The Australian Football Skool Rep Teams returned from Europe last week after spending a week in England and a week in Barcelona. The first week of the tour was used as preparation for the high profile tournament held in the Barcelona region of Girona.

Some of the highlights whilst in England were:

• Visiting Wembley Stadium
• Visiting Old Trafford
• Playing in typical English weather conditions against local English clubs
• Playing against a full strength Chelsea Academy Team at the Cobham training grounds where all of Chelsea’s FC teams train
• Watching Chelsea demolish Aston Villa 7-1 at Stamford Bridge in front of a very vocal full capacity crowd
• Training with Pro coaches from Reading FC’s academy
• Winning practice games against much more fancied English opposition
• Visiting Barnet FC’s brand new centre of excellence and receiving useful tips from the Barnet coaching staff 

It was an extremely hectic schedule with a lot of football being squeezed into few days; however the boys got the most out of it and were now better prepared to take on some of the best junior teams in the world at the Mediterranean International Cup.  The tournament has been running for the last 10 years and has seen the likes of Lucas, Fabregas and Messi participate through out the years.

The three squads were taken to FC Barcelona’s training grounds right next to the Nou Camp stadium.  They had two training sessions lasting 90 minutes each where they had the pleasure of being trained by FC Barcelona coaches who gave the players an insight into the Barcelona way of playing football and prepared the players on what to expect in the MIC tournament.  It made the training sessions that much more enjoyable by having a constant view of the magestic Nou Camp Stadium.

After the sessions, the players and supporters headed for a tour of the Nou Camp Stadium and got to see the players’ change rooms, press conference rooms, trophy room, VIP lounge, club museum and got to take some unforgettable photo shots.

It was then time for the tournament to begin; all three teams had their work cut out by playing against their toughest opponents in the group on the first day of competition, Catalan National Team, Chinese National Team and Hellerup IK were the opponents for the U19, U16 and U15 teams respectively.  The most impressive performance of the day was that of the U16s who eventually went down 3-1 to a full strength U16 Chinese National Team.  For a full review of all the results, please visit www.micfootball.com

That afternoon all players, supporters and coaching staff from all 160 participating teams attended the opening ceremony held at the FC Palamos 20,000 seated stadium, it was a great experience to see teams from many football powerhouses in presence such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Espanyol, Manchester United, Atletico Madrid, Gamba Osaka, Aspire Football Dreams and also national teams from Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, China and Korea.  The ceremony was followed by a showcase game between the U19 Brazilian National Team and local club U19s side Palamos FC.

The next 4 days that followed were extremely hectic and demanding on the players as the tournament got into full swing, the opposition teams were well drilled, highly technical, street wise and ruthless to punish any mistakes made.  It was a great lesson for the players to see for themselves how football is played by the rest of the world.

After the round games were played, our teams entered the next stage of the tournament which saw them pitted against teams from all different corners of the world, most were local Spanish clubs, but it also included Salvador FC from Brazil, Yokohama SC from Japan, Lask Linz from the Austrian Bundesliga and Hellerup IK from Denmark’s first division.  The U16s and U15s did not advance any further in the competition losing crucial games to Lask Linz and Salvador FC respectively which turned out to be the two teams that disputed the grand final in the consolation stages of the tournament.

The AFS Youth Rep team did advance further by the virtue of winning two crucial games on penalties in both occasions, against local sides Tortosa and Lloret.  Michael Sabato stepped up during the shoot-outs by saving a total of 7 penalties during the entire tournament.  They were eventually knocked out by classy Danish side Hellerup IK who in turn ended up losing the consolation final the next day in penalties.

AFS Director Rolando Navas quoted “All in all it was a fantastic experience for the players to see for themselves where the benchmark is in world junior football, we were able to compete with every team at a technical and physical level; however we are miles behind when it comes to game awareness, street smarts and tactical knowledge.”  Wael Gharzeddine AFS Technical Director was also on tour and he added “It would be fantastic if our players back home could play games of this intensity week in week out.  All the teams that are present here get that opportunity and have been doing so from a very young age, unfortunately our players do not and this is a major setback for the development of our youngsters.”

The final day of the tournament was held at the same stadium where it had started, all final games for the 4 different age groups were shown on national television, the games were as follows:

• U19 Brazil National Team v Desportivo Brasil FC
• U16 FC Barcelona v Brazil National Team
• U14 Aspire Academy (Qatar) v Girona FC
• U12 Atletico Madrid v FC Barcelona

The AFS U16 Rep Team were amongst the honours as they were granted the “Fair Play Award” in their age group due to the great sportsmanship and great conduct they demonstrated through out the tournament, Coach Billy Rae and Team manager Andy Thomas were on hand to receive the award on stage in front of the vocal crowd.

Before returning home, some of the players were fortunate enough to attend the Primera Liga fixture between FC Barcelona and Atletico Bilbao held at the Nou Camp.  The game was a sell out and all 91,000 people in attendance witnessed a football masterpiece with Lionel Messi and Carles Puyol putting on magnificent performances.  Barcelona scored 4 brilliant goals and played a fantastic passing brand of football which they are so renowned for world wide.

For more details about the tour please visit the following links

Travel Blog

MIC Tournament Website

Final Brazil v FC Barcelona on YouTube

They are updated on a daily basis so be sure to check them out regularly.

AFS would like to thank all the players, staff and supporters for all their support and dedication to ensure this was another successful tour for the AFS Rep Teams.