After 55 games of football we came down to the most important of them all….game 56 – The 2013 Berlin Fives Cup Final.

What a Cup Final we had in prospect! I don't think anyone could argue we had the best two teams on the day in the final two. A great crowd had assembled to watch what was a stunning exhibition of football.

The two teams;

ABC United: Played 6 and won 6 today scoring 47 goals along the way. This was their second eurofootballfives.com Cup Final and the Romanian team were favourites to make it two wins and follow-up their 2012 Budapest Fives success.

Luminy Wolves: In any other tournament, Luminy Wolves appearing in the Cup Final would no doubt make them favourites. Not today though despite playing superbly and beating some quality teams. They were in their second eurofootballfives.com final and also gunning for tournament win number two to follow-up their 2009 Barca Fives victory.

The game was under way and in the opening few minutes the two teams were testing each other out like a game of chess but then the first goal appeared and the game sparked into life. It was first blood to Luminy Wolves as Haikel Ben Khelifa made it 1-0 to the French team.

How would ABC United respond? They had not been behind before and this was a test of their prowess. Luminy Wolves kept them quiet for a while but they couldn't prevent an equalizer as Adrian Constantin Neaga pulled ABC United level. In a flash they were 2-1 up through Neaga again and the Romanians were visibly up and confident. Luminy Wolves were a little shell-shocked but recovered to keep it at 2-1. If they could have kept it to 2-1 at half-time who knows what would have happended but just before the break Neaga completed a hat-trick for 3-1. For me, this is where the Cup Final was won and Luminy Wolves hopes were killed off. Chants of Romanian Van Persie rang around the SC Westend arena as the silver flecked marksman moved to 15 goals for the tournament.

A tiring Luminy Wolves team had a mountain to climb and would not have been thrilled at half-time when ABC United subbed their entire outfield playing team and brought on four pairs of fresh legs.

The fresh legs and no little amount of quality put ABC United 4-1 up through Robert Florin Matei and Razvan Radu crowned the victory 5-1. It was a superb final and all those lucky enough to see the game saw some stunning football.

Adrian Constantin Neaga picked up the tournament top goalscorer award with his 15 goals in the campaign.

ABC United had become only the eigth team to win multiple Cup titles. The current roll call reads;

4 – Olympic Phil Babb: Amsterdam Fives (2008), Algarve Open (2009), Prague Masters (2010) and Budapest Fives (2011)

2 – ABC United: Budapest Fives (2012) and Berlin Fives (2013)

2 – Athletico Do Hollande: Algarve Open (2010 and 2011)

2 – Goldsmith Williams: Prague Masters (2008) and Amsterdam Fives (2010)

2 – Lozenetz City: Prague Masters (2009) and Manchester Fives (2010)

2 – Rigford Seahawks: Krakow Trophy (2009) and Berlin Fives (2012)

2 – Skidmarks: Valencia Fives (2011) and Krakow Trophy (2012)

2 – FC Radbroke: Prague Masters (2011) and Algarve Open (2013)

We offer our consolations to Luminy Wolves who came very close to tournament #2 for them until they hit the ABC United brick wall. Our congratulations go to ABC United – 2013 Berlin Fives Champions! We hope to see you all again at a tournament very soon.