Webster London Football Team Takes 1st Place
28th October 2006
Big congratulations to the student football players who
lead us to our big win!
This year’s tournament, organised by the London campus, was held
on October 28th at Wembley. With state-of-the-art 5-aside football
pitches and third generation rubber grass surface, a total of 12
teams, two teams from each Webster European campus, plus two EBS
teams, competed in two groups of five.
Group Stages
At the first group stage our A team finished first, with 3 wins
and only 1 defeat against the tail light of this group, Webster
Leiden A. Our B team finished 4th with one win (4:0 against Webster
Leiden B), one draw and 2 defeats. Winner of the group was last
year’s winner, Webster Vienna A, with an impressive 4 wins and 21
to 2 goals! After completion of the group stage, the best five
teams built the Champions League (with the London A team) and the
weaker teams the UEFA Cup (with the London B team).
The London B team managed to sort out their problems, which led
to the earlier two defeats and finally found the right mixture of
players and substitutes. The team managed to meet their own high
expectations and played great technical football. No team had a
glimpse of a chance, and the B team finished on the top of its
group with 4 wins. The final was played against the Geneva B team
and was won with a convincing 2-0. The Webster B team: Khalil,
Mouhcine, Kola, Ibrahim, Zakaria, Kaybee, Bashir, Param, Aboubakar
and Henry.
The Champions league featured the top teams of the tournament.
London A, Vienna A, Geneva B and EBS A and B, with the final game
between London and Vienna. Throughout the first half it was Vienna
who had chance after chance, and our defenders Peter, Paul, and
Mark had a lot of running and tackling to do, but managed to
survive the first half which was mainly caused by the excellent
goal keeping of Abou (a.k.a. 50 p) who secured a clean sheet. After
some hortative words from the captain, Nadeem, the team entered the
second half with their rediscovered skills and built up some
pressure. Khalid, our top scorer with about 15 goals, had the
chance to bring London into the lead in the last minute of the
game, but missed barely.
Now it was Vienna’s luck to bring the 0-0 into overtime.
Penalty Shoot-Out
The game ended and a penalty shoot-out had to
determine the winner. Nadeem shot at first and scored with a dry
shot in the lower corner. Vienna’s defender came next, and shot the
ball on the post. 1-0 for London. Khalid was next; the audience
became nervous since our goal leader missed one penalty earlier in
the tournament, but not this time! 2:0! The next Vienna player
scored as well. 2:1.
Next it was Peter’s turn to go to the point. The Vienna
cheerleaders felt that Vienna was going to lose and whistled and
booed as much as they could. The London supporters felt sorry for
Peter as the pressure to score became stronger. However, his known
cool attitude was not touched by the noise and his shot left the
goalkeeper no chance. 3:1! Now Zeljko, the giant Vienna captain,
had to score to keep Vienna in the game. A hard shot came towards
Abou, who was quicker than the ball and got his hands down to the
lower corner of the goal to push the ball away. His last mighty
deed of his excellent goal keeping throughout the tournament. 3:1
final result. London won both trophies!!! The A team: Nadeem,
Khalid, Peter, Mark, Paul and Abou.
The weekend ended with a party at the club Paper on Regent
Street, where the tournament was discussed until late hours.
Next year’s tournament will take place in Leiden, Netherlands.
We hope with a similar outcome!
Article by David Taborsky
Page last updated 12/13/2007