Friday

Today was a day before match and therefore we only had one easy training. But because I can't play yet I didn't train with my team. Instead I trained with an injured player and we just ran a lot..

Today was the first time we ate before the first team. (because we only trained about 50 min)

After Lunch we should clean the first team player's boots before we quit. But I went to the hospital and did a heart examination. Took about 30 min..

Now I'm going out to meet my sister at the train station. She will stay here until thursday..probably..

Thursday

Three sessions today. The first was in the gym. I'm getting stronger because of all this training.. Hopefully I'll be a better football player as well.

I can't play this saturday either but hopefully my clearence will come this Monday.

We practice very much on crosses and we only have 3 strikers so I get a lot of scoring training.. For the moment we are only 2 strikers because Adam is on national duty.

First schoolday

I went to school by bus. We arrived to the college about 5 past nine. Me and zoltan Was going to have a English lesson and it started half past nine. we spoke with the teacher and we could join the class, but he couldn't do a English test with us, he didn't have the time today. The lesson was about 2 hours with a 1 min break. It went pretty good, I think I will improve my speaking English very much if I go there.

After that we went home, but we took wrong bus so we had to walk for about 30 min to come home. That was the only training I had today. At home slept for an hour before I did some homework.

Now we're looking at Liverpool - Chelsea on Sky Sports 2.

Tuesday

Three training sessions today. Two football sessions. Today I felt a little bit stiff because of the hard gym session yesterday. Very nice weather today I must say!

Later I was on Villa Park and looked when the reserves played against Sunderland. The match ended 1 - 1.

Tomorrow is College day so we don't have any training. Me and Zoltan are going to do a English test to see if we need to go on english lessons.

Monday

Free morning but I did some school work from Sweden. Went to the training ground about half past 12.

Today we only had a gym session, no football training. Hard training but good for me.

All foreign players are going home the last wednesday in October. I think it's the 26th October. But I will maybe not come home because they think I haven't been here for so long. we will see about that..

It's very nice with a long relaxing morning. After 3 hard days I finally get some spare time. Yesterday I trained with the reserves and two first team players, Eirik Bakke and Mark Delaney. Quite hard training but it was ok. After that the manager drove me to the u-18's match against Leicester. I came when they hav played about 5 min. And after I heard from the players, that it was their best part of the game. And I think they're telling the truth because rest of the game was crap. It wasn't many players who came up to their normal standard. It looked like it was going to be a 0 - 0 match but when it was 5 min left our goalkeeper did a little mistake so they scored and won with 1 - 0.. Even though we didn't play well I think we should at least have taken 1 point because Leicester weren't good either. I think we had more chances than them. But football isn't always fair.

In the evening I watched a movie with Eric and Adam. The movie was OK. Not too good, not too bad. It costed about 70 kr to see it.

tired...

I trained with the reserves today. It was much harder and faster to train with them. But they are also only 8 players that almost play with the first team. I can't say it went good, I had some up and downs and they used the F-word almost every time I did a little mistake...

Tomorrow I will train with them again and after that their manager will take me to Leicester so I can see my team(u-18) play.

Thursday

First thing we did was going to the gym.. hard training as always... When we were finished the manager thought it was too late to have a football session. So we were only jogging for about 30 min before Lunch. After Lunch we went out and practiced attacking. I think it went pretty well for me as I scored some goals...

It's seems that I will not be a Aston Villa player before 3 Oktober. I don't know why It is taking so long time...

while my friends will play against Leicester I'am going to train with the reserve team on saturday morning..

Wednesday

yesterday was a hard day. 3 training sessions which one was in the gym. In the end of the last session we did some running and after that I was dead tired. When we came home I wanted to just fall asleep in my bed, but then it was only 20 min left until we were leaving because we were going to see the reserves playing against Blackburn.

The match ended 1 - 1 after a late equaliser from Blackburn. Eric played the last 30 min and were very close to score..

Today I have a day of when the other lads is going to College. That is nice.. because right now I'm stiff.

Monday

The first team lost 2 points against Tottenham. Villa had the lead and Baros missed a great opportunity when it was a quarter left. Tottenham equalised just a minute after Baros chance. I think my team, u-18, played better football than the first team.. And This stood in the Match programme:
Swede Success
Villa have signed Tobias Lard Mikaelson from Vallens IF in Sweden. The 16-year-old has signed a three-year-contract, after a short trial in which he impressed the club's academy coaches. The tall, two footed striker, who knows Eric Lund, is being earmarked for the youth team. Academy director Bryan Jones said: "We hope he will be a valuable acquisition."

Yesterday I did nothing. Watch 2-3 matches on TV and just relaxed at home. I tried to do some homework aswell, but... erhh.. didn't do much of it...

Today I woke up at 9. Everybody else in the team were in College but I and Zoltan stayed at home in the morning. We met the other lads in Sutton and there we waited for the bus to take us to the training ground. While we were waiting on the bus many police cars went by us. Even a Police helicopter was there. I don't know what had happened but somebody said that there was a knife fight in the College.

