I received an invite to train for the first time with the Inter Miami CF Academy's Discovery Program earlier this year. It was very exciting to train at the same facilities as Lionel Messi and other international soccer superstars like Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Luis Suarez. I received the invitation through my club Impact City FC South Florida. They shared with me that I had received an invitation to train with the Inter Miami Academy Discovery Program and I was super excited and a little nervous when the day finally came. We trained in the evening at the Inter Miami Training Facility next to Chase Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale. There were assistant coaches that checked us in and I was one of about 20 players that evening. I ran into a new friend I had made at a tournament a couple months earlier, so it was cool to see him there too. We played on the same team in the tournament and assisted each other several times on goals. There was an older 2013 age group training before us, so a coach started warming us up while they continued to play. When they were done they immediately threw us into a scrimmage and I was able to score the first goal off a cross to the back post from one of my teammates! That was really exciting and a couple of the other players that I had never met before came over to congratulate me. One of my favorite moments was when I was playing left wing and a teammate played me a ball on the left edge of the penalty area and I drove past the defender to get off a shot. The keeper (who I later realized I scored two goals on in a tournament a few weeks earlier) was able to deflect the shot, but one of my teammates was able to grab the rebound and score. It was fun and challenging to play with so many strong players and run into familiar faces.
I went back two weeks later for the second session. That night we had to go through a different entrance and train on a different field, because we think Messi was training on the other fields. This night we did a much longer warmup and more drills at the beginning before scrimmaging again. We played 9v9 and I think there were 24 of us, because those of us that weren't playing would play 3v3 on the side.
The coaches and other players were all great to each other and very respectful. It's been a great experience so far and I hope I get more opportunities to train again. In the meantime I might see you at a game!
Thanks for watching!
Benjamin Slay