Little 8 Tournamnet

By J. Santodomingo

via: http://nr.com.br/nr2-little8-09-a-130517/

​We arrived at NR on the 9th of May after a gruelling three-hour journey. Thankfully, we only had the opening ceremony on this day-where the hosts presented the eight teams participating in the competition- as we were all exhausted.

The little 8 tournament is 3 days long, during which eight teams compete to win the championship trophy. It starts with two groups consisting of four teams. The teams play each other in their groups, and the top team in each group plays the second best team in the opposite group in the semi-finals. The teams that loose this semi-final dispute the 3rd and 4th place and the teams that win dispute the 1st and 2nd place.

The results above were the results after our three matches. We disputed our first match versus British. This was a very exhausting match as this school had a very strong counter attack; this meant that we had to attack and, after losing the ball, had to sprint back to the defence. We came out victorious, with a score of 4 x 2 for the St Pauls Lions. That afternoon, we played the Graded eagles in a tense match; Both teams missed great opportunities to score goals, and we tied at 1 x 1.

Our last match in the group stage was against the EAB bulls. We would have to win the match without conceding any goals if we wanted to achieve 1st place in our group. We began the game badly but, after an inspiring speech from our coach, Felipe, we managed to beat them 4 x 0. We would now have to play versus the EAC Giants in the semi-finals.
 
With a great start to the game, we managed to score a goal in the first half. However, after halftime, the Giants managed to break our defensive line and beat us 4x1.

We played our final match disputing 3rd and 4th place against British. This match was once again very exhausting. Both teams took all available opportunities to score goals. Rodrigo Biolchini, our captain and goalie, managed to block multiple hand to hand goals. The game went into extra time and we managed to score a goal, but the other team reciprocated and we lost 4 x 5. We were devastated at this loss but we left the match with pride as we gave our everything inside of the court.

Results of Little 8 futsal