written by Michael
2014 International Veterans 7-a-side football tournament at Nomad Sports Club Manila February 22-23, 2014
100 years Manila Nomads – Vets Tournament in the Centennial year of the Organizer’s team – of course the GAS Vets were eager to join the tournament for the 4th consecutive year in this special year.
During the preparations it showed up, that this year we would send a quite good number of players to Manila. But things went something wrong in the last days before we left. Some of the players who wanted to join, got stuck in Madagascar for business, in Bangkok for meeting preparations, in Phuket recovering injuries from the last Vets Tournament or even on the way to the airport in Bangkok in the actual demonstrations.
So finally only 7 players made the trip to Manila – means no substitutes unless we would be able find some local players to help out 🙁
Our President Hartwig started the trip one day earlier to make sure all things in Manila were prepared before the rest of the team arrived on Friday night. This year we were lucky, that the bus driver who picked us up at the airport, did not break his key like last year. It was just kind of complicated to identify him as he did not hold the German All Stars plate up in the air. He decided to keep it in the crook of his arm. Pretty comfortable for him, pretty complicated for us.
But we would not be the German All Stars, if we would not made this finally work. And some cold adult beverages in the minibus helped us to forget the small delay at the airport.
Arrived at the hotel we were greated by Hartwig, checked-in to our rooms and started the preparations for the upcoming challenges.
The next morning we were picked up by the same driver again – this time without any issues.
On the pitch we managed to find at least one local player to help out and then even our President agreed to support as a substitute – if really needed. First game was vs. Atletico de Wanchai from Hongkong. We started slowly to check out the quality of the opponent but things went perfectly for us in that game. Controlling the game and not allowing any dangerous attack led to a 4:0 victory giving us not only three points but even an extra point for the 4 goals.
Perfect start in the day.
Second group game was vs. the Singapore Swiss Lions – a much younger and very strong team. Our local support left us due to business appointments and we needed to adjust our line-up. So our oldest player Franz finally took the place the other famous Franz took – center defense or as said long ago – Libero. And he did perfectly on this position. It will be very tough to challenge him on this position in the future. Close game, Swiss Lions took the lead but we were able to tie – first time to try our new tactic. Our goalie Dominik tried to score and the defense took over to prevent any score from the opponent. And it worked – final result 1:1.
Third game vs. the other german team in the tournament – Manila German Club – again a hard fight and finally a 1:0 win. Faxe aka Faxi scored one of his typical goals – only the difficult ones he will do. Hartwig needed to help out the first time, but was fouled badly after a few seconds in the game and had to stop playing – honestly spoken there was no other player close to him at that time so it would have been either the very high grass on that side of the pitch to make him fall or as he assumed, the icy conditions due to the cool weather in Manila. Please see the attached picture of the pitch as an evidence.
Last group game vs. the Hong Kong Mobsters – not really equal conditions for us. We had no special transport during the tournament, had no coach to supervise the warm-up, did not stay in a five-star hotel, did not have 7 substitutes, did not flew in 3 ex-Premier league players to play and most important – we did not have a magnet board where our coach could show us how we need to play – maybe we should buy one for next year. Nevertheless we gave them a hard fight and lost very unlucky 1:2 – as they played not only very hard but sometimes also unfair, we also lost Yilmaz due to a very bad and unnecessary foul.
So we ended up as the best third seeded of all groups and made it to the quarterfinal.
This evening we concentrated to scout out the bars in Manila to find our possible opponents and to see how they prepare for the next morning. Unfortunately one of our players was taking his tasks too seriously and was then not able to play the next day.
Next day – Quarterfinal. Due to the kind of strange drawings in the tournament we faced again the opponent from yesterday – the Hong Kong Mobsters. Not finding this team the night before in any bar, gave us the clear understanding – these guys are well prepared. And they were – but so did we. Changing tactics and the HK Mobsters were disoriented how to deal with this. Anyhow they managed to score the first goal. But then they were surprised facing our regular goalie Dominik upfront even as the official man in the goal , the “injured” Yilmaz in perfect condition and the goal guarded by Michael – trying to protect the goal without using his hand. All worked well and we managed to score – an incredible shot by Yilmaz. We all cheered, the HK mobsters trotted to the kick-off and suddenly the referee decided – no goal – hand-ball…. not even the HK Mobsters understood this decision but of course they were happy and moved on.
The last minutes of the game were a hard fight and unlucky we could not come back. 0:1 and we were all very disappointed. What a game, what a decision, what a fight – later on most spectators told us, that this was one of the best games of the tournament.
Only a few minutes break and we faced again our friends from Manila German Club – brains not on pitch after the unlucky loss – 0:3 after just ten minutes. Game over? No, not with our fighting spirit. We managed to equalize to a 3:3 and had at least another 5 clear chances to win. But this is football, one mistake and the final score was 3:4. Lost and done for the tournament – the positive aspect of this – we could have some beers earlier than the teams in the finals.
Needless to say that the HK Mobsters were the winners, got the cup for the best players and only conceded one (or honestly two) goals in the tournament – who scored those? Yes, this was GAS…..
Dominik received the cup for the best goalie or should we say the best attacking goalie,
Franz found his position as the other Franz did before,
Sven realized that he is not only a tall but also a very strong defender,
Michael realized that playing as a goalie is for sure the better choice for him,
Hartwig will forever be careful to look for ice on the pitch,
Fahri aka Somchai played his first tournament as Kon Thai – at least he played the first day,
Yilmaz dribbled, scored and was fouled as usual,
Faxe – yes, he is scoring the complicated goals as usual, not the easy ones of course.
Volker – our sponsor gave us the big support like he always does.
We had lots of fun and all enjoyed the trip. On Monday we went to the German Club in Manila for a farewell lunch before heading to the Airport. During the flight we tested the flexibility of the staff at Philippine Airlines and we tried to finish the red wine on board – unfortunately two players fell asleep so we were not 100% succesful in this. Nevertheless we had some drinks after arrival in Bangkok and closed the trip in a nice round there.
All look forward to next years 101 years of Manila Nomads Tournament and we hope that then more of our guys will be able to join.
From 2014 International Veterans 7-a-side Tournament in Manila, posted by German All Stars Bangkok on 2/28/2014 (14 items)
- After two very unlucky losses we finally finished the tournament – tired but happy
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