The England U17's brought the World Cup home on the 28th Oct - and the Vikings, brought home our first win in similar style on the 29th Oct .
The team started off very calmly, plenty of passing and controlled play, Henry and Bastien taking quick balls from Josh in goal and looking for Joseph and Maksim. Strong defending when needed was a pleasure to see and Bastien was throwing himself into the thick of it and with a smile. I felt this was going to be our day after the calmness the players displayed.
Joseph was up and down the line and his early pressure paid off finishing a nice goal into the bottom corner. His first league game and a goal in the 1st half. It looked like we would score again but we let Notley in to level the game. Vikings heads didn't drop and they continued with the same passing and movement which was paying dividends. Henry, always composed on the ball and Maksim getting opportunities to dribble often. We went back in the lead from Josh in goal, nice long kick that bounced into the roof of the net - his first goal and was from playing in goal !
We started to control the match and should have scored a couple more. However, a freaky goal was conceeded when we allowed them to get to the byeline and from a tight angle got it over the line. At 2-2, we could have changed our game, but pleasingly we didnt, we continued to pass and play unselfishly. William and Jess (captain today) came on and gave us additional chances very quickly.
Maksim, as ever a keen finisher in open play, pounced on a shot from William to rightly put us in the lead again. Shortly after William, cooly slotted home after a nice run with the ball and it felt at that point there was only 1 team to win this game.
2nd half and we had the slope in our favour, although not the wind. Retaining Bastien, Henry, William and Jess initially, we continued to link up nicely. Jess got onto a nice move and right footed into the bottom corner after a slight deflection - it was going in just finished a different corner. Joseph and Mskim came back on and helped extend our lead, with William, running up and down pitch, adding a 6th and 7th. Both taken very calmy and actually he could have had a couple more ! Henry , pushing forward with the ball was unlucky with an strong shot that the goalie saved. Maksim added a 8th before Joseph added a solid 9th. William rounded off the awesome display with a 10th. They could have got 1 back but Josh produced a brilliant one handed bottom corner save to ensure that we didn't conceed any goals in teh 2nd half.
Today felt beautiful - we have done a lot of practice on passing, controlling and moving into space. The Vikings took all on board and proved to themselves, that you make the game easier doing this. The right decision to do teh training yesterday and this result will be the 1st of many wins playing the right way.
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