Twelve teams will take part in this annual tournament over the weekend. We are in a Group with Wolves, Blackburn and Benfica and drew the first games 2-2 with Wolves this afternoon. No further details as yet and, regretably, nothing from the Club.
The U16s beat Benfica 3-0 in their third Group game and made it through to the sem-finals, where they face Reading.
With a lot of youngsters being promoted from the U21's to the first team squad this season I assumed a knock on effect would be a lot of the u18s would go to the u21s and so on and so on and I thought the this may have an effect on the results this season, but great to see the youngsters still doing well
The great thing was today we outplayed a gigantic reading team and outfought Chelsea The quality of the football was excellent ( v benfica we were out of this world) and btw we had 2 u14's in the team Matt O'R in mid and Taylor R on wing ( both 13years old!) plus8 U15's Cameron T was forward of the tournament and Taye AH was keeper...outstanding!
Welcome Doriley. Thanks for this - what a terrific performance by the whole team. I'd heard that goalie Taye had a blinder in the final. From the sound of it some more Internationals in the making as well.
Both keepers were fantastic..Taye played first half and saved a penalty and was his usual commanding self...josh played second half and pulled off a couple of blinding saves..I can't fault any of the team and when you consider that it was probably the youngest team there...even more impressive Btw it was 16 teams in 4 groups with 12 of them English cat 1 and 4 internationals CSKA Benfica Chivas Borussia m
Thanks again D. Always good to get the low down from someone actually there. And as you say all the more impressive given the ages of the lads in our team but hey, what an experience to build on. The Club as seems the norm this season when it comes to Fulham Youth, have given scant coverage of not only the team's achievement but also the tournament, with this post earlier today - "Fulham won the Under-16 Premier League International Cup on Sunday. The Whites drew their first two pool games against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers. They needed to beat Benfica to progress and a comprehensive 3-0 win sent them through. After beating Reading 1-0 in the Semi-Final, the Whites then triumphed 2-1 against Chelsea to lift the trophy." Not good enough, at all!!!
This is terrific news. It's a pretty good sign for English football in general really and little ol' Fulham came out on top. Well done the guys who played, they were a credit to the club and Hugh.
Here's a link to a piece by the Club following the Tournament win - including the squad names and (some) details about the youngsters - http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2014/november/15/under-16-cup-verdict
Some great news for the 2000's as 5 (yes FIVE) have been called up to the England National camps for next years potential U16 squad...lot more to do but to have that many from one club...awesome!
BTW..This years U16's retained the trophy this weekend at Liverpools academy.. Beating PSV 2-0 Liverpool 2-1 and Stoke 3-1 in group stages, then Southampton 4-0 in Semis and Reading 3-0 in finals..Very dominant with 16 teams from Premier league and abroad. Ryan was Attacker of tournament and brother Steven Defender..(BTW Matt was also Midfielder of tournament at the U15 tournament as well as playing this one)
