04 Nov 2011
Teams from Aspire Academy For Sports Excellence faced off against their young counterparts from the French side of Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in a series of friendly games last week. Riding high after consecutive wins against the Belgian 1999-born side of RSC Anderlecht FR earlier this month, the Aspire 1999 team continued to show some excellent talent and produced a good fight in front of a superior PSG 1999 but eventually lost the first match 4-2.
It was the second occasion ever for the Aspire 1999-born team to have played an overseas team, as previously the age group was not scheduled in a friendly game against any visiting team since the European athletes are considered physically stronger than Aspire Academy students. In the second game, Aspire 1999 displayed greater co-ordination and thrilled with the footwork. However, the rival team overcame the strong showing and won the match 2-0. Commenting on both games, Aspire 1999 coach, Ibrahim Al-Shafie said: “Technically my players are making a lot of progress and showing some excellent techniques and talents.
We faced a team whose players are physically much stronger and bigger than our players. Only those watching the game realized the big difference between our players and the opponents. We are extremely satisfied with the overall performance of our players regardless of the final result.” Aspire head coach, Michael Browne said: “When we saw the teams’ line up at the start of the first game we feared the worst, however the Aspire youngsters competed very well and managed to create some decent chances. The first game was level at 2-2 with three minutes remaining and despite conceding two late goals the overall performance was very encouraging. The second game was similar in many ways but a late goal for the visitors sealed the victory.” The result for other teams at Aspire was far better, as both Aspire 1996 and Aspire 1995 teams blasted their way through the two scheduled matches.
The Aspire 1995 team played against PSG 1996 as originally PSG was to bring their 1995-born side, but ended up bringing a team from a younger age bracket thereby forcing Aspire 95 and Aspire 96 to share a game each. At the game, the Aspire 1995 started sloppily and conceded an early goal before going on to dominate the game with some excellent periods of play. The final score saw Aspire19 95 win 4-1. The Aspire 1996 too produced one of their finest ever performances and routed PSG 1996 by 5-1.