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Aspire Academy 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 football teams had an excellent performance in international tournaments in both Portugal and Netherlands, during their summer period training camps between end of June and the first week of July 2013. |
In the Iber Cup 2013 football tournament in Portugal, the academy 2000 team performed pretty well as they went on to the quarter-final where they were narrowly beaten 1-0 by the Portuguese professional team of Belenense CF in their way to the quarter-final, Aspire 2000 had to play in group B where they played the Romanian team of Sportul studentesc (0-0), the Portuguese club of Juv Castanheira and won (5-0), and the Portuguese team of GS Loures (0-0). In the 1/8 round aspire team beat Gibraltar national team 3-1.“We had many benefits from this tournament; the boys performed well and had the chance to play some good teams. All the condition of success were there to make the 2000 team players proud of their performance, good facilities, nice accommodation, nice weather and a lot of serious training,” said Nasser Hassan al-Ahbabi, head of Aspire 2000 team delegation.
In the Netherlands however, the academy teams (2001, 2002 and 2003) had even a much better performance, though playing against some professional Dutch Eredivisie teams such as Heerenveen FC and FC Twente. The Aspire teams played some friendly games as well as the famous Wining Mood Orion Cup U-12. Aspire 2002 A team went on winner of the tournament after a large victory in the final 6-1 against GVVv FC, meanwhile Aspire 2002 B lost on penalties knock out 1-3 (1-1 full time) to end up in the fourth place.
On their turn, Aspire 2001 group have been split into two teams, the blues and the maroons. The blues won the Wining Mood Ricoh tournament U-13 in the 9 on 9 line - up as they beat in the final GVAV fc 1-0. On the 11 on 11, Aspire 2001 blue team won the title after defeating SDC Putten 3-0 in the final, while the Maroon team came third.
Comenting on his players’ performance, Ali Hamd al-Kubaissi, senior coach said: “I think we achieved the main objective of participating in this tournament, not only by winning trophies, which is good for the boys, but mainly of the way our players negotiated the matches. The idea of training camps and playing such tournaments is to introduce these young players to completion and have them play together for more cohesion and style.”
The 2003 feeder group on their turn have played 10 friendly games and 2 tournaments. They played professional Dutch club of Sparta Rotterdam (loose), FC Twenty (draw), Ado Den Haag (won) and Heerenveen(won). In the two tournaments, they came second in the first one and they won the second one.
Fahd Fakhroo, senior coach of the 2003 team said: “It was a great test for our young players against some top professional teams. As we know the Dutch clubs are generally known of their professionalism; so I am very pleased with the way we played.”