July 23rd, 2012 marked the first of the 2-day Panasonic Dream Camp in Shillong. After the initial introductions, the first day primarily focused on a couple of training sessions on the FIFA Artificial Turf, one each in the morning and evening along with a classroom session at the hotel. Each participant was appropriately dressed in his blue and white training kit on the field and a polo t-shirt off it.

1st training session – Focus: Passing
The morning session began at 8am with some light rain around, with the boys making full use of their rain-proof track-suit. The session was focused on ‘Passing’. After going through some dynamic stretching initially, the boys participated in some passive training that included free movement and more touches on the ball. Later, the training became more active to encourage decision making with opponents and involving various match related scenarios and focussing on receiving the ball. The 1.5 hour training session ended with a fifteen minute 11 v 11 match and cooling down exercises.

Classroom session
Between the two training sessions on field, there was a classroom session conducted by Indian national team assistant coach Savio Medeira for the participants to discuss various nuances of the game of football by showing them videos from the recently held EURO 2012. The boys enjoyed some of the best goals from the tournament and learnt about the best going around in the world of international football. The classroom session also included videos on best training practices involving some special drills used by coaches for youngsters around the world.

2nd training session – Focus: Dribbling
The evening session focused on ‘Dribbling’ and involved pretty much the same passive and active training drills, but with a new theme. More drills were 1 v 1 oriented to place emphasis on dribbling. The session ended with a 3-team league where 9 v 9 matches were conducted.

After-dinner entertainment
After dinner at 9pm, the boys were shown the football game from a Hollywood movie, ‘Escape to Victory’. It was a perfect way to relax for them after a long hard day of training by entertaining themselves by watching some of their favourite actors and players in a football movie. Lights were off at 10pm.

(Panasonic Dream Camp Press Release)