Final day defeats cost Academy at Terborg Tournament
Sun 02 June 2019, 17:52|
Tottenham Hotspur
Our Under-19s finished fourth after a mixed bag of results at the Terborg Tournament in the Netherlands over the weekend.
Determined to enjoy a positive end to the Academy season, we qualified out of a tough group in second place behind Brazilian side Flamengo having gone unbeaten in our first three matches across Friday and Saturday.
But we came unstuck in Sunday morning’s semi-final against Danish side FC Midtjylland, conceding four goals without reply, before going down 3-0 to Flamengo later in the day in the third place play-off.
Playing 50-minute games, we got off to an excellent start on Friday afternoon with a 1-0 victory over Ajax Cape Town. In a close contest that saw chances for both sides, we took the lead on the stroke of half-time when Harvey White set up Phoenix Patterson to score. We had to defend well in the second half with the South African side enjoying a flurry of late opportunities, but we managed to hold onto our lead until the end.
Group stage line-ups
Spurs (v Ajax Cape Town): De Bie, Okedina, Cirkin, White, Dinzeyi, Lyons-Foster, Markanday, Bowden, Richards, Roles (Etete 42), Patterson (Clarke 38).
Spurs (v Flamengo): De Bie, Okedina, Cirkin, White (A Shashoua 40), Lyons-Foster, Binks, Clarke (Patterson 37), Bowden, Etete, Richards (Dinzeyi 50), Bennett (Markanday 24).
Spurs (v Vitesse): Kurylowicz, Okedina, Cirkin (White 42), Bowden, Dinzeyi, Binks, Markanday, A Shashoua, Roles, Pedder (Etete 31), Patterson (Clarke 34).
Saturday began with a goalless draw with eventual group winners Flamengo, in which goalkeeper Jonathan De Bie made a string of important saves, before we secured our passage to the knockout stages with a 2-2 draw against Vitesse. We controlled the game against the Dutch outfit but after Patterson provided the assist for Dilan Markanday to give us the lead nine minutes after half-time, Vitesse hit us with a quickfire double inside two minutes to turn the scoreline around. Thankfully, White was on hand to equalise two minutes from time, keeping us in the competition heading into the last day as we qualified for the semi-finals as group runners-up.
Unfortunately, Sunday’s action didn’t go to plan and we were knocked out in the morning by FC Midtjylland, who scored twice either side of half-time to secure a 4-0 win.
That was followed by another disappointing defeat in the play-off for third spot. Pitted against group rivals Flamengo once again, we conceded on the stroke of half-time and twice more in the latter stages to go down 3-0.
Brazilian side Palmeiras beat Midtjylland 1-0 in the final to lift the trophy on Sunday afternoon.
Knockout stage line-ups
Spurs (v FC Midtjylland, semi-final): De Bie, Okedina, Cirkin, White (Etete 25), Dinzeyi (Binks 24), Lyons-Foster, Markanday, Bowden, Roles, Patterson, Clarke.
Spurs (v Flamengo, third place play-off): Kurylowicz, Okedina, Cirkin, White, Lyons-Foster (Bowden 47), Binks, Clarke (Markanday 32), A Shahoua, Etete, Roles (Patterson 32), Bennett.
