very similar to what Hackworth is doing, but playing this many preseason games seems to indicate to me that Niall won’t be tweeting out Lieutenant Dan gifs in February this year unlike in years past. I may also be making too broad a generalization about the differences between Hackworth’s and O’Connor’s fitness philosophy, but I can only use the tools I’ve got, and this is it.

Anyway, Louisville City soccer is starting in just a few weeks! GET EXCITED!