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U16 Boys’ Football: Season Review

The U16 boys football team debuted on Monday 11 November in 2024, against Korean International School (KIS). When the match started, we were all a little bit nervous, everything had just begun. KIS started off strong, scoring the first goal of the match, but we got the hang of things pretty quickly and soon caught up. By half time we were winning 4-1, and by full time won 11-2. It was a relief to know we had the capacity to win a match by such a margin!

A week later, after our exams were over, we played our second match against Stamford. Entering the pitch, we knew this game would be a step up, but we also knew we had the talent to win. We were all excited since it was our last game before the winter break.

We started off strong, scoring two goals in the first 10 minutes. The Stamford defenders got subbed off for two new defenders which really helped their team maintain the score for a while. But we still won that game 4-1. It was the perfect way to end the term and go into our winter holidays.

Coming back from break, we faced the Australian International School (AIS). Everyone was  telling us how good they were, which made us question our abilities to win the match. But we had the right mentality to win, which was crucial in that match. The difference in the quality of the game was noticed right as the first whistle blew. Our heads stayed in the game for the whole 50 minutes of the match, which made the difference and helped us win 2-1.

Our second last match to the finals was against Discovery College (DC). This was an important match for us to win if we wanted to be first in the league. Unfortunately, the Grade 10s from the team could not play that game as we had the DP choices evening organised on the same night. The rest of the team had to play without us. DC were supposedly amazing, which they proved by defeating our team 3-0.

For out last match before the finals, we played the team that was first in the league, Singapore International School (SIS). Entering the game, we did not have much faith. We underestimated ourselves. We fought our hardest and it paid off as we won 2-1!

At this point we were second place in the league, tied with SIS. Going into the finals, we knew we were going to play DC for our first match and either AIS or SIS for our second match. 

We started off strong in the first match of the finals, winning 2-0 in the first 15 minutes. By halftime, the score was already 2-1, since DC had scored a penalty against us. The second half had just begun, and the next thing we know, we were already losing 3-2. Luckily, we were saved by one of their own defenders - he scored an own goal in the last minutes, which brought us to the penalties. 

We eventually lost on the penalties, which meant our next game would be for third or fourth place. This really affected everyone’s morale, since we knew that we had the capacity to win that match. We had an hour break between this match and our final match of the whole season, which would either take us to the podium, as third place or send us home with nothing.

Losing the first match really changed our mentally for the second match against AIS. No one wanted to lose again. So we fought as hard as we could for the whole match. We created a lot of opportunities, but unfortunately, most of them did not make it to the back of the net. As the final whistle blew, and the ref recorded our 2-1 win against AIS, we went to shake their hands, since we knew going home with nothing would be hard. We then went to sit down for a quick debrief and went to collect our bronze medals along with all the other teams participating. We went back to the campus, and just like that the season was over.

To finish this off, I want to thank Aaron, Sacha, Hillel, Yair and Caleb for defending so well this whole season. Noah, Itay, Cedric and Akira for playing so well in the midfield and on the wings. I also want to thank Ofek for being both our camera man and a defender for our team, and for Ronin for helping us so much while joining the team so late. And a huge thank you to Mr. Baldwin  and Mr. O’Connell, and to Coach Moses and Anthony for coaching us this whole season. None of this would have been possible without them!

Ariel, Grade 10