What a summer!

This year Silah returned to the City Football Academy for her second year on the Manchester City Football Language Program. This year, she extended her experience with a week on the Performance Program, designed for players with an intermediate to advanced level of English who are ready to take their game to the next level!

Here, she shares her experience:

On the Manchester City Football Performance Program, we did a lot of cool stuff. First, I met a lot of new people from all over the world coming from many different cultures. It was a great experience to see how other girls and boys in other countries live. Also, the training sessions were fantastic. We had great coaches who helped us to develop our football skills. In our football theory lessons, our coaches explained to us how a professional football player should behave. All the staff in the college were very friendly and always willing to help when you had a question or problem.

I learnt many new football skills. We played “rondo” which is a four against one game and “skill zone” where I improved my technical skills. Outside of the pitch we discussed about football intelligence and learned how the Academy trains. My favourite session was a game named “killer shoot”: we were standing in a line and everybody had to shoot the ball on the first kick, and then we had to run quickly into the goal to keep the shot from the next person. That game was very fun, and through it, I really improved my one-touch shot.

I enjoyed using the professional training facilities very much because it was a great feeling to play on the pitches where professional players train. We even met some Academy players and a member of the Women’s pro team at the Manchester City facilities. We played on a perfect football pitch with very professional equipment. This made us feel like professional football players. It was a wonderful emotion for me to wear the Manchester City football kit.