United U16s rule Hamilton Soccer League
The Niagara United U16 boys Target soccer team had a great season, finishing atop the Hamilton Soccer League.
The squad finished with the best goal differential, the most goals for, the least goals against and an impressive 15-game league unbeaten streak against teams from Flamborough, Hamilton (four), Welland, Grimsby and St. Catharines. United won 12 games, tied three and lost one game.
Head coach Rudy Rahal felt the squad exceeded expectations.
“I had a good group of players that wanted to play soccer, were eager to play soccer and they were dedicated. We trained three nights a week plus sometimes we had two games a week. The full squad always showed up,” he said.
Expectations as to what the team learned and delivered were exceeded because it wanted to win every game.
“There was a game where we were down 3-1 and they fought until the 95th minute and we ended up tying,” he said. “The guys loved the game.”
There were plenty of reasons for the team’s success.
“The boys are talented, they are hard working and us as coaches did a lot of drills with different methodologies. We work as a real team between coaching and training.”
Rahal felt the biggest improvement during the season came in its teamwork.
“I didn’t see anyone working individually trying to score by themselves or trying to dribble through the whole opposition team.”
There wasn’t any one turning point during the season for the squad, which also won the Welland Rose Festival Tournament and finished in second place in the Club Roma Ti Amo tournament.
“To be honest, when the boys saw how good we were playing and that we could win, they were treating every game as a final,” Rahal said. “And it ended up that we didn’t just win the league. The boys saw that if we worked hard, we could do it and then they did it.”
Members of the team were Alejandro Martinez, Chace Hoogendam, Austin Wojciechowski, Andre Salazar, Daniel Rahal, Rylan Payette, Alex Muraco, Berj Mouradian, Diego Mancera, Luka Lipinski, David Kljajic, Hadi Izzeddin, Brandon Grassie, Dilan Gonzalez, Hayden Geissler, Vinny Gallicchio, Lincoln Davidson and Zaid Al-Basha
Golden boot winners on the team were Muraco and Mancera with Muraco also being named team MVP.
Rudy Rahal credited assistant coach Randy Payette for helping make the team so successful.
“He’s like me and we can’t do it without each other,” he said. “I have to give him a lot of credit because he always came in with new drills and he is passionate about the team. He is very important and we work well together.”
The coaching staff is the Odd Couple of soccer. Rahal cheers for Liverpool and Payette is a fan of Arsenal.
“My licence plate says Liverpool and his says Arsenal and we always park beside each other,” Rahal said, with a laugh.
The team will move up to the under-17 division next season and the majority of the players will be back with the team. Tryouts were completed recently and winter training begins next week on Oct. 9.
“We had to do some really difficult cuts because I had more than 40 kids trying out but 98 per cent of the team is still there. I think we added four or five new players.”
