African Cup tournament in Greece

16 players representing African teams wompeted in a recent WASPA AFCON version tournament in Kallithea, Greece. Players where using Subbuteo teams with Hasbro bases. The tournament was divided between a group stage and then a knock-out round. Mike Tastsoglou (Ghana) took the best on Chris Panagiotides (Zaire) in the final while Antonis Krysilas (Tunisia) and Manos Chiotis (Ivory Coast) were the unlucky semi-finalists.

You can watch all the action here

Pascal Scheen and Geoffrey Marain winners in Belgium

On Friday two WASPA tournaments took place in Belgium. The geographical situation of the country is such that two events took part at more than 200 km between both places.

In Verviers, the local club was glad to hold a tournament after more than 2 years but the limited space made it was impossible to register more than 12 players. The competitors were divided into 3 groups with then a knock-out stage. Pascal Scheen was on fire and defeated Geoffrey Dheur in quarter-final (1-0), Sébastien Scheen in the semi (3-2 in sudden death) and Salvatore Visconti in the final (3-2). Visconti had an amazing performance int he semi, beating Christophe Dheur (3-2). More importantly, it was a great night for all 12 players.

In the West of the country, the Templeuve United club held another WASPA night. Due to the covid, three players could not make it in the last minute but 10 players were finally present to play in a Swiss system tournament. Geoffrey Marain won his four games to claim the first place. Michaël Dupret was runner-up thanks to more goals scored than Benjamin Marain while 4 outher players finished the evening with 2 wins and 2 losses. The great news of the night were the come-back of Logan Carette but also the visit of Pascal and André Flémal, two members of the newly-formed BX Subbuteo Club (based in Brussels). The next Templeuve United tournament will be played on February 18.

Standings of the night:

1. Geoffrey Marain
2. Michaël Dupret
3. Benjamin Marain
4. Sébastien Sorge
5. Vincent Coppenolle
6. Logan Carette
7. Didier Moons
8. Pascal Flémal
9. André Flémal
10. Donovan Dedoncker

Link: Templeuve United Facebook page

Fred Elesbao winner in Sankt Pauli

After a few months of absence due to the pandemic, Subbuteo was back in Hamburg this week. The Sankt Pauli players held their first WASPA tournament of the year with a small turnout of 5 players. Fred Elesbao from Hannover won the evening while Simon Stewart was runner-up. Sven Schilling, Ralf Offenborn and Andre Lange were also taking part! We are glad to see our German friends doing great at the moment!

Marco Zucchi wins Befana tournament in Prague

After a long hyatus, table football was back in Prague, Czech Republic, on January 6.

Six players met to play the "Befana tournament" with the surprise to see three different nations taking part.

There were some Italians, two English players and old Czech legend Lucas Zima who played his very first WASPA tournament.

Paolo Di Stefano and David Young won their respective group but lost their semi-finals against Pasquale Carrassi (on shots) and Marco Zucchi.

Marco Zucchi won the final against Paquale Carrassi who recently moved from Spain to Prague and will be a great addition for the local group of players.

Northern Ireland: Kenneth Beggs wins Broughshane Invitational tournament

Former Northern Ireland international, Donal Convery, made a comeback at a WASPA Invitational Tournament in the village of Broughshane. Playing for the first time in 15 years, he was up against his former Northern Ireland & Belfast Barbarians team-mates, Kenny Beggs & Barry Spence and showed signs of the form which took him to the 2004 Home Internationals in England and 2005 World Cup in Belgium. The event was played as a round-robin, with Kenny topping the table on 6 points. Report & photos on www.nitfa.org.uk

Results:

Barry Spence 1 Donal Convery 0
Kenny Beggs 1 Barry Spence 0
Kenny Beggs 3 Donal Convery 0

TABLE:
1. K.Beggs 6pts
2. B.Spence 3pts
3. D.Convery 0pts

Fabrizio Cavazza wins post-lockdown tournament

On Wednesday Dutch Subbuteo was back in the scene with a great evening of play. 5 players were happy to have a post-lockdown tournament. In the group robin, there were many close games and 4 of the 10 games ended with no winner. After the five sessions, Fabrizio Cavazza and Kenney Gerrets were tied with 8 points but the Gorizia players managed to win the trophy on goal difference. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon int heNetherlands and more tournanements will be played in the next few months.

