On Saturday 20th April 2019, I decided to bring back the Galacticos Cup tournaments that I used to organise back in the late 00s at South Leeds Stadium and once at Goals Soccer Centre in the early 2011, but this time, almost a decade later, Goals Soccer Centre in Leeds was to be the venue for this great event. The tournament was organised and hosted by me and my cousin Michael, who now organises weekly football for us all on Monday nights after taking over the reigns from me last year.
I previously organised four Galacticos: The Roman Gods Of Football 5 a side tournaments in the late 00s, which were great events, usually 4 team tournaments. It’s not often me, my older cousins and my older fellow veteran footballers play much competitive 5 or 6 a side football the last couple of years and I thought why not get a bit of a semi-competitive tournament going to give us all something to get excited about. We have a large pool of players from our weekly Monday night football and there’s always an opportunity for us to enter a team or two into one of the Goals tournaments too. There’s some great players as well in our pool of players in this tournament who regularly play in weekend 11 a side leagues, 5 a side leagues through the week and some older experienced players who used to play in leagues for years, so it was always going be competitive enough.
The weather turned out to be really sunny and 23 degrees at its peak so the weather was set for a great tournament but with the heat, it was expected to be tough with intense 15 minute games. Once the tournament got under way, we soon realised how much the heat would effect us all, it was so intense and the games felt like they were much faster paced than they probably were due to the intense heat.
It was also especially tough when each team had to play their back to back games. I have to say that this certainly did me and my team FC Galacticos over. We lost our first game 3-0 to who turned out to be the winners of the tournament. Honestly, we were a mess in our first game and all over the place, we played with no structure but I do feel that as we were rushing to start the first game of the tournament, we did not sort out who was playing in which positions, had we done this we may have been able to give a better game.
However, later in the tournament we had two back to back games. We faced Inter-Galacticos who was playing their back to back game against us and we thrashed them 4-1 in a great team display, however, there was no doubts that them playing twice in a row effected them. We then played our last game and a win would put us into the final. We were 1-0 up for most of the game, then sadly we gave a penalty away and they equalised. The heat and the double backed game then took its toll and Total Football nicked a late goal to reach the final and we were out after finishing 3rd place in the Round Robin Group. The rest is history and The Roman Gods won the tournament.
4 Teams: RESULTS:
Round Robin Group Stage:
15 min games
Team A 3 v 0 Team B
Team D 3 v 1 Team C
Team C 4 v 6 Team A
Team A 2 v 2 Team D
Team C 1 v 4 Team B
Team D 2 v 1 Team B
Final:
Team A 2 v 1 Team D
Team Names:
Team A (Roman Gods)
Team B (FC Galacticos)
Team C (Inter-Galacticos)
Team D (Total Football)
GOLDEN BOOT WINNER: Kurtis (9 goals)
TEAMS were created at random from the Seeding Process:
Roman Gods (Team A)
Kurtis
David Stephenson
Gazza
Sean
Jordy
Daz
FC Galacticos (Team B)
Richard Joyce (@joycinho)
Glenn C / Gibbo (replaced Lewis Clapshaw)
Nathan Long (Longdinho)
Michael Stephenson
Jay
Luke J
Inter-Galacticos (Team C)
Matty D
Nathan R
Reece
Ethan
Andy Robbo
Jonny Roberts
Total Football (Team D)
Dylan
Luke Redfearn
Matthew Stephenson
Jaspal (replaced Dan Punk, who is injured)
Gary
Glenn
Hi lads, me and Michael are organising a 5 a side or 6 a side football tournament at Goals on Saturday 20th April.
*PLEASE READ it all before confirming:
The kick off time will be 3pm, we will book out the pitch for 2 hours.
Depending on numbers it will be 3 team or 4 team tournament with 15 minute games.
If 4 teams, everyone plays eachother once in a Round Robin Group Stage and the top two play in the Final.
If it’s 3 teams, everyone plays eachother twice and same concept, top two play in the Final.
I’ve organised many tournaments before. 15 min game is best. It’s short enough to make the games intense and competitive and it’s also long enough to have a good game.
We only need one pitch, as the team(s) off the pitch will watch and have their rest until they are back on. The way the fixtures are, it will mean you get to play back to back atleast once.
Watching from the sidelines when it’s your rest makes it fun for everyone as you get to see the tournament panning out and know what you need to do to get to the final. It’s all part of the atmosphere. Plus someone from the team(s) having their rest period can be the ref for the game that’s on.
To make it even, me and Michael will do a player seeding so the teams are fair.
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It’s a great afternoon and winners and runners up will have some glossy certificates.
We can all have a cheeky pint after too in the bar!!!!!
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I will confirm cost of pitch closer to the time once I have had a chat with Goals.
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Please confirm if you are good to play and please only confirm if you are definite as we can’t afford any drop outs closer to the tournament.
I’ll give everyone until Sunday 7th April to confirm for definite if you are playing.
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