On March 19, the U15 Fernie United indoor soccer team claimed gold at the Glacier Surf Winter Futsal Championship tournament.
The tournament was held south of the border in Kalispell, Mont. by Glacier Surf Soccer club, the city’s hometown team.
On the tournament website, the organizers describe the tournament as “Montana’s largest and most competitive 5v5 indoor youth tournament.”
This year was the first time Fernie United made the trip to Montana for the tournament since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted.
The tournament website says it hosts “the top teams from Washington, Idaho and Montana.”
United coaches Markus Glickman and Gary Joynes have been coaching the same core group of players since they were nine years old and made the annual trip to Montana before the pandemic closed non-essential cross-border travel.
“We’re always going to be the underdog when we go down to Montana where we’re playing clubs that draw on way more resources than we do,” Glickman said.
“It’s very satisfying to go down there and get the win and see that our players are developing at the same pace as some of those bigger programs,” Glickman said.
Fernie went undefeated through three games before facing off against the hosts, Glacier Surf, in the championship match.
“We kind of breezed through the round-robin portion fairly comfortably,” Glickman said. In the finals, however, Fernie faced a much tighter defence than they had seen all weekend.
Fernie trailed at halftime but tied the game late in the second half before ultimately scoring the game-winning goal in dramatic fashion with 90 seconds left.
“In my mind, I was already preparing for penalties,” Glickman said.
Glickman called the game-winner “a classic Fernie team goal.” It started with “strong defence and good ball movement” before 13-year-old Junah Djonlich put the game away.
The team will play one more indoor tournament in Cranbrook from April 15th to 16th before preparing for its busy outdoor spring season.