Indiana University Athletics
Tournament Diary: Julian Dieterle
8/26/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Aug. 26, 2006
The Indiana men's soccer team is spending Aug. 25-27 in South Bend, Ind. for the Mike Berticelli Memorial Tournament. On Saturday after the game, senior back Julian Dieterle took a few moments out of his day to sit down with IUHOOSIERS.com to discuss the events of the weekend following the win over No. 8 Creighton.
During walk-through on Friday morning, we talked about Creighton and their tendencies on the field, and things they like to do. We went out there and got our legs going after sitting in the hotel. We moved the ball around and got our focus.
The worst part of these trips is that when you play a night game, you have all that down time during the day. You can't really do much. A lot of guys napped, some guys were on their computers, just laying low until game time. Luckily the game was at 5:00, so it wasn't too bad.
The whole afternoon, you're trying not to get too excited. You're trying to keep yourself in a relaxed mode because you're trying to keep yourself excited for the game. You don't want to get too excited too early. It's good to take a nap sometimes and relax. But it's a lot of downtime.
Before every game, we watch a highlight tape called "Golazo." It's a tradition to watch that before the game to get us going. It's a motivational tool that we do every year before every game. It's a fun thing to do with the team. During the warm-up, we went out there and did our everyday rituals to get going. By that point, it's just a formality because you know it's time to play. We know what we have to do, and we're ready for the whistle to blow.
We felt good after the first game. The first game you get all the nerves and jitters out. We played a quality opponent and to be able to get a shutout is obviously a testament to our team defense, so we feel good about it. Chris (Munroe) and everyone played well. It was good to get a win in the first game. Our sprits were pretty high after the game.
Last year, if things weren't going right early, it would be a struggle throughout. It'd be frustrating. You'd look around and you'd start seeing heads going down. Yesterday, we felt that a goal was coming. We kept pressuring and knew it was going to come. It was only a matter of time. Everyone was positive and kept pushing to get that goal in double overtime with a few minutes left. We didn't stop fighting for it. It was good when it finally came to fruition.
Today is a recovery day. This morning, we did a pool workout to get our legs back after playing 106 minutes yesterday. Some of the guys that didn't play as much in the game went for a run.
We watched the overtime periods of the game with UAB and Notre Dame after lunch. It's good to get a little video and see some tendencies and what they like to do. We're getting mentally ready to go again tomorrow.
During the afternoon, we have been watching lots of movies. A few guys are reading books. There's no college football yet so a lot of guys are scrambling to find things to do. It's nice to have a day to relax, because tomorrow we're right back at it.
