Lycee Francais International Georges Pompidou made it double delight as they also claimed NSL glory by recording a 2-1 victory in Under-16’s final against a plucky Delhi Private School Dubai.
Despite the narrow margin of victory, this was a game LFI dominated, with the scoreline flattering DPS, who made it a contest when goalkeeper Sidhant Nayar came out of goal and netted late in the game to make the last few minutes interesting.
Man-of-the-match Chachin Hamdaoui had earlier opened the scoring for LFI with a low free-kick, Raghunath Gopi’s own-goal just after half-time breaking DPS’ brave resistence and giving LFI a cushion.
“It’s always important to win a final so I’m very, very happy,” said 14-year-old Hamdaoui, whose trickery proved a handful for DPS throughout a final in which LFI peppered their goal and had goalkeeper Nayar to thank for keeping things respectable.
“It was a bit more difficult than we expected and two games in one day is difficult, but we play our football and we win, so we’re happy.
“We had lots of chances of course and we were maybe worried those would come back to haunt us bec-ause we were not concentrating as much as we should have been. But we told ourselves it would be ok, that we were going to win, and we did.”
DPS striker Waleed Mohammad was disappointed to have lost but pleased with his side’s resilience, while defeat also came with a silver lining as he was named the U-16 category’s MVP. “It was tough luck in the final but we played well and to us we are champions,” said
Mohammed, 15.
“LFI have beaten everyone and scored so many goals so it’s an achievement for us to only lose 2-1. We are happy with our performance and we are hoping to come back stronger next season. We hope we will challenge again next season.
“The individual award I was not expecting at all, honestly. Thanks to NSL for this beautiful moment and I’d like to thank my coach and the team for the wonderful support.”
LFI captain Lucas Tetart dedicated his team’s triumph to the victims of November’s Paris terror attacks. The 15-year-old said it was a perfect tribute to the 130 people who lost their lives.
“A few months ago we had the terrible terrorist attacks in France and that has had a very big affect on the team,” said defender Tetart, who was instrumental in victory.
“We were hurt by that, but we have come back stronger. Our win is a tribute to the victims of Paris.
“Even though we live in the UAE we were closely affected by what happened, everyone in our school was, so the wins for both teams are dedicated to the memories of those victims.”
