Darby Pope's Daughters Experience Spanish Futsal on the Court

Darby Pope, back row, right, took his daughters to Spain this summer to train with professional futsal coaches and players. Pictured are Sergio, one of the coaches, in the upper left, Ellie Pope and Darby in the upper right, and Abigail Pope and Gen, another coach, in the lower right.

Editor's note:

Darby Pope was among the group of USYF coaches that included Jon Parry and Ty Stauffer that traveled to Spain a while back to attend a coaching symposium in A Coruna and watch games in the Spanish Super Copa. 

Darby returned to Spain with his daughters, Ellie and Abigail, to have them participate in training sessions with Sergio and Gen, coaches he met in A Coruna during the earlier visit. 

We appreciate him sharing the experience with us and sending photos from this summer's training sessions.

David,

We left for Barcelona on June 19 and spent a few days seeing the sites there.  

We then traveled by train to Murcia on June 22 for the International Elite Women's Futsal Camp in Archena (near Murcia) from June 23-28.  The girls had an excellent immersion experience in both futsal and Spanish culture as they stayed with their fellow players in apartments during the camp.  

Nacho (Garrido) was an excellent coach who both demanded and taught technical and tactical perfection.   There were many first-division Spanish players there to challenge the girls as well.

After the completion of the camp on June 28, we traveled that evening via overnight train from southeastern Spain (Murcia) to northeastern Spain (A Coruna) through Madrid and the heart of Spain.

Abigail's scrimmage team at camp in Spain. She's in the center of the back row.

This is Ellie Pope's team. That's her, lower right.

Upon arrival in Coruna, Sergio Blanco and Gen (Gentoku Baba) of 5 Coruna FS (Futbol Sala) arranged transportation to Ribadeo in beautiful coastal Galicia. There, Ellie and Abigail joined the 5 Coruna women's team for a tournament, which included some of the best teams in Spain and some players on the Spanish Futsal National team.

Ellie and Abigail played with the team in games at 1:30 and 5 p.m. on June 29 and then at 12:30 a.m. on June 30!  Sergio and Gen and their women's futsal team then had a training for the girls the following night, July 1, and we left for Madrid and the flight home the following day, July 2.

Here is the link to Nacho's website with information, some pictures, and a few videos of the Elite International Women's Futsal Camp:

http://campuselitefsf.blogspot.com/

(Pictures are at a link near the bottom of the page (if you click on "fotografias dos primeros dias campus") or try this link: https://plus.google.com/photos/100914108426042613987/albums

Thanks, Darby Pope

(If you'd like to contact Darby for more information about training in Spain you can message him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/g.d.pope?fref=ts or email us at davidknopf@gmail.com and we will put him in touch with you. You can also contact Nacho Garrido through his Facebook page. His daughters are pictured in the front row, left, with the Spanish tournament team they were part of.)