Perth Glory has bounced back from its opening round defeat at the J.League International Youth Cup with a 3-1 win against Matsumoto Yamaga on Thursday.
Ethan Brooks gave Glory the lead on the half hour before Sasa Njegic added a second just after half-time.
The Japanese side pulled one back on 72 minutes, but in the final minute, a breakaway goal from 14-year-old Riley Warland made the points secure.
Glory coach John Gibson was delighted with his team’s performance, especially after only one day’s recovery.
“I’m incredibly proud of the entire group – they worked their absolute backsides off, and produced a massive performance against the 4th best U18 side in Japan,” he said.
“It’s our first international club win from our Youth / Academy Teams – so as you can imagine we are little bit excited. We’ve got 48 hours off now and we play FC Tokyo (best team in Japan) – the squad are braced, have strong self-belief and will be looking for another consistent performance.”
Perth currently sits in third position on the table after their 2-1 opening round loss to Brazilian side Figuierense and Gibson was proud of the fight the boys showed in their inaugural performance.
“It was for the majority of the group to play international football for the first time and they were fantastic. We are the youngest side here by far and matched them in all elements of the game and were unfortunate not to win the game.”
“We have a lot of new faces in the squad but the performance was super and the team is very disappointed in themselves because their performance was not rewarded with a win.”
The Glory is back in action on Christmas Eve when they take on FC Tokyo at 12.30pm.
Glory can finish top of their group with a win over FC Tokyo and Figuerense slip up to Matsumoto.
The boys will play again on Christmas Day regardless of where they finish as each side will play a team from the opposing group based on their respective finish,
You can stream the game live through the J.League Official Facebook page.
To look at the standings click HERE
