Dallas Cup

[SMUPlayer]

The Under 18 team is going to be visiting my home town, Dallas. They are going to be playing in one of the biggest amature football tournaments in the US. Here's the link.

http://www.rovers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/AcademyNewsDetailClub/0,,10303~812691,00.html

PS - Sorry if I just got excited about seeing my home town in the Headlines.

[Hypo-Luxa]

anyone going? i am going to try and cath Sunday's game and maybe, hopefully Monday's and Tuesday's games...

Anyone else?

[geane]

Hypo-Luxa,any chance of team lineups and photos?

The eighteen-man squad is as follows: Frank Fielding, Dean Winnard, Jonathan Bateson, Martin McCubbin, Alex Skidmore, Mamadi Keita(Worth Keeping Eye On), Josh O'Keefe, Joe Roberts, Rostyn Griffiths, Bence Somodi, Michael O'Connor, Adam Thomas, Kevin Pezzoni, Andy Haworth, Alan Judge, Abdi Ahmed, Raffaele De Vita and Bryan Hodge.

The schedule is (kick-off times are local times):

Sunday April 9th - 2.00pm: Rovers v Eintracht Frankfurt
Monday April 10th - 12.00pm: Rovers v Santos Laguna
Wednesday 12th April - 2.00pm: Rovers v Consadole Sapporo

[HypoLuxa]

Hello everyone...Sorry it took awhile to get together a synopsis of the Sunday game I went to but here it is...

Just back from the Dallas Cup and I must say, that Coach Downeds is a delightful man. He was a very congenial fellow, as were the lads. Although the 32-35 degree Celsius temperatures weren't quite what the lads were expecting, they were all in good spirits before the game.

The starting line-up was hard to decipher as the lads had no names on the back, but the players who stood out for better or worse were as follows:


Goal:
Frank Fielding was always yelling and communicating and stopped the few shots that came his way. The eventual winner he had no chance on.

Defense:
Pezzoni in the middle was a ROCK. He stopped everyone and everything that came his way. He even took two successive point-blank shots off the coconut, although I doubt that was by design. He was easily my player of the game.
Josh O'Keefe was on the right wing and he was solid. His free kicks were always dangerous and accurate.
Adam Thomas, scored the lone Rover goal in a goal-mouth scramble.

Midfield:
Bryan Hodge, the playmaker, was all over the place. "Hodgie" picked out "Raffa" on more than a few runs that resulted in some sort of chance.
Alan Judge on the right was buzzing all over the place. He was definitely the most energetic one on the pitch. Every time you looked up he was either getting stuck into a Frankfurter, pressuring a Frankfurter or running at a Frankfurter. He never had any close encounters at goal but he was definitely one who was making it happen in the middle.
Andy Haworth on the left side had alot of possession, but never really unlocked the Frankfurt defense.

Forwards:
Rafaele de Vita was another one who had alot of possession and alot of chances, and had one shot that had the Frankfurt goalie sprawling to make the save. His forward runs were posing the Frankfurt defense loads of problems, but he could never get a final touch to score. His fould on a blazing run down the left side set up the free kick that resuklted in Rovers' lone goal.
Abdi Ahmed came on after half-time and seemed lost. He lost possession and had a few weak shots. I don't know but he just never seemed comfortable on the ball.

The final score was 2-1 to the Franfurters. I missed the Frankfurters' first goal and as mentioned before we scored around the 25 minute mark on a free-kick from O'Keefe which resulted in a goal-mouth scramble and a goal being scored by Thomas...The final goal of the game and eventual winner was scored by a lapse in defense on our left side which resulted in a Frankfurter having more than sufficient space to fire in a rocket to where Fielding could do nothing but react after the ball was already past him. We had probabkly 65-70% of the possession and Fielding had hardly any work to do besides chasing down stray balls behind his goal. It must be said that the Frankfurters were huge in comparison to our Rovers, and that killed us when our numerous corner kicks were cleared without much of a fight. Pezzoni was the only one who matched their height and bulk. In terms of size, it looked as if our Academy was playing their reserves.

But the biggest score of the day has to go to Bryan Hodge who in taking part in the Opening Ceremonies caught the eye of a few lovely ladies in the crowd and scored their telephone numbers! Good job, lad!

As for the support, there were about 8 or 9 transplanted Blackburn residents who were representing the colors. There was a local who was cheering on the side, but he was wearing a Man Utd Roy Keane jersey so I have no idea where his allegiances lie. I believe I was the only Texan supporter, but hopefully the lads and the coaching staff felt at home. We drew with Santos Laguna 0-0 on Monday and Frankfurt murdered Consadole 4-0, so if we can beat Sapporo today and Frankfurt beats Santos Laguna we might be able to play Frankfurt again on Sunday...which would be fantastic as I could go watch the boys yet again!

[HypoLuxa]

Well the lads were beaten 2-1 by Consadole Sapporo yesterday and their tournament is over. I can't help but think that we were knocked out because we took some of our really young Academy players while it looked as though the other squads had some more seasoned players out there. Plus we played all three teams VERY close and weren't blown out or anything like that.

Whatever the case, hopefully our boys got some good experience under their belts and they'll have come out of this tourney better players...hopefully.

[SMUPlayer]

Well, I am sorry that my beautiful home town mis-treated our boys. The temperatures were high, but that's Texas for you.

I'll leave you with a phrase from my homeland: Yall come back, ya hear?