The U8 & U9 Boys of the Florida Gulf Coast Dutch Lions participated in the Kelme Cup the past weekend. U8 couldn’t make it to the final round but the U9 made it to the finals, unfortunately they lost the final by penalty kicks.
U8
The U8 boys played for the first time together and you could see that in the first game, there was a lot of potential in the team but they didn’t know how to play as a team yet. The first half was a good equal game with a 1 -1 score at half time. Unfortunately the second half they lost control of the game and lost the first game with 7 – 1. The second game was a lot better from the Dutch Lions, you could see that they started to play better as a team. Unfortunately they lost the game as well. The last game was on Sunday, the wind had a lot of influence on the game this day. The Dutch Lions play the first half with their face in the wind, and had to defend against a lot of pressure from the other team. The half time score was 5 – 1, the second half was only for the U8 team, they kept pressure on the other teams half the whole game, created a lot of chances but where really unlucky in the box. After hitting the post 2 times, and some 1v1 changes, the final score was 5 – 2. During the tournament the U8 improved a lot and the coaches where happy to see that.
U9
The first game was at 8am in the morning. The U9 played against Bonita Spring. The U9 hadn’t played a single game since the Christmas break and you could see that in the game. They took a early lead but they allowed the Bonita Spring team every time to get back in the game. 5 minutes before the end of the game the Dutch Lions where leading by 5-3, but within those 5 minutes the Bonita Spring team scored 3 goals and they took the win. The U9 knew that they had to improve them self to get a spot in the finals. And that happened, the next game was a against the strikers and this game was way better then the game against the Bonita Spring team, the Dutch Lions combined the ball well and created lot of good opportunities, the final score in this game was 9 – 4. The Dutch Lions knew that they had to beat the Cyclone Miami team with at least more then 5 goals to go to the final. They played against them on Sunday. The game started really well for the U9 team, they took a early lead to bring the score on 2 – 0. After the lead they allowed the Miami team to score 1 goal, but the Dutch Lions kept going the way they started. 1 minute before the final whistle the score was: 7-3. The Dutch Lions needed one more goal to go to the final. In the last minute of the game, Thomas scored the 8-3 and brought the U9 team to the final. A really good team performance. In the final the U9 team played against the Florida Fire team. It was a equal game with changes on both sides of the field. After full time there was no winner yet, the score was 5-5. So both teams made themselves ready for penalty kicks. Unfortunately after 7 penalty kicks the U9 lost the game on penalty’s. They did a real good job with finishing on second place.
