BAA Junior Football Europe Tour Photos & Update
BAA football players – spanning various age groups – are presently touring Europe, playing matches, training and taking in the sights. They have taken part in numerous matches, with a few wins under their belt including the U11s beating hosts FC Trias 1-0 and besting FC Bocholt of Germany 6-1.
Yesterday Coach Kenny Thompson who is traveling with the group said, “The U14s and U11s attended the Ajax-Heerenveen match in the Amsterdam Arena. Everyone enjoyed the atmosphere and Ajax won 5-1 which really makes me happy.”
“The U71s played 2 more matches in the tournament losing 3-0 against a team from Kenya and 4-2 to a Dutch team. The boys played really well and showed a quick and positive adaptation to the speed of play that they experienced yesterday.”
“Tomorrow the group will relax in the morning (swimming, spa, etc) then travel to Venlo for the U14s and U11s final match of the tour against VVV Venlo. The U17s will travel for support before they travel to Barcelona Tuesday afternoon.”
Below: Marcus Brangman fights for the ball against FC Bocholt of Germany. Score finished at 3-3 with Kane Crichlow scoring 2 and Marcus Brangman scoring 1.
Below: Kane Crichlow pictured during FC Bocholt match
Below: U14s being given instructions from one of the Dutch coaches.
Below: U12 goalie Andrew Kemp in action
Below: Erik Correia accepts club banner from RKTVC of Holland. BAA 7 – RKTVC 1
[Thanks to Craig Crichlow from BAA for the photos]
Kenny thompson is doing a great job with these kids. 2 weeks ago i saw their under 18′s beat southampton rangers mens team 4-3. They walked all over rangers! these guys are gonna be future pro’s our only hope of a world cup apperance comes from the youth!
Have a look at the quality coming out of the top countries in this region and know that any thought of qualifying for a WC is simpy a pipe dream:
1. Mexico – under 17 world champions – semi finals of under 20 World Cup – winners Gold Cup
2. USA – just keep getting better & better — we will never compete against them again..
3. Costa Rica – Arsenal just signed their top youth player
4. Honduras & Panama – have become power houses in the region over the past years
6. Canada – keep producing quality players that are playing in top leagues around the world
7. Jamaica – most of the MLS teams have Jamaicans playing for them as well as top universities – as well as 2nd tier clubs in the UK.
8.El Salavador – Guatemala – always to good for Bda..
10. Cuba & T&T – Just to powerful for Bda…
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Note: Only 3 teams qualify from this region for the World Cup..
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Again we need to stop looking at these misleading tours to Europe as a barometer. The teams that are played are not top level and again all we simply have to do is compare how we perform against mid level players in the US to know that are dreaming, if we think we can ever qualify for the World Cup.
We only need to see the difficulty thay Wells and Lambe are having sticking with professional teams to know just how hard it is to play at the professional level. Both players are the best we have produced in the past decade, in my opinion..
There is no disgrace in failing to qualify for the WC, given our size, number of players and current state of our leagues. We simply need to focus on the things that are reasonable & realistic and it should start with trying to get as many boys and girls college scholarsips as possible. Obviously we have to focus on the academic side of these kids game, and if we ever improve in that area, we could easily see the numbers of kids going abroad to top schools on football scholarships increase significantly..
Get a grip…been down this path with Kenny many ,many times. same group would struggle against high school team in the US. Not trying to be negative, however a return to sanity is required here..
Well Done Boys.. Well Done!!