Forget Barcelona’s humiliation of Man United… team of the week in our corner of Surrey has got to be the Royals U9 Sunday team. Following on their Surrey Primary Div 5 League win and narrow defeat in the Surrey Intermediate plate final, our boys ended the season winning the inaugural Cobham Cup, out playing teams from higher divisions.
Group Stages
Oxshott Royals 1 (Schwarzer) Byfleet Village 0
Oxshott Royals 1 (Schwarzer) Woodmansterne Hyde 0
Oxshott Royals 0 Caterham Pumas 0
Following our final game having exactly the same record as Caterham we lost a penalty shootout for “top of group” seeding.
Quarter Final – Oxshott Royals 2 West Sutton Hunters 2
After an end-to-end game with Jordan Adams and Julian Schwarzer scoring, Oxshott won the penalty shootout on the 2nd sudden death kick with Tomas Angelini banging in the winning goal and our goalkeeper David Hicks saving his third consecutive penalty. Thereafter followed some great celebrations where our other club U9 team joined in with a mini-pitch invasion …. C’mon you Royals!
Semi Final – Oxshott Royals 3 Christchurch 1
Playing the #1 seeds from the other half and a premier league side from the Bournemouth youth league, the Royals really stepped it up and came back from an early goal deficit to score 3. Julian Schwarzer made a Steve Gerrard like run beating 3 players before putting it past the keeper. Jordan Adams then popped up in the right hand side to give us the all-important leading goal, before Julian scored another late goal to seal the tie. Possibly the best team performance we have seen from this team coming back against a really strong Christchurch side.
Final – Oxshott Royals 1 Caterham Pumas 0
In the final we again met the Pumas who had earlier beaten us on penalties for the group seeding. Having already played 75 minutes of football our boys just refused to be tired and really controlled the final, with stellar defence of Tim “Rio” Whitehead, Youssif “Baresi” Tehfe and Derrick “Chainsaw” Hicks keeping another clean sheet in front of David “Cech” Hicks. Our midfield of Julian “Steve G” Schwarzer, Jordan “Denilson” Adams and Tomas “Messi” Angelini swept up every loose ball, retained possession and made sure we spent most all of the game in the Pumas half attacking. Midway through the game the winning goal was scored by Carter “Anelka” Lohr, having come on as a sub for Fernando Torres (aka Gabriel Malaussena). At the final whistle the boys celebrated their tremendous success with great vigor and it seemed the only person tired was the poor coach whose excitement level undoubtedly peaked in the semi-final!
Well done boys! You really demonstrated what it is to enjoy playing with your friends and how to win as a team. There is no doubt that when it comes to passing football at U9 level these boys are our “Barcelona”. What a way to end a magnificent season!!