Final standings of the evening:
1. Fabrizio Cavazza (Gorizia)
2. Kenney Gerrets (Rijnmond)
3. Rinaldo van Dijk (Gorizia)
4. Xavier Aret (Dutch Legends)
5. Stéphane Lambert (Yokohama)

Winning come-back for Mark Ryan

This month's WASPA tournament in Perth had a great turnout of 8 players. Everyone had five games and there was a though competition but in the end, Mark Ryan (aka Tan Yew Loy) was in a great day and won anouther tournament. "He doesn't play for month's, just turns up and wins", commented Alan Kimber after the tournament. Mark defeated Alan in the semi-final and later beat Brian Pearson in a close game (3-2) to win the tournament. Mick DeVincentis was the other semi-finalist while Hugh Best won the consolation tournament. It was another great day for Subbuteo fans in Perth.

Follows the club new on their Facebook group here.

Great start to new Subbuteo season in South Africa

Sunday the 16th of January saw the Johannesburg TFC aka 'The Eagles' host their annual season opening  New Years Challenge at Randburg AFC.

A very good turnout of 10 players from three different Gauteng clubs converged to enjoy an exciting, fun and enjoyable Subbuteo tournament which has become synonomous with all local Subbuteo tourneys.

Favourite, Sean Morgan, unfortunately could not make the tournament as he had a bad encounter with a wandering devil possessed 'Cujo' dog and had to have multiple stitches in his hand. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

The participants were placed into two seeded groups and play flicked off on three fields.

Once again a delicious snack platter was served for all players and friends, courtesy of Nita (Clifford's better half) and Just for You Meals.

The group stages provided no real upsets as the four pre-tourney favourites, namely Ian, Gary, Jason and Clifford progressed to the knock-out stages. 

Johan and Fernando showed some good form to occupy respective 3rd places in both groups.

Goal of the tournament went to Gary's equalizer against Clifford as he scored a 'Hollywood Goal', a phrase coined by Justin Finch at our recent SA Champs.

Play-off games were introduced to insure maximum games for all entrants and ascertain all positional places.

Chris took 9th spot by defeating Paul who claims he was more worried about Malawi's progress in the current AFCON Cup. 

Guiseppe claimed 7th spot by beating Alex in a tense penalty shoot-out.

Fernando and Johan dished up a very exciting 5th place play-off with Fernando edging Johan out by 3 penalty flicks to 2 in a nerve wracking shoot-out.

Both semi finals proved goalless resulting in penalty shoot-outs. Clifford and Gary, won their respective shoot-outs by the odd goal goal to set up a repeat of their earlier group stage encounter.

Jason and Ian squared off for third spot with Jason taking the bronze medal by defeating Ian by a solitary goal in a tightly contested match.

The final saw Clifford and Gary flick off for the first title of the new SA Subbuteo season. Play was end to end with both players squandering promising chances. However, a defensive lapse by Gary allowed Clifford to score the winning goal and claim the title.

A huge thanks must go all who attended and we look forward to the next tournament at ETS Subbuteo Club on the 12th of February.

(Report by Clifford Graaff)

Michael Choong wins 1st Singapore tournament of 2022

As Singapore transits from pandemic to endemic Covid, the Table Football Association of Singapore has carefully restarted regular table football activities under strict safe management measures.  Spearheading this (and in close collaboration with The Sports Hub Library - our venue partner/sponsor) is the resumption of our regular League sessions throughout the calendar year.  9 players gathered on 16 Jan 2022 for the first League session to vie for bragging rights and League points.

Players were randomly drawn into 3 groups of 3 for first round of games.  Thereafter, each player's placings in their respective group will determine the respective groups of 3 in the second round of games.  In total, each player gets 4 games.  After the usual intense battle amid all the laughter and camaraderie, Michael Choong emerged as the winner of the January League session and the first tournament of 2022 in Singapore!!  Congratulations Michael!

A strong youth program in Genova

The Club Rebels Genova is a new club based in Italy and with a strong youth program. In the beginning of the season, the club joined the WASPA circuit and decided to organize tournaments for their young players. Their 7th WASPA event was played on Sunday with 6 players competing in a group format. Samuele Bignardi, 10 years old, won his 4th tournament after being undefeated in five games. In such a case, results are not really important. The main point is to have young players enjoying Subbuteo games and practicing a lot to become stronger players in the future! Congratulations to the staff and our local organizer Luca Bignardi for the great work!

Standings of the tournament:

1. Samuele Bignardi
2. Alessandro Gandin
3. Davide Balito
4. Filippo Di Rosa
5. Edoardo Gennaro
6. Francesco Pellicci

Link: The Subbuteo Club Rebels Genova's Facebook page

David Wouters takes another impressive win

Antwerp is alive and flicking. The SC Flanders club has a new home for a few months now and the club held a fourth WASPA tournament on January 3rd, which was SCF's 73rd tournament. Once again, no surprise as David Wouters proved to be the "man of the season" with another impressive victory. Dave won his four games to finish on top of the Swiss ladder. Jos ceulemans was runner-up and Geert Leys took the third place. It was also great to see the WASPA debut of young player Aeden Sucre, which proves there is a space for beginners in the club!

