Elite FC win Under-12 football crown

FC Ginga and Elite FC could not be separated after full time as the final ended 2-2. Jerimai Nanton scored in the 24th minute for Elite FC and Joshua Miguel doubled the team's advantage with a 31st minute strike.

Abijah Hercules showed fight, netting in the 36th and 38th minutes to leave the match all square. Elite FC held their nerve in penalties to come away with a 5-4 victory.

In the third place playoff, M12 Revolution defeated DBA 3-0 with goals from Cristiano Perez (seventh), Mickel Holdip (ninth) and Jayden Dick (36th). After weeks of competition, a number of awards were given to the teams at the closing ceremony.

HONOUR ROLL

First Place - Elite FC

Second Place - FC Ginga

Third Place - M12 Revolution

Fourth Place - DBA

Most Disciplined Team - DBA

Coach of the Tournament - Kion Williams (Elite FC)

Team with the Most Vibes - M12 Revolution

Margaret Hall (tournament) MVP - Jerimai Nanton (Elite FC)

Golden Boot - Khariem O'Brady (FC Ginga)

Best Goalkeeper - Nathaniel Peters (Elite FC)

Future Star of Elite FC - Joshua Miguel

Finals MVP - Khariem O'Brady

RELATED NEWS

Hercules helps Elite celebrate.
By Rachael Thompson-King (Guardian).

Elite FC edged out FC Gin­ga 5-4 on penal­ties in the Con­cept Coach­ing Youth Foot­ball Tour­na­ment cen­tral edi­tion boys' Un­der-12 fi­nal af­ter a dou­ble from Abi­jah Her­cules had en­sured a 2-2 draw dur­ing nor­mal time.

The com­pet­i­tive ti­tle match un­fold­ed at the Lange Park Recre­ation Ground in Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

FC Gin­ga en­tered as the lone un­beat­en team in the eight-team com­pe­ti­tion af­ter win­ning “Love Is The An­swer” group two, fell be­hind mid­way through the first half when Je­re­mi Nan­ton scored the open­er in the 24th minute for Elite, who was the win­ner of “Stop The Vi­o­lence” group one.

Some sev­en min­utes lat­er, Joshua Miguel (31st) put Elite fur­ther ahead, 2-0 send­ing their sup­port­ers in­to cel­e­bra­tion mode. How­ev­er, Gin­ga's lev­el of play did not drop and was able to pull a goal back thanks to Her­cules in the 36th. He re­turned two min­utes lat­er to lev­el the scores in the 38th.

The 2-2 score­line re­mained un­changed when time ex­pired send­ing the match in­to penal­ty kicks to crown the cham­pi­on. Elite was the more ac­cu­rate of the two sides at spot-kick and won the show­down by a 5-4 mar­gin.

Be­fore the teams took to the field to bat­tle, they boost­ed by the words of for­mer T&T "Strike Squad" cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris, head coach at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT).

"Dream, be­lieve and it's pos­si­ble, faith and prayer are both in­vin­ci­ble but they both make im­pos­si­ble things, pos­si­ble. Con­fi­dence comes nat­u­ral­ly with suc­cess but suc­cess comes to on­ly those who have con­fi­dence," said Mor­ris dur­ing the mo­ti­va­tion­al ses­sion. "Every suc­cess­ful per­son has a painful sto­ry but the painful sto­ry has a suc­cess­ful end."

He went on to elab­o­rate on his life ex­pe­ri­ences and be­ing able to re­bound from some dis­ap­point­ing mo­ments ear­ly on his foot­ball ca­reer with the hope he could help the young­sters be con­fi­dent in their fu­ture en­deav­ours in the sport as well as in their lives.

Ear­li­er in the third-place play­off, M12 Rev­o­lu­tion eased past DBA with a 3-0 vic­to­ry.

RE­SULTS

Fi­nal

Elite FC 2 (Je­re­mi Nan­ton 24th, Joshua Miguel 31st) vs FC Gin­ga 2 (Abi­jah Her­cules 36th, 38th). Elite FC won 5-4 on penal­ty kicks.

Third and fourth place game

M12 Rev­o­lu­tion 3 (Cris­tiano Perez 7th, Mick­el Holdip 9th, Jay­den Dick 36th) vs DBA 0