The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That's not the official theme to start preseason camp for LAFC but it's what I'm running with for now.
A year ago LAFC started preseason on the campus of UCLA. I can still remember seeing the players walk in from the parking lot to the makeshift locker room/meal area/staging center the college had set up for them. Many players looked not too unlike the various college students moving from class to class - although they seemed less sure of where they were going. There were plenty of handshakes and introductions that day.
Fast forward to 2019.
Day One of LAFC preseason camp took place at LAFC's top-class Performance Center. As the players arrived, most parked in the exact same spot they did all of last season. While there were a few new faces, for the most part, the handshakes and introductions were replaced with hugs and excitement of seeing old friends.
A second season with new expectations ahead of them, the change of scenery, and new personnel at camp are all little challenges in themselves for this squad of LAFC players in 2019, but the philosophy that head coach Bob Bradley put into place from Day 1 of last year's camp remain a constant. As I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
"The challenge to get better, to make our football better, to enjoy what goes on every day. C'mon, man. That is still what we have tried to build as a foundation," Bob Bradley told his players in the first team meeting of the year. "This year, when I say we're excited, this year, the idea is let's get going."
After the meeting, players took the pitch for some light conditioning with the performance staff. Then it was right to work with the ball. A couple of passing drills started the day's session in earnest followed by a game on a condensed field to force players to be creative with their movements and crisp with their use of the ball.
"Our way of working is typically from the beginning to try and get some football ideas on the field, push them, and try to get them to see some of the things that we think a good team does," Bradley said after the first training session of the year.
Eleven players joined LAFC's preseason camp as invitees or draftees looking to earn a spot on the roster come the start of the season. Bradley said that many of their heads were still probably spinning from the morning's meeting. But he added that he hoped, in conjunction with the return of a large part of the team's core from last season, players would be able to quickly get a feel for what LAFC was about on the pitch.
And compared to where LAFC were starting from in Day One of last preseason camp, Bradley seemed pretty pleased.
"Mark-Anthony Kaye came to me today and I said, 'What did you think?' And he said he had a few sloppy touches. I told him, 'You had more the first day last year, so you're doing just fine,' Bradley said with a slight smirk. "When I use that as an example it's a way of sort of saying whether it's how players are doing or of course the training field and the facility, the fact that now when we start, more guys are in tune with our kind of ideas.
"It's great that some guys are already far into the project, then that's a way of sort of introducing others and trying to get the whole thing moving. So, yeah. Good first day."
