Football: Airtel Rising Stars tournament |30 November 2015

Praslin, Belonie winners

After two weeks of hard work and competition, the 2015 Airtel Rising Stars tournaments came to an end last weekend with the finals played at Stad Linite.

There were two finals on offer on Saturday morning, where first was for the under-17 category which featured Praslin and Belonie.

It was a good match although lacking in some areas as the young players kept hoofing the ball forward at every opportunity, rather than building up play with passing and movement.

It was Belonie who opened the scoring in the 25th minute of the match which was played in two 30-minute halves. Praslin though equalised in the very last minute of normal time to send the match into a penalty shootout.

In the shootout, Belonie missed their first spot kick, allowing Praslin to take the lead and when it was 4-2 in favour of Praslin who had been the first to take the series of penalty kicks, Belonie missed their fourth kick, to hand Praslin the title.

Before the teams were presented with their medals and cups, the under-17 individual awards were handed out. Praslin’s Jean-Yves Victor was named the player of the tournament, while the top performers from each team who took part in the tournament were also rewarded.

The under-15 final was next and the contest was marred by controversy as some poor refereeing changed the course of the game.

Belonie were once again in the final against Mont Fleuri who took a good 1-0 lead into halftime. Mont Fleuri were able to increase their lead to 2-0 from a free-kick which the Belonie goalkeeper failed to catch.

Mont Fleuri looked like they were heading for victory, but the game soon turned on its head though as the referee, who was still in Belonie’s half of the pitch, awarded Belonie a penalty. This came after the fourth official had rushed to the sidelines to instruct the referee to give the penalty, which was quite bizarre as the linesman had flagged for offside and not a foul
The penalty was converted to make the score 2-1. But, controversy was not over as this time a Belonie player was brought down well outside the Mont Fleuri penalty area which should have been sanctioned by a free-kick and at least a booking, but instead once again the fourth official rushed to the sidelines to tell the referee, who was again far from the action, to award a penalty and he duly obliged much to the dismay and confusion of the Mont Fleuri camp who had very valid reasons to be aggrieved.

The penalty was again converted and just a few minutes later, Belonie scored again to claim a 3-2 victory to become the Airtel Rising Stars under-15 champions.

Here, it was Mont Fleuri’s Ryan Henriette who was named the top player of the tournament. An emotional Henriette came up to pick his award in tears after losing in such a manner.

It should be hoped that the way the match unfolded does not deter the youngsters from the sport, while it was disappointing to find that there were no senior officials at the game to give the young inexperienced referees a helping hand, something surely lacking at the finals.

S. N.