Indialantic Force U11 boys soccer team plays to win or learn

INDIALANTIC, Fla. — This past weekend my boys on the Indialantic Force U11 participated in the annual Vero Winter Cup at Hobart Park in Vero Beach. This is our second year playing the tournament and unfortunately our second time finishing as runners up after losing a grueling final match. 

We choose to play this tournament each year because it falls at the end of our Elite Development Program Fall season and attracts some of the highest quality teams out of the soccer hotbeds of Miami and South Florida. We don’t get the luxury to play teams of this quality on a regular basis despite playing in the highest competitive level league in Central and North Florida. 

We entered the tournament on a high note after finishing second in our EDP league and the boys were very hyped and hungry after falling short in the finals last year.

We entered Saturday morning overly confident and paid the price finding ourselves down two goals early before grinding a goal back with ten minutes left in the game. We pushed our whole team forward trying to get another goal back to at least get a draw from a game we should have won on paper but as our boys have learned the game is not played on paper and you have to win it in your head, your heart, and on the grass. 

This early loss put us in a very tough situation the rest of the weekend needing two multiple goal wins against two of the toughest opponents in our age brackets.

The team came back that evening to face immense adversity against a tough Palm Beach team and came away with a 7-1 win and entered Sunday needing a win versus arguably the best team in the tournament, Boynton Beach Knights who just recently merged with Boca United to form a stronger team in our age bracket. 

Our boys showed up Sunday ready to play. It was win or go home for both teams and we ended up coming away with an emphatic 3-1 win despite the game being postponed 30 minutes and going down a goal in the first ten minutes and into halftime facing a 1-0 deficit that would have sent us home. The boys fought tooth and nail ‘til the very end and put together one of the best halves of soccer I have seen from them this year. 

This game left us exhausted, battered, beaten, and bruised with only an hour rest before our warmups for the final against the tournament hosts, Indian River, who had a much longer resting period and a very easy game that morning. 

The stakes were high, and my boys were hungry for revenge and redemption from the morning before. We could see early on that our previous game had a major impact on our team’s performance leading to a few adjustments, players playing in brand new positions, and a couple key injuries. We again found ourselves down a goal early and chasing the game to find an equalizer that did come right before the half with a great combination team goal with 7 linked passes before an easy tap in. We now had momentum on our side, but our legs were dead. We kept grinding and still were able to create ample opportunities to score but just couldn’t capitalize. 

As time wore down, so did our energy as a team and Indian River had put 8 players behind the ball to defend and had a very fast, skillful, and clinical striker, wearing #1, left up top to chase every clearance Indian River had and tactically resorted to clearing/kicking the ball as hard as they could away from their net and into our half every time they had it hoping #1 would be able to use his pace and incredible shooting skills to punish us. We eventually did give up two goals in the last 8 minutes that led to a 3-1 loss.

I give Indian River and their striker the credit they deserve as they found a way to beat us twice in two days in fun, clean, and competitive play which is everything you can ask for out of a youth soccer match. Their team has come a long way in the past two years after losing to us by multiple goals and have found a tactical style to suite their team’s attributes. 

My boys didn’t win this past weekend, but they did not once put their heads down even when all odds were against them on multiple occasions. Facing adversity has been one of my team’s biggest weaknesses this year when facing challenging teams. This weekend alone showed that we have learned as a team that no matter the circumstances we are put in, we still must keep pushing through. This is a lesson I hope not only sticks with them on the field as a team but also in their own lives individually for years to come. 

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