Another tournament for Matthew’s TNT team this weekend; this time over in Grand Rapids. We’re staying the night Saturday night, leaving a teenage boy to keep up with the dogs.
The Crew Cup is a big tournament; 300 teams in all. There are 24 U11 boys teams divided into two divisions, MLS (for Major League Soccer) and World Cup. We have a team in each bracket. The last tournament, here in Lansing, had 10 teams for U11. So, some different teams and some better competition.
Here’s my pre-match scouting report……
Game 1 - Crew Kentwood '02 Black: If we don’t win this game it’s going to be a long weekend. I think they are the weakest of the three teams we are going to play. We’ve never played them, and they are a regional team (Kentwood) around Grand Rapids. Just going by the divisioning for the Fall, the GR Crew team we beat pretty handily in the first tournament is slated to play U12 2nd division. These guys are slated to play U11 2nd division. We have played another team in that division in a scrimmage…we won 9-1. Matthew and another really good kid were missing from that scrimmage.
Game 2 – Ole SC 02 Black: I do like the way this tournament shapes up for us….each game gets progressively harder. This outfit is also from the Grand Rapids area but is very ethnic; they play “latican-style”. I don’t expect to hear much English on the field. We (Matthew’s TNT team) have never played this team but I have…when I was coaching CASL. I talked about that debacle here. It was ugly, we were missing kids, and I’m reasonably sure that Matthew’s current team is better than this bunch. As long as they play well.
Game 3 – Vardar South 02 First Team: This is the game I’m interested in seeing. They are good; they were finalists in the Canton Cup last year, beating the other local travel team pretty soundly in the process. They’ve done well in their league and in other tournaments. Looking forward to this game; it will most likely determine if we move forward into the semi-finals.
Semi-finals and Finals: If we make it this far, I would rate us the underdog against any of the other opponents I see in the other groups. Any win, or reasonably close game, is complete gravy at this point.
We will see……10:30 am tomorrow the fun begins!
