10.00am England 3 Holland 0 ( 2-0)

6.00pm England 0 Italy 5 (0-3)

In the first game England played a very solid game using man to man defence from the half-way line.
Attacking a box defence was not easy but England showed a great deal of patience using a 3 man static position to create and develop goal scoring opportunities.
From the statistic sheets we stopped the opposition from creating one shooting opportunity inside the area.
Being restricted to long range shooting, Holland tried their best but even these were kept to a minimum by good defensive work.
Overall performance, a solid and well-controlled game as requested by the Coaches.

Seven hours later we played against one of the strongest teams in the competition.
Within 4 minutes we had gone down 3 goals when the Italians took advantage of our inexperience.
The coaches called a time-out to calm the situation and put some confidence and structure back into the team seeing as this is the first European experience for all 10 players.
As a result we only conceded 2 further goals in the remaining 26 minutes of play with a superb man to man defence whilst also creating some good counter-attacking moves which led to some goal scoring opportunities.
Overall performance, a gritty, determined effort where an England Schoolboy team are now playing with their heads as well as their hearts.

The President said that although a 0-5 result does not look great on paper, when you observe the 100% effort put in by all the team, it shows how well the structure that we have put in place is working for our National teams and you have to compliment all the team for 2 great games in one day, which guarantees at least 8^th place out of 9.

Carlos Amaral &

Arthur Corr