Youth Soccer News: Manchester BU10 Academy Win Vegas Cup

CV Manchester Soccer Club BU10 Academy are champions of the Vegas Cup held recently on January 13 through the 16th in Las Vegas.

“This was a fantastic tournament for our CV Manchester BU10 team. The competition was great, one of the most dominating performances I’ve seen in this age group in my 40 years of coaching,” said Manchester Head Coach and Co-Director of Coaching Jeff Illingworth. “It was a total team effort with all players contributing with excellent defending, passing, and scoring.”

The Vegas Cup brings together teams from around the country for three days of top-level competition. In the past the tournament drew clubs from as far east as Pennsylvania, as far west as Hawaii and as far north as Alaska. This year drew primarily from California, Nevada and Utah, along with clubs from Arizona, Colorado and Texas, but also included Ladner F.C. from Canada.

Manchester SC BU10 Academy (L-R): Back row: Jonathan Esposito, George Cole, Liam Koeneke, Bryan Delgado, Zebastian Dimas, Daniel Delgado, Zahid Pinzon, Erik Figueroa, Head Coach Jeff Illingworth. Front row: Diego Gonzalez, Jeffrey Hansen, Jorge Kuri, Marcos Calderon, Andrew Espinoza.

Competing as one of 12 teams in BU10 Division 1, Manchester won five games with total of 27 goals for and one against.

“Our team made it look easy with some lopsided scores, but, in fact, all our opponents played excellent soccer,” noted Coach Illingworth.

“We scored almost every way you can; headers, corners, direct kicks, penalty kicks, hard shots from outside the box, finesse shots pushed past the keeper. And then for our defense to allow only one goal to be scored against us was just incredible.”

In group play, Manchester opened the tournament by defeating La Roca out of Utah 6-0 on Saturday, January 14.

The team followed that win by beating Utah’s Fire FC 8-0 to close out the day. On Sunday Arsenal FC would score the lone goal against Manchester in a 7-1 match. This put Manchester into the semifinals on Monday.

In the semifinal, Manchester earned a hard-fought 3-0 victory in a physical match against Heat FC, a top Nevada club. Supporting Manchester from the sidelines in the semifinal were BU10 players from tournament host Las Vegas Sports Academy (LVSA), which in the prior year’s final had narrowly defeated Manchester in overtime. This year LVSA had been assigned a different Division, preventing the opportunity for a rematch.

While Manchester was working their way through the division, United FC out of San Juan Capistrano were making their own bid for a championship. After a 5-0 win over La Jolla Impact in their lone Saturday game, United moved on to a pair of matches on Sunday.

In the first game United beat Nevada South Youth Soccer League (NSYSL) 4-1; this was followed by a 4-2 win over AC Brea from Cal South. This brought United up against an always tough Pateadores, but the boys from Capistrano handled them easily in a 4-1 win to earn the right to take on Manchester.

In this year’s final, Manchester scored early and never let up against the skilled United FC team. When the final whistle blew, Manchester had the 3-0 victory – and the championship of Vegas Cup 2012. Congratulations to Manchester SC BU10.

Related Articles: CV Manchester on SoccerNation