The pace continued at a high level of training for Bermuda’s U17 Youth football team in Reading, Pennsylvania on Thursday. With the arrival of head coach Mark Wade on Wednesday, and assistant coach, Ray Jones sitting in as head coach the previous four days; once again the squad had a two day training session.

 For the morning session, Coach Wade had them work on a drill that consisted of defending as a team, zone defending and double team defensive duties. Each player was given the task on how to improve their defensive awareness via their positional placement and mental awareness. The afternoon session was followed up with further positional play, evaluation as a team and individual areas of responsibility. As for Coach Jones, he solely worked with the goal-keepers on their kicking technique, focusing on distance and accuracy.

 Meanwhile, the squad consisting of (21) players received two injuries which has seen the active roster decrease to (19) players. Team medic, Jenson Bascome, has done his share of work, keeping the remaining players healthy for today’s match against the Reading Rage U17 Super Y team. The Rage U17’s have reached the national finals twice in the last (3) years having lost on each occasion and have also lost in the semi-finals. Technical Director, Derek Broadley, truly believes this will be a good test for Bermuda. With the team consisting of players (13) to (16) years of age, they eager to see if they can compete with one of the top Super Y teams in the country.  

 As for today, the squad will evaluate their match between Bermuda Blue vs. Bermuda Red, during the most recent Clyde Best Tournament in the morning; while in the afternoon the team will prepare for the match against the Rage, kicking off at 8:30pm, local time.