APIA Leichardt Tigers guest player Joshua Colosimo suffers defeat against a Serie D representative team in the prestigious youth competition, the Viareggio tournament.

  With our game against Inter Milan resulting in a 3-0 loss, the APIA squad were looking to re-group and bounce back only two days later. The team knew that another loss would mean a premature end to our Viareggio adventure.

A recovery session was scheduled bright and early on Tuesday morning. This involved an early walk and stretch, followed by some hydrotherapy in the local swimming pool. The team was starting to feel the effects of so many games in such a short period of time, with a majority of players experiencing tightness in the calf muscles, and in particular, the hamstrings. Steve our physio has been kept quite busy throughout the last week, thanks Steve!

After lunch, the boys decided to take a 30-minute walk to Viareggio stadium, where AC Milan were playing J-League team, Nagoya Grampus. This match was particularly intriguing for the APIA boys, as merely the day before, the apprentice's had played the Japanese side. The contest was quite a dull affair, with neither side creating clear-cut chances. In my opinion, Nagoya Grampus looked like the better side in the first period, keeping their much-fancied opponents pinned in their own half. However, the second half proved to be a much different story, with Milan dominating possession. A young player by the name of Simone Calvano stood out as the only shining light on the pitch, with the game eventually finishing 0-0.

The APIA boys woke up on Wednesday, determined to put in a good performance against the Serie D representative team. The squad boarded the bus and relaxed, knowing that the ride would take just over 2 hours. Once we arrived at the ground, we noticed how terrible the pitch was, consisting of predominantly mud and sad. None the less, the team was excited to play against a squad who had beaten Inter Milan in the 2010 edition of the Viareggio tournament.

The match started and we were shell-shocked, finding ourselves 3-0 down after only 20 minutes, mainly due to some erratic defending. To the boys' credit, we improved as the match went on and forced the opposition keeper into numerous saves. The final score ended 3-0 to the extremely talented Serie D side, ending APIA's involvement in the tournament.

We still have the final group match against Viareggio to come and look forward to obtaining a positive result, ending our Viareggio experience on a high.

Until next time... Joshua Colosimo