Bitter defeat by England at penalty shootout

On Saturday, January 19, youth team of Russia (players born in 2003) held a match for the third place at an international tournament Aegean Sea Cup in Turkey. Our team evened the score at the last minute of the main time but then conceded to the team of England during penalty shootout – 1:1, 2:4.

Turkish team Turkey-2 became the winner of the tournament, having blown away Spain in the final with a score 2:0.

England – Russia 1:1 (0:0), penalty 4:2.

Goals: Richardson, 47 (1:0). Bagrintsev, 79 (1:1).

Russia: Odoyevsky, Varatynov (c), Tses, Levin (Furman, 70), Nikolaev (Laykin, 73), Yemelyanov (Shaykhtdinov, 58), Zakharyan, Samoilov, Sokolov, Bagrintsev, Pershin (Vit. Shitov, 33).

Stanislav Korotayev, head coach of the Russian team:

-We played two different halves. In the first one we had to defense a lot, move without a ball. After a break we started to create momenst at the other gates. The open football started only 15 minutes before the end. The English team could bring up the score and we managed to score more than one ball. Our team had three good opportunities. At the very end we evened the score and the destiny of the third place was decided in a penalty shootout, which we held not so well and got the forth place.

Summing up the Aegean Sea Cup it should be mentioned that we had an opportunity to face such strong opponents as England and Spain. This is a first time experience for us of holding matches with top-level teams. I think it is just what we need in the frames of preparation to the first qualifying round of UEFA EURO 2020 U 17 (October 24-30, Romania), where will play against Switzerland, San-Marino and Romania. We have defined the core of the team more or less. These are the guys, which we will prepare for the mini-tournament. But of course we could perform in Turkey more successfully. We will go on working.

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Group A: Turkey-1. England. Moldova. Albania.

Group B: Spain. RUSSIA. Turkey-2. Macedonia.

Matches results:

January 14 (Monday)

Turkey-1 – Moldova 4:0

Spain – Turkey-2 1:0

England – Albania 2:0

RUSSIA – Macedonia 4:0

January 15 (Tuesday)

Turkey-1 – Albania 3:1

Spain – Macedonia 2:0