The team from Gymnasium No. 3 in Irkutsk won the mini football tournament in Moscow, beating a strong team from Karachay Cherkessia 5 to 1 in the final.

The team from Gymnasium No. 3 in Irkutsk won first place in a mini-football tournament, defeating one of the strongest teams from Karachay-Cherkessia in Moscow with a score of 5:1.
This final became a landmark moment for the Irkutsk team. Ten players, ten years old, from ten regions. The coaches are sure this victory is no accident. The young mini-football team still does not have enough experience of such significant wins. Some joined the team only three months ago, some have been training for a year, and some have been kicking the ball for five years already. But no one was given any special treatment. Everything was done like adults. That is why the tension did not leave the players until the end of the match.
Eduard Samyshkin, coach: «In the first game, when we played against Ulyanovsk. At 1:1, the match was tense for both them and us. A minute and a half before the end of the match, Vadim Bogdanov scored the winning goal and gave us the chance to reach the final to play for first place».
The young athletes have big plans for the future. This spring they will once again take part in the “Leather Ball” competition. There they will have to defend their title as the best from scratch. From the city to Russia. Although they will not forget their first victory. For Nikolai, for example, this match became a double celebration. On the day of the competition, he turned eleven. But Kolya apparently does not like talking about himself. Warm-up, technique, shot. As athletes say, the secret of any victory. Another athlete dreams of domestic football stars. The best goalkeeper, Yevgeny, dreams of a career like Igor Akinfeev’s.
Yevgeny Staver, goalkeeper: «There was a shot happening there. They just grabbed the ball from me, I just kicked it. The goalkeeper there was small, and he couldn’t reach it, I kicked higher».
The slogan: “Faster. Higher. Stronger.” also applies to mini-football. But in our region it is still underdeveloped. There are only 13 schools in the region training mini-football players. To support the boys, the Russian Football Union and the Russian Mini-Football Association will give the winners a 20 by 40 football field. Then the opponents will definitely have no chance of victory.