Schalke in semi-finals for Under-19s

Goals from Elliot Thorpe and Jeremie Mukendi sent our Under-19s into the semi-finals of the Oberndorf tournament in Germany with one game to spare on Saturday morning.

After seeing off reigning champions SC Freiburg on Friday, we triumphed 2-0 against Team Schwarzwald to put ourselves into an unassailable lead at the top of Group A and secure qualification for Sunday’s knockout stages.

A 3-0 defeat to Red Bull Salzburg in our final group game on Saturday afternoon was a blow, but coach Matt Wells is confident the players will respond when we face Schalke in the semi-finals at 9.45am local time on Sunday.

“The game in the morning was a comfortable one but unfortunately we lost 3-0 in the afternoon,” he explained. “We’d won the group already so the Salzburg game was a good opportunity for some players who maybe haven’t played as much in this competition to stake a claim for a place in the semi-final side. Unfortunately it was a poor performance. Our objective was to win the group with three wins – we’ve done it with two, but now we’ve got a clean slate in the semi-finals and our objective is to win two more games and come home with the trophy.”

Thorpe converted after just three minutes of the 25-minutes-each-way match against Team Schwarzwald, turning his body to provide a smart finish at the second time of asking after his first attempt had been saved by the keeper.

The second arrived on 14 minutes when the ball was played out from the back and Thorpe shaped to shoot before picking out Mukendi with a reverse pass and he fired into the top corner. Team Schwarzwald did have one late chance but defender Malachi Walcott got back to clear off the line.

Goals on 25, 32 and 45 minutes saw us go down to Salzburg.