Soccer Academy England Trip - Day 5

Monday, March 12 – Game 1 vs. Esprit Academy

After our 8 a.m. breakfast, we packed our bus for the three-hour drive from London to Doncaster. When we arrived, we quickly grabbed lunch and moved into our hotel rooms for our five-night stay there. 

At 2 p.m., the boys assembled in the lobby for our half-mile ride to Doncaster Stadium and football grounds. There, they changed in the away locker rooms and quickly got a sense of what playing professional football in England would be like. As we walked to the field, we realized that we were playing a team largely made up of older players. Looking across during our warm-ups, I wondered how many of our opponents were married with children…

Before we knew it, game time had arrived and my friend’s son, Sam Marley, from England joined the Soccer Academy team to play center back for us. In the opening minutes of play, not only did we realize that the players were big, strong and older … but pretty technical and mean buggers, too. About 10 minutes into the match, it also became apparent that the officials did not want to help the “yanks” beat the English chaps. For the first time, I saw a player reach down and pin the ball with his hand while shielding one of our players and nothing was called.

With all of these circumstances, I wondered how our players would react. I must say, this game will remain etched in my mind as a tremendous game in Soccer Academy history. Every player stepped up – both young and old. They dealt with bigger, stronger opponents and biased officials while playing very well together (especially considering that six or seven of the starting 11 had never played together before!) In the 23rd minute of play, Cameron Rohani sent a tremendous ball through the back line of the Esprit defense for Korede. With the goalkeeper coming out, Korede finished the ball like a pro, giving us a 1-0 advantage into the half.

The second half started with Esprit Academy coming out hard. (I'm sure their coach was embarrassed that an American team made up of 14- to 18-year-olds was beating his 21- to 23-year-olds!) Esprit leveled the game with a driven ball just over the head of Dylan Faber in about the 65th minute of play. Our boys fought back, with both Cameron Rohani and Myles Englis making great runs into the box and being taken down in the box with no call.

With only 10 minutes left to play, Myles Englis flicked a ball with his foot over the head of an Esprit Academy player about 30 yards from our goal. The Esprit player reached up and knocked the ball down with his arm and two passes later gave them a breakaway and their second goal to go ahead 2-1. At this point, I was incredibly proud of how our boys answered the physicality and officiating at Esprit. The last 10 minutes, our boys dug even deeper.

With only a couple of minutes left, a great diagonal ball from Enrique Bello sent Colby Ferguson into the box on a break away. Just as Colby touched the ball past last defender, the chasing Esprit Academy player gave Colby a hockey check that sent him flying and never touched the ball. No call. This sent me over the edge with the referee.  Realizing his bias was evident to all, the ref called the game two minutes short of time with a final score of 1-2 for Esprit Academy. 

After the game, I asked the Esprit players where they were from and their ages. There was only one 18-year-old from London. Three or four players were 20 and from England. Three others were 21 and from Africa. And the last three or four players were 22-23 years of age from Jordan, Dubai and Oman. All in all, it was a great experience for our younger players to dress in professional locker rooms and play on a professional team’s training grounds.