The Yorkton United U12 boys’ soccer team – representing Germany - wrapped up a very successful 2016 World Class Players (WCP) World Cup campaign last week with a 7-0 win over Team India in the U12 World Cup gold medal game.
Yorkton Germany – joined by several Regina and Moose Jaw youth players – opened the scoring very early on when striker Aleksa Bijelic put the ball past the India keeper just two minutes into the game.
Germany continued to pressure throughout the first half and were rewarded in the 16th minute when Bijelic once again got his foot on the ball to make it 2-0.
An Alex Pollock goal with just three minutes left in the half made it 3-0 for Germany, but it could very well have been 7-0 if not for the India keeper.
Matthew Dietrich made it 4-0 just four minutes into the second half. Ten minutes later Bijelic completed the hattrick to make it 5-0 before Justin Adam and Noah Wyatt added single goals to round out the scoring in the 7-0 gold medal game shutout. “It was a complete team effort for the boys,” said Yorkton-Germany head coach Benno Looft. “They came out strong and they were very focused and composed for that game and it was very nice to see from the boys.”
Looft said that the 7-0 score line was due to the fact that many of the boys on the German team were used to high pressure games, having played in several tournament championship games earlier in the season. “Most of these boys are used to that kind of an environment a little bit and were ready for big games because they were in the final of four or five tournaments this year already, and I think that really showed a lot in that game,” offered Looft, adding that the composure demonstrated by the U12 boys was second to none. “This game, the whole composure and everything from the team was a total team effort to get the win.
It was such a nice thing, to see them so composed and not nervous at all.
“It was nice to see how ready they were for the game and it went right from the keeper to the strikers.”
This is the first WCP World Cup title for a team made up primarily of players from Yorkton.
The boys will now prepare themselves for the outdoor season, which begins immediately and ends in late July/early August.
