French full-back Noa Boutin on his team’s third day in his native country, defeat to Saint-Étienne and playing in front of his family.
While out in France for the Tournoi Européen U21, Cherries development squad players will be making first-person diary entries, with group stage games against AS Saint-Étienne, AS Monaco and EA Guingamp following two days of training during their time there.
It’s been another good day for us out here and another good all-round experience. We played against some good players, and I think we did well.
The start of the game was not what we expect from ourselves, but we responded really well and just couldn’t find an equaliser.
Everything about being here so far has been a really good experience; it’s good to be away from camp in Bournemouth and be in a different area.
The team is spending all their time together, we’re doing activities, playing FIFA, it’s good for us.
For me, it feels really nice to be back home and spending time here. I get to play in front of my family and it’s the first time they’ve actually got to see me play!
They always have to watch me on YouTube or something if a game is being streamed, so that’s really nice for me.
They’re from Paris, so they’ve travelled around three hours and are staying overnight to watch me today and tomorrow.
Looking ahead to tomorrow, we now have to recover properly, ice bath, stretch and have some good food.
They’re really important for us because we have two big matches left and we need to be ready for them.
It’ll be a really good day with playing AS Monaco in the morning, they’re a Champions League team and have a great academy, so that’ll be a good test and experience for us.
Then Guingamp, they won this tournament last year, so we’re expecting another good test in the evening.
- Noa
