July 18th, 2011

Today was a nice slower paced day to rebound from Paris. We met downstairs in the lobby to head to the Mittelrhein Football Association. This place is like the top of the notch training facility for all professional athlete and coaches of Germany’s soccer teams. They basically house athletes who want train as well as groups and organizations that need to use the facilities. The guy gave us a tour and come to find out that they also have wrestling and boxing arenas too for training. For soccer they have a million fields: indoor/outdoor, turf/grass, etc. It has everything you need to become a professional soccer player. We also talked to the guy who runs the coaching certifications and he explained to us the process to become a professional soccer coach in Germany. There are 4 categories and you start off at A and that can take a couple of weeks to get in order to coach younger soccer players. Then you move up to a B and C certification in which each one takes longer and harder to get. And in between each certification you have to work with it for a year. Once you have made it all the way to the top then you have to apply to their school for elite or professional soccer coach. They have about 80 applicants a year and only accept 24. So it is very hard to do. But he said once you complete the 10 month program you are basically set to be a professional soccer coach. Kind of interesting how each country and sport does it differently.

We ate lunch at the facility in their dining hall and it was a buffet! It was nice to eat endless amount of food for a set price! We had salad, soup, pasta, and desert! Yum! We also got our picture taken with a professional soccer player- well now coach- but I don’t know his name but I do know that in Germany he is a total celebrity! So that was kind of cool!

After our little field trip, we had a lecture from Dr. Batista about Trademarks back at the AIB. He luckily let us go for the day early and we got to do a little shopping around town in Bonn and then we headed back to the dorm cause there was some rain coming. I have been in the dorm ever since and plan on going to bed at a decent time tonight so I can catch up on so long missed sleep! Cologne for the day tomorrow!