BEFC Win the 8th AMIA International Futsal Tournament

  • BEFC win AMIA 8th International Futsal Tournament
  • BEFC win AMIA 8th International Futsal Tournament
  • Results of AMIA 8th International Futsal Tournament
  • British Embassy FC at AMIA 8th International Futsal Tournament

After retaining their own Friendly Cup, BEFC continue on a roll by bringing home the AMIA International Futsal Cup.
Held indoor at the Minato-ku sports center, BEFC have narrowly missed out on top honours in the last two AMIA tournaments finishing 3rd each time.
This time around they went in meaning business.

This year's AMIA tournament had much fewer teams than previous years but the previous champions and regular rivals were there in force.
On a single full court 7 teams competed in a round robin tournament - BEFC (UK), USA, MOFA, Ecuador, AMIA FC, Nepal A and Nepal B.

There would be no finals this year, the winner being the team topping the league table.

BEFC started off against the US, who fielded some unfamiliar faces this year. It didn't take long for BEFC to score with an Alo Saekk special from the edge of the box. From that point it was one way traffic with the BEFC goalie, not needing to make a save. It ended 5 - 0, but with BEFC knowing sterner tests were coming up.

The two previous tournament champions and runners up (both times) MOFA and Ecuador played out a 0 - 0 stalemate which was good from a BEFC perspective, followed by both Nepal teams also cancelling each other out.

Next BEFC stepped up against MOFA, last year's eventual winners and team which put BEFC into the 3-4th playoffs by penalty shoot-out last time.
A high intensity game, of BEFC largely pressing MOFA in their own half but unable to convert, until again Alo Saekk struck to put BEFC 1 up. Continuing to push the advantage and kill the game BEFC nearly succumbed to a swift MOFA counter-attack but the stinging strike across goals was pushed away by a diving Ben Palmer. That was their last gasp attempt to regain parity and BEFC walked off with a crucial victory over the current champions.

Aside from the refereeing the competition was not without controversy. In another crucial match Ecuador failed to turn up for kick off with BEFC and consequently forfeited it by absence. This didn't go over well with either side and after some discussions, the organiser agreed to let Ecuador replay the match if BEFC agreed. Unfortunately Ecuador's behaviour towards BEFC in (not) asking for an agreement, caused BEFC to rather let them suffer for their mistake and susbequent inappropriate behaviour. However after some relationship repairing diplomacy from their captain David Villagomez, BEFC agreed to the rematch. AMIA imposed a 0 - 3 penalty deficit to Ecuador on the consideration of them totally missing the original fixture, but it was still important to count the result from a 0 - 0 perspective so there could be no arguments later.
In another similar game to MOFA, BEFC spent the game pressuring Ecuador in their own half and trying to break down the defence and their superb goalkeeper. BEFC went 1 - 0 but then had to defend strongly against fast breaks being caught out with too many players forward forcing Arthur Villaneuva having to shut down 2 vs 1s. Again in the dying seconds Ecuador broke free and launched a stinging glory strike from the right side, just tipped aside from a diving full stretched Ben Palmer, who at that moment was very pleased he purchased the elbow pads for this competition.

Having put down both former champions it looked good for BEFC if it was not for the Nepal teams also beating Ecuador and AMIA.

Next up was Nepal B, who were looking the strongest opposition in the tournament. This was another intense and rather physical affair showing that the Nepalese struggled with the idea of a friendly tournament letting their desire to win cast a poor light on their style of play. Some horrible fouling, and grabbing not punished by the referees and God only knows how their number 16 had been allowed to stay on the pitch for the tournament. A particularly interesting fully visible full-nelson style hold on Saek being perfectly acceptable. BEFC had a superb Fushimi to Villaneuva corner kick goal disallowed for apparent grabbing in the box, when throughout the match it was Nepal responsible for the foul play -- and noticed through-out the competition. It was a competitive match which BEFC took as a draw.

All this meant that while BEFC were still on top they had to perform against AMIA FC to keep it all within their own control.
So far AMIA had been decent despite losing to the other opposition but barely by just a single goal. This match started slowly, possibly a little too comfortable with AMIA not showing much threat, until they realised they had to win. Picking up the pace BEFC scored 2 goals and shutdown AMIA's attack, although Palmer had to rush out two times to clear long balls that had put AMIA's strikers through on goal as BEFC preferred to keep the pressure high up in the opposition half.

MOFA beat Nepal B, in another shockingly bad display of conduct from Nepal. MOFA scored from a penalty after the infamous 16's slide-tackle followed with handball prevented a scoring chance. They would have had a second going clear on goal if Nepal number 16 had not just blatantly, intentionally and obviously pushed him in the back as the MOFA player ran clear on goal. We were amazed he was still allowed to play.

Anyway, this meant that BEFC needed a win or draw against Nepal A to win the competition.

The effective final was predictably a heated and dirty affair, involving plenty of grabbing, pushing and what had been happening all competition with these teams. Some blatant elbows going into BEFC backs were not really controlled and it wasn't a surprise this escalated to a serious injury to our player.
Jumping up for a header, the Nepalese player also jumped into the back of Jorge Marenco, elbow into the shoulders and subsequently landing on top of him, with his knee coming down into Marenco's back. Amazingly, he was allowed to stay on the pitch, and there was some confusion as both sides looked to see if anyone at the tournament was responsible for handling injury situations. After a heroic and intense display, Marenco had to bow out with 2 (preventable) broken ribs! There was some debate over whether the clock had been stopped during the injury, as the match (perhaps fortunately) ended soon afterwards, with the pattern of BEFC pinning Nepal in their half and going close on goal, often just being fouled. Resulting in a free-kick attempt which when turned over, Nepal tried to fast break.

However the 0 - 0 draw was enough to crown BEFC the champions, and what's more without a goal conceded the entire tournament!

Final Results:

1st - BEFC
2nd - Nepal A
3rd - MOFA
4th - Nepal B
5th - Ecuador
6th - AMIA FC
7th - USA

More photos of the tournament can be seen on our Facebook page