As promised I will give you an update on the five Bermuda players that were invited up to my pro team, Baltimore Blast, for invitational tryouts.

The players (Angelo Simmons, Logan Alexander, Coolridge Durham, Aquino Grant and Dennis Russell) did really well in the three days. Out of a group of 30 players trying out, 14 were asked to return to train with the first team this week and two of them were from Bermuda.

They will be trying out until Friday before any more cuts are made from the team. The training will be very hard and the players will need to stay focused and concentrate on limiting their mistakes.

Yesterday the two Bermudian players were picked up at 5.15 a.m. in the morning for the first session which was a four-and-a-half mile run around Druid Park Lake, timed. Not only did they have to deal with the early morning wake up but the cold weather, it was around 30 degrees at that time.

After the run they had to rest and then get ready for the second session, which started at 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The second session was based around ball work and playing.

This schedule will be repeated tomorrow and Friday of this week. Today they will be training at 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

They will be doing fitness work with and without the ball, core training and sharpness training will be the plan for the first session. The second session which will start at 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., will see the players doing touch work with the ball then playing (game situation) for most of the time after.

This schedule will get repeated on Thursday as well.

On Friday we will be making cuts to the group. If the players want to continue their journey further they will have to be consistent and be mentally strong, as they get fatigued they will make plenty of mistakes in the game so they have to make sure they control their mindset and be patient and not try to play out of their means.

The three players that did not get through the first cut will be heading back to Bermuda this week to prepare for their return tryouts in February/March for outdoor teams.

They have been given their evaluation and need to continue to put the work in before they head back out.

They worked very hard last week and I hope they got some experience that will carry them through these next sets of tryouts. Now, some may be asking why send the players to play the indoor game?

Players coming from Bermuda have some bad habits in their game that indoor will easily pick up, like their transition game, they tend to relax when switching from offence to defence.

In the indoor game this cannot happen, if so you will get exposed.

Their ball speed is also too slow in Bermuda.

The indoor game will help this to develop and also help with sharpness on and off the ball. You must understand also that with the strong network that I have developed through the professional teams in the USA from MLS to USL teams I cannot afford to send a player to a club (outdoor) if I do not get a chance to give a full evaluation of the player first.

I need to know what the player can do before I can move the player to other clubs. With almost 75 percent of the indoor players playing at outdoor teams, these tryouts also become a great networking system for the players themselves.

A lot of the players coming in for invitationals are pro outdoor players.

When asking players from Bermuda to come in for invitationals I give them a good understanding of how the process works and also assure them that this process is designed to give them hope and help give them a good understanding of what it is like making professional teams.

Some players I invite have great talent and some players have passion, heart, simplicity and desire.

I give them a chance to fulfill a dream as well.

Hope is also set in place for these players as well. I always relate this situation to the movie 'Rudy', sometimes determination and hard work prevails for some.

I am very proud of all the players who came up and want to let them know that this is a start of their journey and there are no failures, they need to continue to develop and take what they learned and prepare for their next battle.

These players bonded great and showed a great attitude towards the game of indoor which is very new to them.

They made their step out of the box. Until next time!