Victor Ulloa is one of five Home Grown players who have been signed to FC Dallas professional contracts. In his first preseason as a professional player, Ulloa will be using this blog to share his trials and experiences with FC Dallas fans.
READ: Victor's first blog entry
READ: Victor's second blog entry
Hello everyone,
We just wrapped up our week of training in Arizona, and it was pretty busy. We flew out to Phoenix on Tuesday. When we got to the hotel I found that my roommate was Bryan Leyva, just like in Orlando. That night Bryan, Moises [Hernandez], Ruben [Luna], Jonathan [Top] and I went to Olive Garden for dinner.
Wednesday morning we had a light training and in the afternoon we had a tough loss to the Montreal Impact. That night the guys and I went out to eat again, this time to a Mexican restaurant.
Thursday was a busy day for us. We trained both in the morning and in the evening. In between the sessions we had a team meeting. That night Bryan, Moises, Ruben, Jonathan and I went to Red Lobster for dinner.
Friday was a very special day for me. Why is that you might ask? Because I turned 19 years old that day! But anyways, we had a morning session and at the end of training the whole team made a tunnel which they call a "tunnel of love." I had to run through it since I was the birthday boy. I got hit by everyone and I got water and Gatorade thrown at me. It was funny, but the Gatorade was a little too much.
When we got to the hotel we had another meeting and then we had the afternoon to ourselves. For dinner Moises, Ruben, Bryan, Jonathan and I went to that same Mexican restaurant again. There we met up with David [Ferreira] and Marvin [Chavez]. They all sang Happy Birthday to me. It was very nice.
Saturday was Moises' birthday. He also turned 19. We didn't really get to do much because we had a game that day, but at the pre-game lunch the whole team sang Happy Birthday for Moises and me. We won our game against the Sahuaros 7-0. After the game that night we had a player’s only dinner at Pappadeaux's.
Sunday morning we had a recovery training session, at the end of which Moises got to go through the "tunnel of love."
Monday we traveled to Casa Grande where we played the New York Red Bulls and Edmonton FC. We won both of those games. When we got back to the hotel it was kind of late, so a few of us just ordered some pizzas and played FIFA '11.
We came back to Dallas on Tuesday and didn’t have any training on Wednesday. Yesterday we had a good session and last night we had a team event [Cocktails and Cleats]. All the guys were dressed very nice, it was a good time to go and take some quality pictures of us.
Today we had another training session to help prepare us for our preseason match against Chivas USA. It’s our last match before the home opener against Chicago [the Brimstone Cup] next Saturday, so come out and cheer us on!
PURCHASE TICKETS: FC Dallas vs. Chicago Fire, March 19 at 7:30 pm
I’m sorry to say I won’t be here for the home opener. But I’m glad to say the reason I won’t be here is because I’ll be in Spain playing with the Academy teams on their Spring Break trip. The flight won’t be very fun, but the competition should be a great experience. That’s it for now, but I’ll check back in with you guys from Madrid.
-Victor