The traing today was not so hard. We stood in circle and passed the ball around. That was pretty much of what we did... After that we went into the gym. That was harder.. But it gives result that you can see in a short time. And we write up everything we do and which weight we take, so the trainers can see how we improve without speaking to us.

And tomorrow I will speak with Bryan Jones, Academy director, about why I can't play and if we can do anything about it.. If we can't do anything about it, maybe I will come home over the weekend... ?

Win 3 - 0

Today we won with 3 - 0 against Millwall. We were much better I think. We tried to play the ball around, so they didn't have the ball much. In second half we maybe played a little bit worse but we should have scored more goals..

I didn't play.. I haven't got international clearance yet. Probably I can't play the next 2 weeks either.

Now i'm going out to see the first team play at Villa Park.

Friday

Now it's only 16 hours left to the game against Millwall. The manager haven't said the team yet because some players are sick and unavailable to play tomorrow.

Today we had only one easy training. A warm-up and a passing exercise was everything we did today before the manager called off the training. He was upset with some of the player's attitude. We only trained for about 45 min.

Today I got a bank card, a bus card and a english mobile number. It will be much easier for me to travell around here now.

Thursday

Today we have trained 3 times. One time in the gym(jobbigt) and two football sessions. The first football session was about defence position. How to act in situations that can happen in a match. We played 8 vs 6. 8 attackers and 6 defenders. It had rained(strange...) before the training so it was a little difficult to have controll over the ball, at least I thought so. But the training was mostly about running without ball luckily. A difference about the training here, from how it was in sweden, is that the Manager can stop the training just because one player have done something wrong. Then he goes to the player and confront him with the problem in front of everybody. I can say that we had quite many stops. We aren't perfect yet...

The second football session was only football baseball. Great Britain(with two australian players) against rest of Europe. Great Britain won, but it was nearly we won. Eric Lund was the last man to be the "kicker". Unfortunately he shot a too high ball so the other team could win the match. Important to know is that we had 3 goalkeepers in our team and they had none..

Oh.. I forgot to tell my number.. Because I arrived last of the players I got nr 18.. Eric has 13, I think.

Sorry for waiting so long to update, but we only have one computer in the house and we are four foreign boys..

I have a "day off" today because on wednesdays everybody in the team is going to college. Well.. except me and a lad from Hungary. No Training and no school today for me then. I do got some homework from Sweden but I`ve got about 3 months before I must have done them.

I slept at a hotel in London the first night and travelled in the morning to the training ground. I trained with the team after Lunch, but it was a short training. Yesterday It was much harder training. 3 sessions(2 football trainings and 1 in the gym). But I missed the gym session and about 30 minutes of the last traing because I had to see the medic.

I think it went pretty good for me yesterday. In the end of the traning when we played with 2 goals I scored 4-5 goals and we won with about 7-2. I hope I`ll be selected to the game on saturday against Millwall because I've heard they have had problems to score in the last games.

2 timmar kvar..

Om två timmar åker jag till flygplatsen. Planet går kl 9 från Säve. Jag kommer sedan att åka till London där jag skall stanna över natten. Åker sedan med PB till Träningsanläggningen och han sa att vi skulle anlända dit vid lunchtid. Jag är inte säker, men troligtvis börjar jag träna med laget redan på måndag eftermiddag.

Jag skriver på svenska eftersom det är sista gången(troligtvis) jag har tillgång till åäö. Men jag kommer börja skriva på engelska när jag fått tag på en dator där borta. Förhoppningsvis har dom redan installerat en dator i huset jag skall bo i.

Hinner tyvärr inte skriva mer nu eftersom jag inte har packat än och morsan börjar bli lite smått irriterad...

Leavin' Sunday

Now it's for sure, I'm leaving Sweden on Sunday. I'll arrive to my host family at 11 O'clock or later. And probably will my first training with the team be on monday morning. Next match the under-18, which is the team I play with, have is on Saturday against Millwall. I hope that I will be selected to at least sit on the bench. If I've understand the situation right this team only has 2 strikers so I think I will have quite many chances to prove my skills. Well, they must have seen my skills because I got a contract. But I want to show both them and myself that I can play at this level. But I will not be too sad if I don't be selected to play now at the beginning.

///Tobias

P.s. Orkar tyvärr inte skriva på det svenska...

för övrigt kan nämnas att Aston Villas äldsta Akademi-lag har gått till final i Fa Youth Cup två gånger på 4 år. Däremot är klubbens inställning till denna säsong att u-18 laget skall spela ihop sig inför nästa säsong eftersom vi är flera förstaårs juniorer i truppen(även jag).

The first..

Hallå!

I'll try to keep up with information about my time in England here. Hopefully in both swedish and english. I do hope you have notice that I'm not too good at the english language. But I'll try to write as good and often as I can. Enjoy your reading here!

Jag skall försöka att uppdatera med information om min tid i england här. Förhoppningsvis på både engelska och svenska. Jag hoppas att ni har överseende med min engelska. Men jag skall försöka skriva så bra och ofta som jag kan. Njut av läsningen! :-P

M.v.h. Tobias

P.s.

I'm still in Sweden but I will go to England as soon as everything is under control.

Jag är fortfarande i Sverige men jag åker till England så snart allting är ordnat.