Our
twelfth ever Trophy Final now awaited us and we
had been treated to some superb Finals before.
It was Trinacria A versus Tysers.
Many
of them had been very close with 5 of the previous
11 had going to penalties In Valencia 2012, Sporting
Abeergut held off a late rally from FC Dad to
win it 3-2. At the 2014 Budapest Fives, Contejus
Hurricanes (with a man sent off) held on to a
close 2-1 win over Cava Sundays.
They
had all been close affairs until 2014 when we
saw Ziar Crew beat Fireball 5-1 in Bratislava
and Elcombe Old Boys beat SV Zoo 5-0 in Barcelona.
These remain the highest scoring Trophy Finals.
We have had Trophy winners from England, Ireland,
Latvia, Oman, Slovakia and Spain. Trinacria A
were aiming to add Belgium to that list.
If
we were looking for a form guide we could look
no further back than to Group C of this morning's
competition. Trinacria A won that duel 2-0 to
finish one place and 3 points ahead of their opponents
in the league table. Since Group C both teams
had won two games in a row so had momentum behind
them.
Tysers
had really gained some form and in particularly
tightened up their defence – they had conceded
19 in 5 group games. Since then, just the 1 goal
in 2. They had Lee Townsend on 8 goals for the
tournament so knew that if they could continue
their defensive improvement had the ability to
hurt Trinacria A at the other end.
Trinacria
A had overcome their touring friends 3-2 in the
Quarters before earning an excellent win over
Morocco's ASMS in the Semis – also 3-2. The Moroccan
team had only previously lost 1 game in the tournament
so this was quite a scalp.
The
stage was set and both teams were ready to go
– who would be picking up the winners medals in
the presentation?
It
proved to be a very even game and there was nothing
to separate the two teams at half-time. The teams
were locked together at 0-0. As was so often the
case in the tournament, the goals came in the
second period as the game opened up and legs tired.
Although the goals came, the two teams could still
not be separated. Jean-Claude Messina (Trinacria
A) and Michael Ward (Tysers) could both now boast
that they had scored in a European Final. The
game finished 1-1 and we would need penalties
to decide the Trophy.
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