LADS JUST MISS OUT IN GERMANY

Our Academy squad almost made it a European double - but were runners-up in the Dusseldorf International U19 Tournament over the Easter weekend.

Alex Inglethorpe's squad - winners of the prestigious Eurofoot tournment back in August - made it to the final in Germany but were beaten 3-0 by Dynamo Moscow - a team, ironically, they had earlier beaten in the group stages.

It was the 46th staging of the tournament playing for the 'U19 Champions Trophy' and we were joined by Barcelona, PSV, Sevilla, Dynamo Moscow, BV O4 Dusseldorf, Fortuna Dusseldorf, Bayer Leverkusen, Kaiserslautern and Werder Bremen.

The tournament was split into two groups of five with the top two qualifying for the semi-finals.

We started well with a 2-1 victory against Werder Bremen (Kyle Fraser-Allen, Takura Mtandari on target) and 2-1 win against Dynamo Moscow (Jon Obika, Ryan Mason) before losing 2-0 to Sevilla.

However, a 1-0 win against Fortuna Dusseldorf with Danny Rose on target secured a place in Monday's semi-finals where we took on Kaiserslautern. Barcelona faced Dynamo Moscow in the second semi-final.

Our semi-final finished goalless and went to a penalty shoot-out. All our takers were successful as Ryan Mason, Alex Olsen, Calum Butcher, Yaser Kasim and Cian Hughton converted our first five, Oscar Jansson then saved Kaiserslautern's sixth and Kyle-Fraser Allen secured the shoot-out 6-5.

Into the final and Dynamo Moscow ran out 3-0 winners with goals in the ninth, 34th and 41st minutes.

So the lads brought home the runners-up trophy but had consolation prizes as Oscar Jansson and Danny Rose were named best goalkeeper and best midfielder of the tournament respectively.

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