After six nights of action for the boys it was time for girls to take the stage under the lights at Global Village on Sunday evening.
Eight schools/academies were registered for the U12 group and they were split into two groups of four.
Group 1 started off with impressive performances from Al Mizhar American Academy and Dubai English Speaking College (DESC), with the two teams topping the group after the 12 matches were played.
In Group 2, it was clean sweep for Zabeelers Football Academy who won all three of their games and topped the group. A gallant Deira Private School clung onto second spot in the group and secured a spot in the semi-finals.
And the last four ties certainly lived up to all the hype. Up first was Al Mizhar American Academy against Deira Private School, and the match was decided by one goal thanks to a wonderful finish by Yasmine Al Jamil. The second semi-final, which saw Zabeelers Football Academy take on DESC, was the match of the night. It finished 2-2 at full-time and the teams needed extra-time to be seperated, with the Zabeelers going onto win 4-2.
Goal: The ball in the back of the net.
“We started with a small group of girls to encourage them to play sport instead of playing with phones and electronics”, said the Zabeelers head coach. “The team started in Zabeel park, hence our name, and now we have 200 boys and girls taking part with our coaching. We have daily training for both boys and girls. We’ve played a few tournaments but this is the first one for our girls and it’s fantastic. I want to see an even bigger one next year, both the kids and parents are enjoying themselves, it’s been wonderfully run.”
Dana Hinton, head of PE and coaching Al Mizhar AA, added: “We topped the group so we’re pleased with that. The girls at our school are crazy about football so we’ve been entering as many tournaments as we can. Football is the biggest sport at our school, we have about 50 girls at the training. Our whole team has performed very well. We try not to get too involved because we want the girls to make their own mistakes and win as a team.”
Great save: The goalkeeper gets her foot to a shot.
Laura Mitchell, PE teacher at Dubai English SC expressed her delight in her team’s performance at the tournament: “We came second in the group and made it to the semi-final so we’re very pleased. This is the first time we’ve entered the girls for the first time this year. We’ve got two teams at our school so the standard is very high. It’s nice for them to play five-a-side because the game is a bit quicker for them, usually we play seven-a-side so it’s good for them to adapt. The kids get really excited by and the facilities and pitch are great for them to play on at Global Village.”
All finals will be played Global Village on Saturday February 24.