A Glentoran Academy youth squad is celebrating after winning a major tournament in Spain. Glentoran Under 13s surged to victory at the prestigious Copa Jordi in Barcelona over the Easter weekend.
John Lyness' 2010 squad beat off opposition from Finland, Italy and France to be crowned champions, with their coronation sealed with a penalty shootout win over Athletic Alcione Milano in a tense final.
It was a proud moment for the East Belfast ,side who have endured some heartache in recent times, having lost their last two finals following penalty shootouts.
"The Copa Jordi was played from Thursday to Monday in Barcelona. The venue was a place called Soccerland Catalunya," John told Belfast Live.
"During the whole tournament, there were in the region of 5,000 participants and supporters. It is absolutely huge. Teams from across Europe participated and it was a very high standard. There were two sections in our competition, five teams in each group. We had one team from Finland, two teams from Italy and a French team. All different styles of football, shapes and sizes - such a mixture."
John was previously coach at Crusaders for three years before taking up the reins at Glentoran four years ago. He is a Glens fan himself, making this recent success even more special.
"We have built this team over the past three or four years, during the pandemic and everything else When Covid passed I wanted to do something special for them. There are lots of fantastic tournaments such as Blackpool and the Foyle Cup, but we wanted to go the extra mile.
We needed 13 players to go to Spain, and we ended up with 17 plus three coaches. Chris Boucher and Peter Kane joined me on the trip. We also had 25 supporters, so 45 of us in total all travelled together from Dublin. The boys have done tremendously well and deserved something special. This was a great learning curve for them, seeing other cultures and places, and also other standards of football."
The boys kicked off their tournament with an 8-0 win over their Finnish opponents and followed it up with a 1-0 and 6-1 wins over two Italian sides. Despite losing their final group game, they were already guaranteed a place in the showpiece final. The winners of Group A played the winners of Group B in the final, and we already knew we were in the final before we played our last group game.
We played our final on Sunday afternoon against Athletic Alcione Milano and things didn't go our way for large parts of the game. We had a player sent off which was unfair, and then we thought we had won a late penalty but our player got booked for diving. You start thinking it is not going to be our day, but we battled back from a goal down to equalise and then force penalties."
John says his side's previous disappointments in penalty shootouts didn't give him much confidence heading into another spot-kick decider.
"We lost our last two finals on penalties and you have those nerves and doubts. But five lads put up their hands to take penalties and they all excelled. My son Oliver is our goalkeeper and he saved the first penalty, we scored our next three and their fourth penalty was saved again by Oliver. Our fourth penalty was taken by Daniel Boucher who scored our opening goal in the tournament. And he ended up scoring our final goal, too.
"It was manic at the end, with players, coaches and parents all overwhelmed by Glentoran taking the Copa Jordi title back to East Belfast. We went to Barcelona just looking to score a goal. Then we won our first game and things snowballed from there. It kept going and going, and the belief grew that we could go on and win this.
I am so proud of the players for the effort they put in against quality opposition. A lot of the other teams praised Glentoran for the standard of football we played. It was an experience of a lifetime and these kids will remember this for a long time. And they deserve every plaudit they get."
The Copa Jordi success also keeps our U13s on track for a potential quadruple this season.
John: "We play in the Premier League of the South Belfast Youth League. So far this season has been fantastic. We have lost one out of 18 league games. We are in the semi-final of the Premier League Cup, and we need one point to win the Premier League title. We have already won the Supplementary League and have claimed the Copa Jordi. So it could be a very special season for the boys."
Story courtesy of Belfast Live
