This post is the last in a series of posts from the road by Devin Clarkson, case manager-YouthLink, as the YouthLink UpTop Street Soccer team visits Washington D.C. to compete in the 2010 USA Street Soccer Cup.

Wow.  Best word to describe our end of tournament run. Our team played hard throughout the tournament. On Saturday night, the Men’s team had a heart-breaking loss to the eventual champions of the tournament-Russia. The match itself was something to write home about. Up Top was losing for the majority of the short 14 minutes played in a game. With 2 minutes to go, the team was down 6-4 in favor of Russia. The momentum shift was huge as our players dug in and played their hearts out. They tied the game with about 10 seconds left on the timer. Shootout. The shootouts of Street Soccer are intense. It basically works that if one team scores and the other misses, the team that scored wins. We missed our first shot and Russia scored their shot; game over. It was a heart-breaker, we expected to win the tournament, but coach Jose’s words after the game kept things positive.

On Sunday, both of our teams played until the closing ceremonies. The Women’s team played amazing also.  In fact, the women’s team kept a great record throughout the tournament, only losing 3 times, while having at least 6 wins.  The Men’s team went to another shoot-out in the consolation round vs. Charlotte.  This was a nail-biter folks.  Another shoot-out, although this time it went to 7 rounds of Up Top exchanging goals with Charlotte.  At one point, our back-up goalie Jamal kicked a goal that bounced off the goal post, into the back of the goalie, and back into the goal.  Half of our team streamed onto the field believing he had won the game!  It turns out that the ball cannot bounce back, it needs to continuously move forward into the goal to be a goal-so close!  We ended up losing the game, but it was one of the most exciting games of the tournament.

We ended our tournament weekend with the closing ceremonies.  This was an exciting moment, because we knew that some of our players would be selected for the national team that would compete in Brazil later this year.  We waited and celebrated the different awards given out to teams, players, and coaches.  Finally, we found out that 7 of our players would be going to Brazil!  7 players!  3 of our women and 4 of our men were selected to represent the U.S.  Amazing, we all celebrated with the chant, “They’re going to Brazil, they’re going to Brazil…”

We received a lot of press througout the weekend, here are some links to articles that included us:

The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/sports/soccer/02soccer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=street%20soccer%20USA&st=cse

The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073102945.html

NBC Nightly News:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#38584806

Thanks to everyone for their support, Go Up Top!