It was great to be back to our full Academy programme last week following the festive break and recent bad weather, writes Kieran Lee-Birch.
We enjoyed a busy weekend, which included hosting Liverpool Academy and Futsal festivals for our U8-11s, while our U12-19s took on Connah’s Quay Nomads in the FAW Academy League.
Our weekend began on Saturday morning when our U10s hosted Liverpool. Over the years, we have created strong relationships with a number of big clubs like Liverpool, and these games are always a brilliant experience and opportunity for our players and staff.
On this occasion, we had the privilege of hosting at Park Hall Stadium. Our recent state-of-the-art stadium developments means even the biggest clubs are now happy traveling to us.
As expected, the game itself was a tough challenge, with some amazing talent on show, but our lads also played some lovely football and gave a good account of themselves.
We thank Liverpool for travelling to us, and look forward to arranging more games with other age groups later in the season.
U10s in action against Liverpool
Our younger age groups were also in action at the FAW Futsal Festivals in Bangor. We love futsal at TNS, as there are lots of similarities to our own game model and philosophy of developing players.
The lads get loads of touches in futsal, so they must be comfortable receiving and retaining the ball in tight areas and combine quickly. It is a game which encourages creativity, quick decision making and fast reactions in transition.
Like our U13s before Christmas, both the U8s and U11s won their respective festivals, which is a fantastic achievement considering the high-level of ability at all of the festivals. Our U9s and U10s were also in action and did brilliantly.
We have really enjoyed this season’s Futsal festivals and hope the FAW will organise more next season.
Our U11s were crowned futsal champions
On Sunday our Development and Performance Phase sides played Connah’s Quay Nomads.
We always enjoy our games against Connah’s Quay, there are lots of similarities in how both teams want to play the game, in terms of developing technical players who can keep possession.
How they set up always causes specific problems for our players. Most of their age groups play with two up front, which is a good challenge for our defenders as there are lots of runs in behind, they press aggressively, and there is a theme of creating spare players in the middle.
All of these challenges help develop our players’ game understanding, ability to find solutions and communication skills.
Our fixtures against Connah’s Quay were in the FAW Academy League, and it was a good weekend for all of our age groups, as we finished the weekend unbeaten.
Our U12s won 6-3, U13s drew 4-4, U14s won 1-0, U15s drew 4-4, U16s won 6-0, while our U19s won 8-3.
Following a positive weekend for everyone involved, we are now looking forward to the week ahead. Tonight (Monday) we host Kidderminster Harriers, while later in the week we host Chester, then at the weekend our U8-19s are in action against Flint Town United.
