Oceânico Welcomed Aston Villa FC to the Amendoeira Golf Resort for the Guadiana Cup
06/08/2010 - Guadiana Cup in the Algarve, Portugal
6th August 2010 - Oceânico Group welcomed Aston Villa FC to the Amendoeira Sports Club for a five night pre-season training camp as they took part in the Guadiana Cup in the Algarve. The players and management team stayed at the luxurious accommodation at the Amendoeira Golf Resort and enjoyed exclusive use of the training facilities including a full size natural grass football pitch.
Vila Real de Santo António was the venue for the Guadiana Cup, so named due to the proximity of the stadium to the Guadiana River at the Spanish border, and is about an hour's drive from the Amendoeira Golf Resort. It is an annual international tournament which this year ran from 30th July to 1st August. The first match was against Portugal's Benfica and Dutch premier league team Feyenoord FC and was a 4-1 victory for Benfica. Saturday 31st saw the first match for Aston Villa, where they beat Feyenoord 3-1 and the final match on Sunday night saw Benfica defend the title with a 4-1 win against Aston Villa. Aston Villa Manager Martin O'Neill said they were beat by the better team but felt it would bring on the team immensely and he learnt more from the game against Benfica than the match the night before.
Regarding the Amendoeira Sports Club, Martin O'Neill commented: "It's a great resort. The pitch is fantastic - top class, especially since Sunderland have been out on their training camp and used it every day for nine days! The staff are really great too". Barry Bannan, a Scottish Under 21 midfielder, has been very impressed by everything. "It's been brilliant," he said. "It's unbelievable, I've never seen anything like it. When I walked into my apartment - unbelievable".
Between matches, Aston Villa trained on the natural grass football pitch at the Amendoeira Sports Club, with the gymnasium and free weights areas available for their exclusive use to ensure their privacy. Meals were specifically catered for in-line with the team's nutritional requirements at the stunning clubhouse overlooking the two championship golf courses: the Oceânico Faldo Course and Oceânico O'Connor Jnr. course. The experienced Oceânico team was on hand to ensure the training camp ran smoothly, including training, accommodation, meals and transfers to the matches.
In addition to the full size football pitch and the fully equipped gymnasium, the Amendoeira Sports Club offers two five-a-side Astroturf pitches, six tennis courts (two floodlit), beach volleyball/football and two lawn bowling greens (one crown green and one flat green).
Professional warm weather training packages are available for football, Gaelic football, rugby and hurling. Oceânico tailor-make each warm weather training package to suit the client, focusing on training, meals and transfers, and can also arrange off-site excursions and team building activities.
Oceânico has already been host to a variety of top teams in addition to Aston Villa FC, including Sunderland AFC (Summer 2009 and 2010), the Football Association of Ireland ladies teams (under 19's and under 17's) and Kerry GAA. Several fixtures have been held at the club including matches between Portugal's Portimonese FC and top Ukrainian team Dynamo Kiev FC, and Dutch Premier League teams Ajax FC and Groningen FC.
Amendoeira Golf Resort provides luxury accommodation in spacious two bedroom apartments and three bedroom villas. Apartments are situated in private village complexes with large communal swimming pools and the villas have their own pools. To complement the accommodation and sports facilities, Amendoeira boasts two championship golf courses, one designed by Sir Nick Faldo and one designed by Christy O'Connor Jnr., the floodlit, 9 hole par 3 Oceânico Academy course and the Amendoeira Golf Academy & Callaway Fitting Suite, including: a driving range, a putting green and a long and short game practice area. Lessons and golf tuition packages are also available as well as custom club fittings in the Callaway Fitting Suite.
For more information, please contact Michelle Collins or Nikki Dale at the Oceânico Group on: 00351 282 767 546 email: michelle.collins@oceanicogroup.com / nikki.dale@oceanicogroup.com
