The Steinmühle soccer team (WK III) achieved a remarkable 4th-place finish at the state finals of the “Youth Trains for the Olympics” competition in Grünberg

The games played by the Steinmühlen soccer team (Division III), made up of 7th and 8th graders, were marked by constant ups and downs in this year’s competition. After a clear victory in the city tournament, the team faced district tournament only to be initially eliminated following a questionable interpretation of the rules, but was ultimately admitted to the regional finals after filing a protest.

The regional finals took place in Schwalmstadt. There, on May 6, 2015, our team secured a well-deserved victory with three wins and ultimately finished with a clear five-point lead.

With a 2-0 opening victory over the team from Kirchhain, our team solidified its well-deserved advancement to the district finals. This was followed by two more decisive victories against the teams from Frankenberg (2-0) and Felsberg (3-0).

Buoyed by great team spirit and strong team unity, the Steinmühlen team played beautiful, attacking soccer for long stretches of the game, which was ultimately rewarded with a 7-0 victory.

At the Hesse championship in Grünberg , the bar was set a bit higher. In the preliminary round, the team won their matches against Limburg and Kriftel and put up a good fight against the eventual overall champion, the Carl-von-Weinberg School from Frankfurt, losing by a narrow margin (1–2). In the semifinal against Wiesbaden, however, the team made a few lapses in concentration, resulting in a decisive 0:3 loss that meant they didn’t make it to the final but did qualify for the third-place match against Darmstadt.

In the third-place game, the Steinmühle soccer team quickly took a 2-0 lead but, despite their dominance on the field, were unable to hold on to their 4-2 lead as the game went on. The classmates who had traveled with the team were already in high spirits, but then they had to watch as the Darmstadt team tied the game and went on to defeat Steinmühle 8–6 in the ensuing penalty shootout. This meant fourth place for the Steinmühle soccer team.

Conclusion: Looking at the four rounds of play as a whole, this 4th-place finish in Hesse is a great success. The fact that the teams from the “soccer schools” in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt took the top two spots was well-deserved and deserves recognition. It’s unfortunate that we lost the last game and thus “blew” third place, but perhaps this can still be counted as a gain in the “valuable experience” category.