 Seniors
My name is Lampros Kapodistrias, the Team Manager for the under 14B soccer team for Green Gully Soccer Club. Together with the Coach Mark De Sieno we decided to enter our team into the McDonalds Kanga Cup. The Kanga Cup is the most prestigious and largest youth tournament in the southern hemisphere and is held in Canberra every year, this year being its 20th year. This event attracted teams from every state in Australia as well as teams representing Korea and New Zealand. This year over 240 teams entered. This tournament caters for males and females ranging from 9yrs – 18yrs. The Kanga Cup is hosted by Capital Football and sanctioned by Football Federation of Australia and the Asian Football Confederation. Out initial aim was to provide our team with the opportunity to bond together travelling interstate, to improve their skills and to make new friends with other players from other parts of the world. Fifteen players and their families were willing to make the journey. Money was going to be a huge burden to all the families but we were determined to support our wonderful group of boys. Together with our club’s backing and support we held raffles and barbeques to help in raising some funds to meet some of the costs involved. We arrived in Canberra around lunch and soon had to get down to the A. I. S for the Opening Ceremony. Our team looked splendid in their colours and our huge entourage of parents and families also added to the excitement on that night. The next day the competition started. In our division there were 13 teams, which were broken down into 3 pools. Our pool consisted of mainly Canberra based teams. The first match was against the Brindabella Blues Falcons, we played really well creating lots of chances, and the winning score was 3-0 in our favour. The second day of the tournament we played against the Cooma Tigers. This game was difficult as we had changed venues and played this game on a three quarter pitch which made it difficult to score. Game ended as a draw 0-0. The third day we played against Majura needing a win to finish top in our group and qualify for the next round. We really dominated this game; the score was 3-1. Thursday was the qualifying finals day promising to be our toughest of our tournament with games one after the other. Our first game was against Maccabi Junior Football Club. After a slow cautious start the team exerted their influence on the game and took the result away from Maccabi. The score was 4-1 in our favour. After a short break of about 15 minutes our boys had to front up again this time being challenged by the Colo Cougars Football Club. This game was a tough fight to the end with a spot in the final up for grabs. Our team did extremely well to keep them out and we were most unlucky not to score several goals in this match. Fortunately the 0-0 score line was enough for our team to advance through to the final as Colo could only manage a 3-1 win against Maccabi; goal difference was enough for us. Our team had done so well in playing 5 games in 4 days, could we get one more good game from our warriors? The Grand Final was held at Hawker Football Centre against Marrist College. This was our first game on a synthetic pitch and what a beauty it was. After an even first 10 minutes our team rose to the challenge scoring 5 goals to none for the match. A great team effort was needed to play six games over the week and Coach Mark Di Sieno was not disappointed as the team was superbly led by Captain Gabriel Zalewski and Vice Captain Steven Ristevski with all the players from one of the most stingiest backlines, to our dominating midfield, finishing off by our sharp and deadly strikers, this was a truly committed assault by a team from Green Gully. That night we had a huge barbeque to celebrate our boy’s triumph. On behalf of all our players Gabriel Zalewski, Benijamin Hamzic, Alexander Georgievski, Aidan Carew, Steven Ristevski, Cezmi Ozturk, Jarvis Gardner, Justin Kanzamar, Jasmin Ismic, Kane Gardner, James Kapodistrias, Spencer Craggill-Haren, Michael Stefanovski, Dimitri Fokianos and Christopher Georgievski. Coach: Mark De Sieno Team Manager: Lampros Kapodistrias We would like to thank all the parents and the club particularly Rose Vallese and Maria Cassar for all their help and support for our team. © Copyright www.greengully.com |
