3rd place for GAS at the Outlaws Saloon Cup on Koh Phangan

On the weekend of 3^rd September it was time again to visit our friends from FC Farang on Koh Phangan to participate in their annual “Outlaws Saloon Cup”. As the title holders we tried eagerly to put a strong team together and defend the trophy, however finally just seven lads took the journey to one of the most beautiful islands of Thailand: Dao, Dave, Diego, Frodo, Gerd, Tan and Yilmaz. Not only having no goal keeper in the squad, expectations have dropped even further recognizing that half of the squad is eligible and usually prefer to compete in Vets rather than in Open tournaments and three of the young lads came with slight injuries. Fortunately only one of them dropped out early and the other two could fight through nearly the whole tournament.

So the tournament with 2 groups of 4 teams each started, finding us – as the organizer proclaimed– in the “group of death” with two teams from Koh Samui and the third one being the finalist in the previous year, the Suratthani Penguins. Luckily GAS could find the support of a local goal keeper and the first game started against FC Maenam. After a sluggish start and a nice present to our opponents we conceded an early goal, however we could push us back into the game and a stunning shot of Dao from app. 14 m distance into the triangle marked the equalizer after 10 out of 16 minutes. This eventually gave us a well-deserved point out of this game. In the other group game a highly motivated FC Samui had an easy win over the Penguins with 4:1. This put already some pressure on us for the second game against the Suratthani Penguins, however GAS could never find a way into the game and it ended with a clear and disappointing 0:3 defeat. As in the other second group game FC Maenam surprisingly defeated FC Samui with 2:1, and in the second last group game FC Maenam defeated the Penguins with 2:1, we suddenly had our fate in our own hands again to qualify for the semis with a simple win. Since this was the point of the tournament where we lost our one and only sub due to injury we concluded to create the game into a win-win situation, either we proceed into the Semis or we will start to enjoy “football in paradise” by having some healthy natural organic electrolytes after the game.

Although the motivation of FC Samui could be clearly felt from the first second of the game, GAS could compete well with a solid defensive performance and even came to the lead by a nice free-kick again by Dao after 5 minutes. Angry attacks by FC Samui followed, however most of times the shots came too early or not precise enough and our young guest goal keeper could clear all the remaining shots on goal. Pressure has been kept high by FC Samui and more and more tired GAS players couldn’t stop a walk-through of the FC Samui midfielder with a nice finish to mark the equalizer just 3 minutes before the end. The result seems to have been fully accepted by both teams until a long throw from Yilmaz on the right wing opened a last chance for GAS to change the situation. Gerd received it into his run and could manage to block an opponent attack, opening the way for a last shot on the goal. Hitting the ball perfect after a bounce it was to the surprise of every player and spectator that the ball entered the net passing a goal keeper literally showing no reaction. The referee gave the game three seconds more before blowing the final whistle of this game sending GAS surprisingly into the Semis and FC Samui into the Bowl competition, which they eventually won. In the semis we found ourselves against the A team from the hosts FC Farang and after one great chance just in the second minute of the game we had to recognize that the power of our players couldn’t get recovered enough for this challenge, most likely because in a crazy moment of ambition we skipped to take important natural electrolytes in-between these games. Making it short, the result was a clear 5:1 (goal scored by Frodo) loss which made us playing in the game for the 3^rd place against the Hua Hin Vikings.

Loosing another young player by injury we could persuade (not too much efforts have been necessary) our opponents from Hua Hin Vikings to cut the playing time to 10 minutes with just 6 instead of 7 players aside. Not sure it was the drop of temperature (from felt 50 °C during day time to “reasonable” 30ish °C in the late afternoon) or whether it was due to the electrolytes we have this time in a sense of sanity been taken, but both teams played a highly intensive but very fair game which ended in 2:2 draw with two nice goals scored by Dao and Gerd. It came to a penalty shoot-out where amazingly the shots had to been taken from app. 11m on a 7 aside goal and even more amazing five of them even hit the target, to our luck all three of them for us by Dao, Yilmaz and Frodo and only two of them by the Vikings. This put us at the end to the 3^rd place of a highly competitive and great organized tournament. The final was won after a hard fight by FC Farang A against FC Maenam beating them 2:1 in a very entertaining and high standard game.

After already arranging a great captains night on Friday the organizers provided another fantastic event on Saturday evening with the Cup Awards ceremony including an amazing BBQ buffet and a couple of nice side dishes. To the surprise of many, GAS couldn’t just bring back the trophy for the 3^rd place but also the trophy for the best player of the tournament which had been awarded to Gerd. Although certainly not being the best player in this competition, the committee finally honored that his general performance and important goals in the game against FC Samui and Hua Hin Vikings made the team ending up in 3^rd place; probably his age and weight gave him some bonus in this decision. The achievements have been heavily celebrated throughout the night and the whole next day, showing that some team members not only can play football but have also great abilities in artistic activities like body painting.

A great host, a beautiful venue, a phenomenal Island and of course the legendary GAS spirit made it another fantastic weekend and doubtless this event deserves more players joining from our team in the next year.

Beside some few pictures below, plenty more from the captain’s night, tournament and cup awards evening can be found here, here and here.

“GAS achieved a 3rd place this year. Thanks for organising another great event, @[245652982136206:274:Fc Farang Official]!”

From Outlaws Saloon Cup Koh Phangan 2016, posted by German All Stars Bangkok on 9/13/2016 (17 items)