U17 enjoyed 2021 Sound of Spring Festival

Last weekend, we participated in a small tournament as part of Shanghai 2021 Sound of Spring festival organized by the local government & That’s Shanghai magazine. The organization came with some logistic challenges and bad weather threat.

When we arrived in Sunday morning, all the logistic issues were solved and the sky was clear. All was set for some great 7-a-side football on two separate fields. It was nice to be able to play again at the Golden Bridge field in Jinqiao… Since the Covid outbreak last year, it has been impossible to enter any school-related field in Shanghai.

We had several youth teams playing one round of 20mn game against each other:

Lions A
Lions B
DEQ A
DEQ B
Japan FC
Shanghai Pearls

The message given to our players was to enjoy the matches but also try playing good football. Although we lost our first match against DEQ A, our players did enjoy themselves. In the matches which followed, the games were a joy to watch. As it was still pretty hot, the players had to work hard to get the results they wanted.

We noticed that we start to get better as a team and players are more willing to work for each other. This resulted in some great combinations and some excellent goals.

The absolute “goal highlight” came from James who blasted the ball in the top right corner just outside the box… While he was celebrating at the corner flag, he saw (to his disbelief) that the referee was not watching and stopped the play to help an injured opponent… So, no goal! Don’t worry James; we will always remember this one 🙂

Yu Yuan scored a nice goal starting from the defense and finished as a striker. His smile to his brother Yu Xuan was obvious. Henry also got on the scoresheet. Roger as goalie made a superb save with his fist getting the ball out of our goal.

Overall a really fun 2021 Sound of Spring festival for the players, the parents and the coaches. 2nd place was what we got with 4 wins and 1 loss for Lions A team.

We see you all on Thursday for the training at Qi Yi.

Cheers

Pat, Nick & Freek