{"id":285864,"date":"2018-10-03T06:06:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T20:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=285864"},"modified":"2018-10-03T06:06:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T20:06:03","slug":"teen-ayuyus-give-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/teen-ayuyus-give-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen Ayuyus give back"},"content":{"rendered":"
The CNMI\u2019s Kaden Church, left, kicks the ball, while a Chelsea FC Soccer School Hong Kong player tries to deflect it during their game in the Inaugural Tuloy XO Cup in the Philippines last August. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than the competition, the CNMI U17 Men\u2019s National Team considers the 2018 Marianas Cup as a way to give back to the people who are rallying behind the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking this opportunity to return the favor to our supporters by showing our best football and making them proud. They\u2019ve been always supportive of us so I would like to ask them to come and watch our match,\u201d CNMI head coach Michiteru Mita told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

Mita\u2019s wards will facing the Guam U17 Men\u2019s National Team in the 7pm match in the Marianas Cup this Sunday at the NMI Soccer Training Center in Koblerville. When they duel Guam, the Teen Ayuyus coach will be relying on the combination of players who suited up for the CNMI in three off-island tournaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 23 players now and they came from three groups,\u201d the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association technical director said.<\/p>\n

Mita is talking about the players who competed in the East Asian Football Federation U15 Boys Tournament in China in July, the Inaugural Tuloy XO Cup in the Philippines in August, and the EAFF E-1 Football Championships 2019 Round in Mongolia last month. The Teen Ayuyus earned one win (versus) Macau in the EAFF youth competition, while they ruled the Tuloy XO Cup. In Mongolia, the CNMI drew Macau and lost to Mongolia and Guam.<\/p>\n

All these tournaments gave the Commonwealth players a better understanding on team play and toughen them, mentally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey learned that football is a team sport. If the team becomes one and collective, we can compete with big teams. Now, this Marianas Cup preparation is short, but we are trying to improve team chemistry to improve collective attacking and defense,\u201d Mita said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand how important this special match is, so we\u2019re also mentally prepared,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mita believes a daunting task is ahead of the Teen Ayuyus, especially now that Guam\u2019s youth program is getting more attention from its new coach\u2014Karl Dodd.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy impression on Guam is before they focused only on men\u2019s team, but since they got the new Australian coach, they started to focus on youth national teams. They have better youth development structure and young players are improving,\u201d the NMIFA technical director said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched some of their matches in the EAFF U15 in China, they have some players who are technically and physically good. It\u2019s going to be a tough match for us, but we will try our best to show a good football game,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than the competition, the CNMI U17 Men\u2019s National Team considers the 2018 Marianas Cup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":285866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,22866,742,7003],"class_list":["post-285864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-guam-u17-men","tag-marianas-cup","tag-teen-ayuyus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}