Life Style Sports last month launched 'The Dream', a nationwide search for the best undiscovered football talent in Ireland with the prize being a spot at the prestigious Nike Academy in London.
The Dream asked footballers who were without a pro club to send in their football CV's, and 60 players between the ages of 16 and 19 were selected and invited to Carton House in Maynooth on Thursday, August 21 to battle it out for a shot at the Nike Academy trials in October, where the World final will take place at the Nike Academy HQ in London.
The Irish final consisted of a number of professional style training drills, where Nike Academy coaches as well as Irish football legend and top pundit Kenny Cunningham judged the players on every aspect of their game, before a series of 11-a-side games gave the players the opportunity to really show what they can do.
The competition was intense, and the standard of football was excellent, but in the end there could only be one winner. Upon this reporter's arrival at Carton House, I was told to keep my eye on one young striker in particular, and no sooner than five minutes after being made aware of his talents, I saw eventual winner Adbeen Adbul pull off an audacious back-heel goal that no doubt helped the judges in their decision. The 19 year old attacker was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but has been playing his football in Navan since the age of 10, he currently plays for Parkvilla FC.
I then had the opportunity to interview Abdeen, who was still clearly on cloud nine after finding out he would be heading to London to participate in the World final, and ask him a few questions.
We'll be checking back in with Abdeen when he heads over to London, and who knows, hopefully we could see him in the green jersey some time in the future. We wish him the best of luck.
