Anfield Stadium

We travelled to Liverpool and had a great behind the scenes tour of Anfield Stadium, home to Liverpool FC. While the tour was no way near as impressive as Man City, the history at Anfield and of Liverpool cannot be matched.  

You can see the Irish Sea from inside the stadium.

Ethiad Stadium

The players trained at Man City on two different days. After the teams' second training session at Man City, we were taken on a behind the scenes tour of Ethiad Stadium, home of Man City's premier league team (men). The tour was incredibly well done and we were simply amazed at not only the facility but all of the little details.

We took the pedestrian footbridge from the academy training facility to the stadium.

One of my favorite photos from the trip.

The stadium currently holds 55,000 but is being expanded to about 61,000.

The girls team in the home locker room (the rounded shape was inspired by the Notre Dame football team's locker rooms).

Experiencing all of this with her two oldest and best friends was incredible.

St. George's Park

While the players trained with Tottenham Spurs, the parents headed to Manchester. Breaking up the ride from London to Manchester was a stop at St. George's Park National Training Centre, the training and preparation ground for all 28 of England's national teams. The Centre has 12 world class training grounds, with both grass and artificial surfaces, once of which is an exact replica of the surface used at Wembly Stadium, as well as a full sized indoor field and other state of the art facilities. While there were various individuals and coaches using the facilities while we were there, none of the national teams were in camp. It was quite incredible to see, such a rich history of soccer in England! 

As we were leaving, our players were arriving and I was able to grab this photo of Emily and her friends.