Experience has overcome youth in Sydney FC’s inaugural beach football competition.
Experience has overcome youth in Sydney FC-s inaugural beach football competition.
With the first team squad in training until the end of April, the coaches took the boys down to Tamarama beach for the six team tournament.
“We thought it would give them [the players] something a little bit different other than just training, as we-re in the off-season,” said first team coach Steve Corica.
“It-s actually very good for the fitness. We looked at a couple of the heart monitors and they worked very hard.
“It-s obviously good to keep the fitness up before they go on a long break.”
The tournament consisted of a round robin group stage with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals and the two winners going into the final.
The teams finishing 5th and 6th also battled it out for the wooden spoon.
Games were 3-a-side for 5 minutes and each team had four players.
Despite their age, the white team of Sydney FC coaches Steve Corica and Zeljko ‘Spider- Kalac, plus former Socceroos David Zdrilic and Craig Foster won with a 100% record.
“We were pretty confident going into it,” said Corica. “Obviously Zdrila, myself, Spider and Fozzie played a bit of beach football before.
“A bit of experience proved to be the winner at the end of the day.”
Sydney FC goalkeeping coach Zeljko ‘Spider- Kalac was also delighted to win.
“We won it. Seven matches, seven victories, we won it,” he added.
“The boys have still got it in the old legs, but we were running out of petrol at the end so we didn-t want it to go too much longer.
“And there-s no need for the boys to be embarrassed, as they did get beat by some class players!!”
The Sydney FC squad will continue to train until the football season finishes at the end of this month, before taking a break.
“It-s about keeping everyone energetic and having some fun and we thought this is a great way to do it,” said Spider. “You get a lot of work in here.”
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