Lewisham 5 - 1 Utah State

The last of five matches in six gruelling days of football gave Lewisham the oportunity to relax and experiment against a talented but tired Utah side. The first half was a reasonably even affair, although cut short by ten minutes when the linesman pulled a hamstring and had to be stretchered off. Once Lewisham opened the scoring they never looked back. Coach Thomas used his entire squad in this game, and when the ever reliable James Golding took a spell on the bench the captain's armband was deservedly handed to centre-back Max Zagbayou, the only player to play every minute of every game this week. Goals went to top scorer this week Louie Theophanous (two), Richard Morgan and Shane Collins, and a superb solo effort from Omar Folkes. Arguably the goal of the match, however, was scored in the dying minutes by the Utah left wing who cut across the whole of our box and ripped the ball into the top corner of the net from the far side; great pace and skill giving keeper Matt Bailey no chance to save.

After the disappntment of the group stages it was nice to end on a win, and a comprehensive one at that. The boys have performed extremely well throughout the week, both on the pitch where they were undefeated in their group, and in the way they have conducted themselves off the pitch aeround Dallas and with their host families. They would be the first to admit that the whole tour has been an enormous learning experience from start to finish. Now they need to start fund raising for next year!

Pictures from the Utah State friendly

Footage from the IMG game

Disappointing 2-1 loss after a promising start to this friendly

Pictures from Lewisham vs IMG

The day we lost to Atticus, Orlando and Butters...

To round off the week, two friendlies against strong academy sides giving coaches the opportunity to use fresh players and rest some battered legs from earlier conflicts. Florida's IMG had previously won this tournament and were certain to be a tough test. Lewisham started promisingly and played some sharp football culminating with a goal from Shane Collins which he admits was intended as a cross, and a mysterious penalty that was given for an outrageous Omar Folkes dive and then never happened for reasons known only to the referee. It all seemed suspiciously easy, unfortunately the Lewisham team didn't react when IMG changed their line-up, bringing on some of their big guns in the middle and up front and the tide of play changed dramatically. After the disappointment of the tournament group and a week of hard football in the Dallas sun, the boys didn't have the stomach for this particular fight and IMG ran out comfortable 2-1 winners.

Group standings update - Lewisham bow out after Solar FC win final game

Despite extremely vocal support from the entire Lewisham squad, FC Juventus couldn't pull off the required result against the highly organised and efficient Solar SC side. FC Juventus looked promising in the opening ten or fifteen minutes, but once the opening breakaway goal went Solar's way and a Juventus defender had collected a straight red card, there was only ever going to be one winner. In the end, Solar ran out 4-0 winners against a tired and dispirited FC Juventus, and far more importantly edged Lewisham out of top spot in the group, and thereby out of the tournament. Solar's next opponents will be the Andromeda academy coached by our own former head coach Aaron Jacob. What a matchup that might have been had we gone through instead of Solar: Dan Thomas vs Aaron Jacob, and we could have dragged Aaron's predecessor, Alex Ingelthorpe, away from managing the Spurs squad here at the tournament to referee!

The boys are of course extremely disappointed, but they do have two tasty friendly fixtures to look forward to. The first will be against the highly rated IMG academy side from Florida (recent winners of this tournament), and the second a talented Utah State side on Saturday.

Video update

Warm up and action from the Leones match

Preparing for the Leones match

In action against FC Juventus

Pictures from game 3: Lewisham against Houston Leones