The 20-year-old midfield player was Michael Appleton’s first signing of the summer. He is a creative midfielder with a keen eye for goal. Fiorini signed a five-year deal with Premier League Champions Manchester City just last year. The Manchester City Loanee has played for Lincoln City and NAC Breda.
The England youth international, 20, arrived at Bloomfield Road in January to help secure survival. Rogers has played for numerous different clubs including Bournemouth in the promotion campaign in the championship. He is an exciting and dynamic player who is a top talent.
The impressive duo have enjoyed loan spells at numerous clubs but in the past week, they have been taking on different challenges of our new PRO range.
TOP BINS CHALLENGE
First, they were asked to make a nice clean ground pass into the ramp and then strike the ball into the top corner. The idea of the ramp is that you strike the ball through the passing gate & control the ball as it travels up the mesh ramp or it can relay back into the air to set up a perfect volley; the latter was used within this challenge. You can also see a sneak view of our upcoming PRO target net! After a few solid attempts, both players hit the target but not in the top corners. Rogers breaks the deadlock by looping the ball into the top left-hand corner. They then decided to move the PRO Skills Trainer to the opposite side. However, this was still not easy as neither professional got it into the top bins which led to the score being ROGERS 1 FIORINI 0.
PRESSION PASS CHALLANGE
Next, the two Manchester City loanees tried to pass the ball into our target rings. Using the PRO return ball each player attempted to perfectly return the ball into the target. The PRO return ball allows players to practise shooting, passing, volleying, free kicks & freestyle without chasing after the ball. Integrated bungee cord means the ball always come back to you no matter how hard you strike the ball. When focusing on the challenge we wanted to test weight and accuracy, in a live game these skills are vital to unlocking any defence. This task takes a lot of time and patience and it is a very difficult drill, Fiorini got the closest numerous times with efforts just going short of the mark. Rogers also got very close and started to come to grips with the weight of the pass. However, Fiorini hit the target making the score ROGERS 1 FIORINI 1.
REBOUND CHALLENGE
This challenge is very easy to predict but not so easy to perfect. The PRO rebounder is the world’s first ‘decline’ rebounder. This part of the Pro range has many different features as you can fully extend the rebounder to the front & create a downward ball return. This recreates real game bounces to improve decision-making. There are numerous different ways the ball can return, and each way will just prepare you for the unpredictability of a real match experience.
When turning our attention to the challenge, both players had to play no bounce on the rebounder to see how many touches they could do. This is by far one of the hardest challenges posed by football flick. This can improve your reactions as well as close control. Both players are incredibly gifted and showed a very good account of themselves throughout the challenge. Rogers on different occasions showed good balance and composure to keep the ball from touching the floor. Fiorini went with a different but very effective tactic as he got the ball as close to the rebounder as possible and just provided the net with small touches so it didn’t cannon back to him. Both gave a valiant effort and Fiorini came out on top by juggling the ball with the rebounder around an excellent 27 times.
TEAMWORK CHALLENGE
This wasn’t a drill we asked them to do but a challenge they took upon themselves. The pair used the PRO Wall Rebounder, which guides players to hit the strike zone which improves accuracy beyond simply trying to hit the board. This showed great comradery and showed that the skill trainer can be used individually or collectively. Fiorini set up Rogers on our PRO Rebounder and vice versa. This took numerous brilliant attempts. It just goes to show some of the best of the best still need to practise, they set each other up until they got perfection, The talented midfielder Rogers placed it perfectly for the brilliant Fiorini to smash into the top bins!
All these challenges were a brilliant way to see how professionals come up against the PRO Range. As time went on the fun and talent became clear.
If any team or professional would like to take on a series of challenges in our new PRO VS PRO campaign please don’t hesitate in getting in touch.
