Football Tournament

We arrived at the Race Course football ground at about 8:30. We booted up and got down to the pitch to warm up, just before we took a great group picture of both our U16 and U18 teams. After our warmup we gathered for an opening ceremony which the national anthem was played and the teams got given the schedule. After this we headed back up to the team stands and took on board a lot of water it was a hot day. An hour and a half went by before we actually started our first match…usual Sri Lankan timing. We headed down to the pitch which was much smaller than we anticipated but then again it was a 6 aside tournament. We started off the first half a bit slow and didn’t score in the first half and it was 0-0 at half time. Each half was only 6 minutes so we had to make the most of it. We started the second half off strong and with some sharp passing and good finishing we ended the game 3-0. Back up to rehydrate. We went on to our second game with some good confidence and started off strong however missing our centre back to and injury after the first game myself and another midfielder had to step in. This didn’t go so well, we conceded early to make it 1-0 to the other team and that was our downfall. We dominated from that point on with 80% possession and more shots than you could imagine but we failed to score. In the last minutes of the game I took a shot and the other team saved it with their hand…a blatant handball but the refs didn’t call anything, er were not happy. We lost the game 1-0 after an atrocious call by the ref and we were knocked into the elimination round. With morals low we went into the elimination round and lost our game unfortunately, a lot more atrocious calls by the ref and some more terrible finished we lost the game 2-1 and we were out. Long story short we watched the incredible U16 team beat every team convincingly and win the tournament with ease.