Head coach Serge Dinkota’s U13 team will fly to France this week to take part in the Tournoi international U13 Anastasio Gomez de Bobigny.
While Dinkota’s group is composed of players born in 2002 and 2003, only the 2003 players will make the trip, in order to comply with the tournament’s age category.
“Before we leave, we played two intra-squad games, with our 2002 players facing our 2003,” said Dinkota. “We followed the 8v8 tournament’s format to get used to it. I did some research on this format and talked to my colleagues to put in place a system that will allow us to apply our attacking and defensive organizations while taking into account the dimensions of the field, which will be about sixty metres by forty metres.”
This tournament will force the players out of their comfort zone. Thankfully, putting the players in unusual situations is also one of the concepts that the Academy regularly applies.
“Kids and staff, we will be out of our comfort zone, and we will face high-level competition from Europe,” added the Impact U13 head coach. “It will also allow us to evaluate the adaptability level of the players and see how they react in this environment.”
Despite this, the priority for the group remains to stick to its identity. When the team plays in the tournament, it wants to be recognized for its identity more than for the results it gets against high profile European teams such as Tottenham Hotspur FC, FC Porto and Paris Saint-Germain.
“The main focus is to stay loyal to our playing identity, and we won’t budge on this,” explained Dinkota. “If it means that we win the tournament this way, all the better. If we don’t win it but remain loyal to our playing identity and express ourselves on the field, it will also be a step in the right direction. We will try to go as far as possible in the tournament, but our priority remains for the performance on the field to be good and for the spirit of competition to keep our players going at all times.”
Once again, the U13 Impact team will proudly represent the club abroad. Last summer, the U13 Impact team took part in the CONCACAF Champions League in Mexico. This time, the experience takes them in Europe.
