Phuket - Junior School Newsletter

En dan nu vanuit het standpunt van de coach... 

Thursday bought another beautiful day and the first day of competition. Having watched all three of our other teams before their first fixture, the boys were more than a little fired up and went out determined to win. It wasn’t long before the first goal was scored by William with a glorious shot from distance, and then the flood gates opened with Zion and Eric both scoring to make it 3-0 at half-time. The game was so one-sided that our goalkeeper and captain, Pierrot, came out on pitch for the second half and scored a well-taken goal for himself. The game ended 5-0 and left the boys hungry for more. However, they had to wait for quite a while until the next game. In this time they were able to watch all of the other opposition and suss out who would need to be marked and closed down. Due to the long wait, nerves were high by the time the second game arrived, not helped by the fact that our opposition, BISV, had beaten us last year 4-2. But, lead by our inspirational captain, the boys went out and dominated again. Eric ‘Raging Bull’ An scored a hat-trick (the third of which was an absolute screamer into the top corner) and Kris Kim scored the other to make the final score 4-0. This result left us top of the table and feeling very positive. However, there was another long wait until our final game of the day, which also happened to be against the tournament hosts, BISP. The school has a link with the Brazilian team, Cruziero, and their professional coaches have clearly been working hard to reach a very high standard. Our boys fought hard and were incredibly unlucky to lose 2-0. 

Overnight the heavens opened and, whilst we still woke to sunshine, we arrived to very boggy pitches at the school. This really didn’t help when playing our final group game, which was against STAB, a team who had won all of their other games, including beating the BISP boys who had beaten us the day before. The boys survived the pressure of a very good team almost all the way to half-time, but STAB scored a very good goal and gave our boys an awful lot to do to get back into the game. But they didn’t let their heads drop and battled on. Unfortunately, STAB were simply too good and by the final whistle the score was 3-0. The boys left the pitch with their heads held high and began to prepare for our next fixture against Harrow Bangkok… then the heavens opened and it began to rain… and rain… and rain… Pitches became bogs, then puddles and, when the rain refused to stop, lakes. Due to unplayable and unsafe conditions, the tournament had to be abandoned. We headed back to the hotel absolutely drenched but also very proud of our achievements, and had another afternoon in the pool (after all, we were already wet!). In the evening, we went out as a whole squad for a celebration dinner at a local pizza parlour, where Pierrot gave a brilliant captain’s speech and we gave out awards.

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