8th April 2012

Coulibaly and Bentaleb on target for Spurs in U19 tournament

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Spurs have taken a group of young players to participate in the U19 Champions Trophy in Düsseldorf.

Saturday was the first day of the tournament, and we opened with a 2-0 win against New York Cosmos. Our goals came from Nabil Bentaleb, who drove home as the ball rebounded back to him, and Souleymane Coulibaly, who tapped home a Ken MvEvoy cross.

The second match didn’t go so well, and we ended up losing 2-0 to Fortuna Düsseldorf, who put in what the tournament website describes as “one of the most convincing performances so far”.

This morning we face Sparta Prague (KO 10:30 BST); if we were to win this match, we would play PSV Eindhoven (who won their group) at 14:00 BST.

Some key tournament rules:

– Matches are short – they consist of 2 x 25 minute halves.
– Participating players must be born on or after 01/01/1993.
– A squad consists of up to 18 players.
– Four substitutions are allowed per game.

I will try to find out the full squad list, and will edit this post if I am able to do so.

EDIT: We beat Sparta Prague 1-0 thanks to a very late Jack Munns goal, and now face PSV Eindhoven at 14:00 (UK time) in the Quarter-Finals. If you are interested in following the score, log on to the tournament website at 2 and have your finger ready over the F5 key!

8th April 2012
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hoopspur8th April 2012 at 10:32
Hello Windy

Spurs 1 Sparta 0.

COYS!
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1. Windy8th April 2012 at 18:01
  Such a shame we couldn't beat PSV...
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Anonymous8th April 2012 at 11:50
1 Jonathan Miles
2 Jack Barthram
3 Kevin Stewart
4 Laste Dombaxe
5 Milos Veljkovic
6 Kenneth McEvoy
7 Nabil Bentelab
8 Souleymane Coullibally
9 Jack Munns
10 Tomislav Gomelt
11 Darren McQueen
12 Shaquille Coulthirst
13 Luke McGee
14 Ronnie Hawkins
15 Ruben Lameires
16 Dominic Ball
17 Grant Ward
18 William Ekong

Spursidol
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1. Windy8th April 2012 at 18:01
  Much appreciated, thanks for this! I have credited you in the follow-up article. Cheers!
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Anonymous8th April 2012 at 11:55
One problem Spurs may have had with the Fortuna match was that Fortuna played their first match on Thursday evening, and second match against Spurs on Saturday, whereas Spurs played against New York and then Fortuna on Saturday afternoon - so whereas Spurs had some tired players from the first game, Fortuna were all fresh. Quite an advantage methinks.

Spursidol
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1. Windy8th April 2012 at 18:02
  Yes, significant. Still, wonderful experience for the players.
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Anonymous8th April 2012 at 19:00
I don't understand why not every youth tournament is played with shorter length matches, it makes a lot more sense than 90 min matches where players will always end up exhausted.

Just one of many reasons why youth development is generally so poor in this country. I believe that the biggest problem though is that players are bracketed based on age rather than height. This results in a lot of physically stronger young players stumping the development of more technically gifted players, and neither group ever becoming Premiership quality and only once in a generation does a club actually develop an international quality player.

Still, we seem to have a very solid group of youngsters now and a world class training ground on the way in the summer. If our coaching staff are up to scratch there is reason for optimism.
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1. Windy8th April 2012 at 19:26
  Most of the international tournaments are played to similar rules and, I agree, it makes total sense.
  
  Agree with your other point too although think the tide is turning :)
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Coulibaly and Bentaleb on target for Spurs in U19 tournament

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