New Orleans

This last Friday we traveled to New Orleans for a soccer-culture weekend extravaganza. We left around 1000 and pointed our vans towards the Marriott Residence Inn. We made a pit-stop for lunch at the BBQ shed, which had featured on the show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It turned out to be a great stop, some of the best BBQ I had ever had.

Leaving with full stomachs

Some more BBQ ambiance

After checking in and enjoying some down time around the hotel we made our way to the Tulane campus. The Tulane club team was fairly skilled and had some good athletes. A very quick Tulane forward got free in our final third and surprised us with a quick goal just a few moments after kick off. It took us a solid 15 minutes to figure out the speed of the play and the way the ball bounced on their turf field. Once we did, the game shifted in our direction. The final score line ended as 2-2; Tim was man of the match with a header goal off of a corner kick and a cool right footed finish inside the box (he's left footed). We were the better team but we didn't get the result we deserved. There is still plenty of work to be done.

Futbol-ing

After the game the Tulane players were curious about what we did in the Military so we gathered around, introduced ourselves, and gave a quick sentence long description of our duty station. They seemed genuinely interested and it was a good to hear everyone on the team speak about their lives away from soccer.

Tulane on the left, All Navy on the right

After the game we cleaned up at the hotel and headed out for a night out in New Orleans, most of us jumped between Bourbon and Frenchman Street. Florida was awaiting a college football beat-down by LSU so there were plenty of Gator and LSU fans around pumping up the environment.

Going out

The next day we picked ourselves up and drove to New Orleans University for an afternoon scrimmage. There was a brief field malfunction (see picture below) so we shifted to a different campus location and played on smaller size field. In order to accommodate for the smaller field we divided up into three teams and took turns playing against each other and the university players. After a number of short games we thanked the U. NO players and pushed ourselves with a sprint workout.

Prairie soccer 

Sprints

After the game a few of us went out for some dinner. We found a small quintessential New Orleans restaurant, with live jazz saxophone, and enjoyed some great dinner and drinks.

Man on the sax

The next day we checked out of the hotel and made our way to the University of Southern Mississippi. We played on one of the widest fields I have ever played on. It was apparent from the start of the game we were the better team, and we got a deserving result. We won 5-1 and were able to pass around them most of the second half as our fitness once again prevailed. After discussing the game we loaded into the vans and headed back to Pensacola.