Riverhounds bring back players for small group training

The Riverhounds are back on the field.

Not fully, but the Riverhounds will take what they can get as members of the team returned to their facilities Monday in small groups while following league protocol and local health guidelines.

“It’s good to have (the players) back,” Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley said. “There’s not a lot we can do right now, which is disappointing, but it’s phase one. So hopefully things will get better, and we’ll be able to do more as we move forward.”

The Riverhounds were permitted to return to their facilities in small groups Friday, but Lilley decided to give them the weekend to figure out plans to get back to Pittsburgh.

At different points of the day Monday, players reported to the Riverhounds facilities in groups of four and ran through individual drills with an athletic trainer and a member of the coaching staff. Players also had the chance to receive treatment from the training staff.

All staff members and players wore masks and observed the 6-foot social distancing protocols.

“They are not sharing a ball, and they are in their own specified areas,” Lilley said. “But we’re focusing on the technical stuff with the ball and then fitness. There is a lot you can do. We’re using makeshift walls so they can pass to themselves, but some of it we have to adjust accordingly.”

Although players are only training individually, there are still certain benefits that the Riverhounds can gain from having the players back in the facilities, Lilley said.

“For them, being on the field, being in together in a sense, and I think it’s what a lot of leagues are doing,” he said. “They are trying to take cautious steps and prepare if they are able to move through different phases to hopefully get to a play phase. So, this is just the beginning, and it’s good to have them back in town and see the smile on their faces.”

Even before the players were permitted to return to the facilities, Lilley said they were working with their athletic trainers to stay in shape for the possible start of the season. They were going through distance running, ball skills and had just started sprinting.

“Our trainer has done a lot of stuff with them, core strength and bodyweight exercises, and we had started having them go for some distance runs,” he said. “So it’s been pretty comprehensive and even at the end of their sessions, we’ve done some ball work with them as well. So they haven’t been totally apart from the soccer ball.”

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the 2020 USL Championship was suspended just 48 hours before the Riverhounds were set to play their first game of the season. Since then, the season has been postponed two more times.

The second suspension extended the postponement through May 10. Then, at the end of April, the USL Board of Governors decided to extend the suspension indefinitely and didn’t set a return date. But, during the past few months, Lilley says the league has been keeping an eye on the situation constantly.

“They still have plans for different starts dates in June or July and as late as August,” Lilley said. “But obviously they are monitoring what is going on with the virus and also what other leagues are doing. There is still a lot up in the air.”