Football Association Middle Rhine | U15 juniors: FVM selection wins DFB sighting tournament

With four wins from four games, the U15 youth selection of the Mittelrhein Football Association (FVM) took first place in the DFB tournament in the Duisburg-Wedau sports school: A 2-1 victory in the final “final” against the team from Westphalia brought the FVM selection, supervised by the association coaches Oliver Zeppenfeld, Sebastian Schwab and Diego Giuliana as well as the physiotherapist Julian Wasner, to the top of the table in the U15 national cup. Hesse, Berlin, Württemberg and Bavaria also came out on top.

Due to the victories on the first two days of the tournament against the selection from South Baden (3:0) and against the Bremen Football Association (4:2), it was already clear in the middle of the tournament that the Middle Rhine team could get a good result. The following 1:0 victory against the team from Berlin and the 2:1 success against the neighbors from Westphalia gave the FVM selection the tournament victory at this year’s U15 national cup in Duisburg.

The FVM talents were able to assert themselves against the Berlin Football Association, who later came fourth in the tournament, in the third game – as before during the tournament – with a demanding short passing game and focused their game on their own possession of the ball. The FVM youngsters were rewarded for this active game philosophy with a 1-0 win. Tyron Fernandez opened the scoring at right-back with a pass to Francesco Buono. This sent Julien Kurowski on the right flank towards the baseline. Kurowski’s cross found Matteo Gödtner at the back of the post, who headed the ball into Berlin’s six-yard box before Ken Izekor skillfully hipped the ball over the line.

In the “final” to win the tournament, the Middle Rhineland met the selection from Westphalia. Both teams had the maximum haul of nine points from the previous three games. Right from the start, the FVM selection had to resist energetic attacks from the Westphalians, which the team as a group was able to intercept with commitment and passion in the penalty area at the latest. The FVM-Elf only came into play offensively at the end of the first third of the game: From then on the team was able to set the playful accents that characterized them throughout the tournament. Francesco Buono, Celil Kirli and Naba Mensah repeatedly bridged the midfield with quick short passes and thus initiated their team’s attacks. Countable success then came in the second third of the game. Passes over several stations preceded both goals for the interim 2-0 lead. In both attacks, Nils Gernhardt aimed the ball into the penalty area, where Ken Izekor used his body skillfully and scored tournament goals five and six. In an overall balanced game, the disciplined FVM players hardly allowed the opponent any chances. The goal in the penultimate minute of the game came too late for the Westphalians to jeopardize the FVM tournament victory again.

In the middle of the tournament, regeneration was also on the agenda on Sunday. After a relaxed soccer-tennis session in the morning, the FVM trainers came up with a special regeneration plan for Sunday afternoon. The young FVM players exchanged views on talent, passion and commitment as well as respect and values ​​in judo with three-time judo Olympic participant Miryam Roper. In addition, Roper, who works as a judo trainer, also led active relaxation training with judo elements, which the young footballers enjoyed a lot. The FVM players asked interested questions and wanted to learn more about the Olympic Village, the toughness of fighting on the judo mat and the training load of young judo talents.

“All in all, it was a competition at the highest level for all FVM talents, in which everyone could develop in a playful way. The team also grew closer together – not only because of the shared sense of achievement – and showed willingness to develop, passion and great solidarity in every game. During the course of the tournament, the players were able to attract the attention of the DFB coaching staff headed by national coach Michael Prus. Four FVM players took advantage of this opportunity during the tournament and received invitations to attend courses for the 2007 DFB-U national team next August,” sums up selection coach Oliver Zeppenfeld.

The FVM squad for the measure can be found here.