Beach Soccer: First National School Tournament |29 November 2023

Winners of the professional centres category, the Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT)

Perseverance secondary clinch inaugural school tournament

SIT, professional centres’ winners

The Perseverance secondary school and the Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT) are the winners of the inaugural National School Beach Soccer Tournament held over last weekend at the Roche Caïman Arena.

Hosted by the sports committee of the Pointe Larue secondary school in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF), the tournament gathered ten schools from secondary level, while in the professional centres category, only two out of the five registered teams turned up.

Committee member Rodney Choisy explained that the tournament was initiated as substitute for the annual inter-school athletics championship which did not take place this year, and since Seychelles will be hosting the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) Beach Soccer World Cup in 2025, the committee found the sporting discipline as the perfect alternative to bring all the schools together in one tournament.

Since it was an inter-school competition, several re-adjustments were made in terms of rules and regulations, compared to official beach soccer matches.

In the group stage, instead of the normal three 12-minute periods, the teams played two 10-minute periods, followed by penalty shoot-outs in case of draws.

Winners were awarded two points, while losers got one point.

However, in the knock-out stages of the competition, the teams played three 10-minutes periods, with an additional three minutes in case of draws.

Based on the result of the post-mortem, Mr Choisy said they will consider adding the tournament as an annual event on the schools’ sports calendar.

For the inaugural tournament, the secondary teams were drawn into two pools of three and two pools of two where the former played against each other once, while the later faced each other twice.

After they made it out of the group stage, Perseverance eliminated Mont Fleuri on a 5-4 score in the quarterfinal to meet La Digue – who defeated Beau Vallon 8-6 in the second quarterfinal – in the semifinal.

Despite high resistance, Perseverance managed to eliminate La Digue – 3-2 – for a spot in the final against neighbours English River who eliminated Plaisance on a 4-2 score in the other semifinal.

In the tightly-contested final, in the presence of Minister for Education Dr Justin Valentin, his homologue for Lands and Housing Billy Rangasamy, president of the SFF Elvis Chetty and the federation’s chief executive Denis Rose, Perseverance narrowly edged-out English River to finish as champions of the inaugural National School Beach Soccer Tournament.

In the third-place playoff, La Digue defeated Plaisance 4-2, while in the only match in the professional centres category, the SIT defeated the Seychelles Maritime Academy (SMA) 3-2 to finish as champions.

Other than cups and medals for the winners, there were also other individual and team awards.

Darren Lawrence of English River secondary and Liam Esther of the SIT received the golden gloves for best goalkeepers, while Samad Marie of Perseverance secondary and Garrel Forte of the SIT received the golden boots for best scorers of the tournament.

The best players’ trophies of the tournament went to Shaled Nicette from English River secondary and Imra Raheretuana of the SIT.

As for the Fair Play cups, they went to Belonie secondary and the SMA.

Hall of Fame of the Inaugural National School Beach Soccer Tournament

Secondary School

Winners – Perseverance secondary

Runners-up – English River secondary

Third-Place – La Digue

Professional Centres

Winners – Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT)

Runners-up – Seychelles Maritime Academy (SMA)

Top Scorers

Samad Marie – Perseverance secondary