Tarpley’s Thoughts

We won the Algarve Tournament!  We beat Denmark in the final game 2-1.  It was a tough match because we played 4 games in a short amount of time and Denmark was a very good team.  I always have a great time at the Algarve Tournament.

The flight home was, fortunately, uneventful.  It was a very long trip to get to LA! My trip started out with a 3 hour bus ride to get to the Lisbon airport, 7 ½ hour flight from Lisbon to Newark and then 5 hour flight from Newark to Los Angeles.  I was very excited to get home!

We have a week break and then we start camp on Friday.  We are preparing for the Olympic Qualifiers in early April in Mexico. 

I will write more later!  

We played Italy today and we won 2-0.  Italy came out and played us aggressively and we did well to solve their pressure and score two goals.  We played at a stadium that was really close to the beach and it was fairly warm. 

After the game, we ate at a nice restaurant on the water.  I always love going out to eat after the game.  It is fun to try different places and see different parts of Portugal.  We saw a beautiful sunset just as we were finishing up our meal. 

We have two days off till our next match.  It will be nice to rest up and recover before we play Norway…. they always have a great team. 

Thanks for reading…..

Tarp

The games have started!!!

We had our first game against China yesterday and we won 4-0. We played well as a team and we scored 4 great goals. It was an exciting way to start the tournament. We have another game tomorrow against Italy and then we play Norway.

 Things have been going really well. We had a day off and a few of us went to Sevilla. It was only about a 2 hour car ride and the scenery was beautiful. We had a really nice lunch and then we got to walk around the city and explore. There was a lot to do…touring the beautiful cathedral, carriage rides, shopping, walking around, Starbucks… It was one of my favorite trips! I bought another Starbucks mug to add to my collection (I collect Starbucks mugs from different countries that I have seen).

There is a restaurant really close to our hotel that has the best crepes and pizza. For me it is the perfect combination…..ice cream and thin-crust pizza. It doesn’t get better than that! Ha ha.

The weather has been beautiful since we arrived. Yesterday was a little windy, but the sun was still out. This is the nicest weather in the Algarve that I can remember. We play tomorrow at 1:45 PM…..I will keep you updated!

 Go USA!

 Tarp