Heat Return from Monterrey, Head to Houston
The Laredo Heat Soccer Club is logging road miles over this past week as they returned from Monterrey on Sunday March 19th and headed to Houston on Friday March 24th.
The Heat went to Monterrey the weekend of March 18th and 19th to get high altitude training in the surrounding mountains and to continue the 2006 season physical conditioning sessions.
After three weeks of pre-season training, including the trip to Monterrey, the Heat headed to Houston yesterday Friday, March 24th, to participate in the Houston Futbol Association Tournament over the weekend.
Laredo Heat SC General Manager and COO, J.J. Vela, said of the participation in the tournament, “We will play three games on Saturday, March 25th and we will face teams from Los Angeles, CA, Austin and Houston. Depending on the outcome of Saturday’s games, the Heat might also play in the semi-finals and championship game on Sunday, the 26th.” Vela added, “As these games in Houston are our first games where we will actually see the players in action, Coach Collazo is using the tournament as his first look at all the players in game situations, and those players on the bubble of making the team this season will also be getting the opportunity to showcase their abilities to their coach.” Vela also said, “As much as we’d like to go to Houston and play all of our potential starters in every game, the information Coach Collazo gathers from the games will be much more important for the upcoming season than the outcome of the games.” Vela concluded with a laugh, “That will be the last time the Heat fans, players and coaches will hear me say that.”
Of the trip to Monterrey, Heat Head Coach, Israel Collazo, said, “Every year, when I played professionally in Mexico, my club teams would either work out in the mountains or would head to the coast to do beach training prior to the beginning of the season”. Collazo continued, “For myself, the mountain training, due to the altitude it naturally provides, always prepared me the best and when I mentioned it to our owner during one casual conversation he asked me if I thought it would benefit our players and I immediately said yes.” Coach Collazo concluded, “The players and coaching staff are very grateful for the opportunity that our owner, Shashi Vaswani, gave us, and we are also very excited about the upcoming season because of the commitment that has been shown to us by the administration.”
When asked about the trip to Monterrey, Heat player Ryan Harrison, mentioned, “That was one of the hardest training sessions I have ever done; however, I cannot believe how great one feels after the day is done and one comes back down from the mountain.” Harrison also added, “Outside from the two hard days of training, the scenery at Chipinque was fantastic and made everything worthwhile.”
For additional information on the Laredo Heat Soccer Club and future game updates, please visit their web site at www.laredoheatsc.com .
