May 12, 2008

Former Wildcat Shannon Schneeman is over in Finland playing soccer and is writing a blog of her experiences for NUsports.com. Schneeman finished her NU career with 20 goals and 51 career points. She is third on NU's all-time goals list and on NU's all-time list with nine goals in a single season (2007). Schneeman was a two-time all-Big Ten selection and after missing all of 2005 due to injury, came back to enjoy her best offensive seasons in 2006 and 2007, totaling 34 points over the two years. She finished her career with seven game-winning goals.

Check back to this page throughout the spring and summer for Shannon's updates.

May 12, 2008
So I'm here in the land of salted licorice and meatballs! Although it's been hard adjusting to a new place and a new team, it's also exciting being able to learn some Finnish (which is not very easy), a different style of soccer, and experience a whole other culture. I arrived in Helsinki last Wednesday night where my coach picked me up from the airport, took me to dinner at Chico's (a place like Chili's), showed me around a bit and then took me to my host family's house. It is a cute little house in a part of the Helsinki area called Espoo. It is right next to the train station and the public transportation is great so it's easy to get anywhere.

I was nervous for practice the next day, playing with a whole new team and a new coach. Luckily all the drills we did seemed to have come directly from Evanston -- juggling ladders, 3-team possession, flying changes, pele series, and some finishing. The style of soccer is different than the Big Ten. There seems to be more focus on technical skills like passing, juggling, dribbling, and 1v1 moves, and less focus on the physical aspects. Part of that is because all the girls have a job and soccer at the same time so it is too demanding to have many lifting and running sessions in addition to training. It's funny -- to them, the typical American soccer player is a work horse and whenever Americans come over they are expected to run all day long. So it seems I have my work cut out for me.

I had my first match in the Naisten Liiga (Finnish premiere league) yesterday and we tied 1-1 against a team they had lost to 4-0 in a scrimmage earlier this year. We got to play in a huge stadium that the men's teams play in as well. Some people here are crazy about soccer and the girl I live with keeps track of all the soccer blogs over here. I never thought so many people would be so interested in women's soccer.

I am learning to understand a little Finnish, like when my teammate or coaches yell to me in Finnish to turn (kaanu), man-on (vaaro) or time (rouha), but still have a lot to learn. Pronunciation is the hardest part about the language I think. The girls laugh because it takes me like 10 times to get the right accents on the right syllables. But I guess it's hard for them to pronounce English words, too.

We have our 3rd game this Saturday so we're training this week to get ready for that. Here's the league's website that is always updated with scores, etc. (it's only in Finnish unfortunately) -- my team is FC Kontu. www.naistenliiga.fi/. If you need help translating some of those Finnish words, click here

Go Cats!

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