Star Perth Glory striker Eugene Dadi writes for perthglory.com.au about his experiences while on loan to FC Vaduz in Liechtenstein. In part one of ‘Dadi’s Diary’ he describes the town and the football in the tiny Principality.
What a strange way to say hello to you all from my hotel room in the middle of Europe.
I-m living in a principality but unfortunately it-s not Monaco (south of France), there is no sea, no boats, no sunny days with 35 degrees!
I’m here, in this small country, small town with around 5000 people in middle of Europe, 2½ hours from France and Munich (Germany), 2¾ hours from Milan (Italy), 20 minutes from Austria and just 100 meters across a bridge over the river Rhine to get to Switzerland.
This is Vaduz (Liechtenstein). Surrounded by the Alps and snow, where you can cross the town in three minutes by car, believe me, its true.
After leaving Perth in January for my loan spell with FC Vaduz I travelled straight to Turkey for a mid-season camp and to meet my new team mates including the former skipper of Sydney FC Mark Rudan and also my coach, former Sydney boss Pierre Littbarski.
It was ten days of really hard training, three sessions of two and a half hours a day! This is the standard training methods of a German coach, it is a different rhythm and different discipline to most places and even though I-ve experienced it in the past after training that way during my time in Austria, it was tough to get used to again.
On the second day, after being late for lunch, I had the nice surprise the next morning to be woken up an hour and half before the rest of the team (6.00am) for a little jog – actually 45 minutes – with two other players. That was the punishment for being just two minutes late!
Despite all of this, I was very happy to work hard and really enjoyed my time in Turkey with my new team.
By the end of January we were back in Vaduz and we trained everyday, with three double sessions a week in the snow. Despite being busy with training, it definitely wasn’t easy living in a hotel room alone without my family who were back in Perth.
In the middle of February, the good news came that my family and I were granted Australian Permanent Residency. I quickly headed back to Perth to get that finalised but in the meantime Vaduz FC were playing their first game back from the break against FC Aarau (1-1) without me.
After this escapade in WA, I was back in business with my first game two days later against FC Sion in Geneva and the ground was frozen.
More game notes to come soon!!