Gold and silver medals for Dinamo youth teams!

Dinamo U-17 and U-19 teams came back from prestigious tournaments in United Arab Emirates with gold and silver medals!

Excellent U-19 players

Dinamo U-19 team won the great ''International Football Youth Championship'' in Al Ain (5th - 15th April). Our players started the tournament in the group with SL Benfica and Celtic FC; they won 2:1 against Portuguese club in the 1st round and in the 2nd group stage match they were defeated 1:0 by Celtic. 

In the semi-finals Dinamo achieved valuable victory against the great FC Internazionale. The result was 2:2 in the regular time so the winner was decided by penalties. Our U-19 team was better in taking penalty shots so we won the match with the final result 6:5. Our goalkeeper Marko Mikulić was brilliant with three saved penalties. 

Dinamo played against the tournament host FC Al Ain in the final match. It wasn't easy to play against motivated Al Ain and the match was full of intense actions. The regular time finished 2:2 so the match was again decided by penalty kicks. Dinamo was better and with the result 6:4 won the tournament!

It was a really big celebration at the closing ceremony, Dinamo U-19 team won the title and gold medals, and the best player of the tournament was our Marko Alvir.

The silver U-17 team 

Our U-17 players finished the well-known ''U-17 Zayed International Football Cup'' in the great second place (7th - 15th April). The tournament took place at the Abu Dhabi and participants were GNK Dinamo, Al Wahda FC, Sporting CP, RCD Espanyol and IFK Göteborg. 

Dinamo entered the tournament with the 4:1 victory against IFK, our players started the tournament with the great motivation, but Espanyol unpleasantly surprised them in the second round. It was a tough game with lot of comebacks, the both teams played offensively and they were trying to increase the goal difference. The match ended with 4:3 for Espanyol and it was a light blow for Dinamo. They immediately started to prepare for the next match and they've played 3:3 with Sporting. The match was very similar to the match with Espanyol, Dinamo and Sporting played good and earned one point.

Due to three great victories that Espanyol achieved up to the 4th round, the winner of the tournament was already known. Espanyol had 9 points and the second team at that time was Dinamo with 4 points. Espanyol got another victory in the last round so their 12 points were unattainable. Dinamo finished as the runner-up with the 7 points and the team got beautiful silver medals and the silver cup. The top scorer of the tournament was Filip Hodak with 7 goals.

The atmosphere in United Arab Emirates was great, players had an amazing time during the tournament and in the spare time. They've visited the famous Ferrari World near Abu Dhabi, well-known Burj Al Arab and Burj Khalifa and enjoyed walking through luxury shopping malls. U17 team had a chance to watch Al Wahda FC match at the beautiful Al Nahyan stadium and U19 team have visited Al Jazira stadium.

Dinamo would like to thank the organizers on the great atmosphere and a very pleasant stay.