New Year's WASPA Cup in Berlin

On Sunday, January 2nd, the Subbuteo Club Berlin invited to the New Years Cup 2022 in order to open the Flicking year early. Five players from friends and local rivals Sparta Spreeathen responded to the call, so that, together with the hosts, there was a field of ten participants in total. More was not possible because of the applicable Covid-restrictions and because of the schedule designed for a single day. The tournament was played in two groups of five, round robin without a return leg. The two respective group winners met the two runners-up in the semifinals. The 3rd to 5th positioned players faced their direct counterparts for final ranking (3rd vs 3rd, 4th vs 4th, 5th vs 5th).

Such a big tournament has never been held in the four-year history of Subbuteo Club Berlin. Of the club members who played the Inauguration Cup at the very first meeting in January 2018, only the then winner Nico Müller was there. Unfortunately, Alberto and Erik were unable to attend for personal reasons. We'll see you guys next time! Still, it's a nice feeling to see how things have developed in Berlin-Biesdorf since then.

Today, as then, people snapped with great enthusiasm and an even greater degree of sportsmanship. All games were played without a referee and all situations that arose were resolved amicably and fairly. Big respect and thanks to everyone! This is how table football should be.

In Group A, the most experienced player of the day, Marcus Tilgner, met the absolute newcomer, Carsten Bock. Hardly a dozen friendlies on his account did not stop him from making the trip from Lower Saxony to Berlin. And where better to gain experience than under real conditions? With Jo Busmann an old warrior of the German Subbuteo strengthened the Spartans. Marian Flemer was the third "guest" from Zehlendorf in this group and, although still young, a long-established flicker. Hermann Kruse, still a Northern Falcon at heart and on paper, but in practice a regular visitor to the SCB Club evenings on Wednesday, should hold up the flag in this group for the red-and-blacks.

In Group B, the derby of the two Nicos, Nico Müller and Nico Pretzel should be relaunched. The last one was a few years ago and was held during a Sparta Club evening. Favorites, on the other hand, were the only lady in the field, Daria Prazynski from Sparta Spreeathen and the reigning SCB Halloween Cup 2021 holder, Oliver Ollnow. The secret hero of the day completed the group; Oliver's little brother Hagen Ollnow. Jumping in for a last-minute cancellation, the little man showed that despite his young years he has more experience alongside the board than, for example, Carsten from group A.

In the final there was a revenge between Oliver and Daria, who beat Oliver 1-0 in the last group game. In the middle of the first half, Oliver took a 1-0 lead. Unimpressed by this, Daria slammed a powerful shot under the crossbar and from there into the net only a short time later. As a result, the game remained balanced for a long time and Oliver needed a deflected, equally powerful shot in the second half to make it 2-1. A shot so powerful that for a short time the pros and cons of the different perspectives were exchanged when assessing the question of the ball completely crossing the line (the ball jumped out of the net). After a look at the VAR - the game was filmed on a mobile phone - the decision was made jointly and by mutual agreement on what had already been the first impression of those around: A valid goal for Oliver. But that didn't tip the game over either. In her well-known calm and concentrated manner, Daria remained dangerous and developed good opportunities. The best of these then wriggled in Oliver's back of the net. However, despite all the brilliance, the shot was taken a little too risky, so that the player figure slightly pushed an opposing defender to the side before touching the ball. Instead of equalizing, a foul and free kick for Oliver was given. What followed wasn't enough to equalize. That did not affect the matter. Congratulations to both of them for a great tournament and a really nice final.

Final ranking:

1. Oliver Ollnow (Northern Falcons)

2. Daria Prazynski (Sparta Spreeathen)

3. Marcus Tilgner (Sparta Spreeathen)

4. Hermann Kruse (Northern Falcons)

5. Nico Müller (Subbuteo Club Berlin)

6. Marian Flemer Sparta Spreeathen)

7. Joachim Busmann (Sparta Spreeathen)

8. Nico Pretzel (Sparta Spreeathen)

9. Carsten Bock (Subbuteo Club Berlin)

10. Hagen Ollnow (Northern Falcons)

Original story by Nico Müller on the Subbuteo Club Berlin blog: www.subbuteoclubberlin.blogspot.com

WASPA rankings of December 2021

Dear friends, first of all best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous year 2022. Let's hope we will have a great year and things will slowly be back to normal.

Before talking about the rankings, please note that the FISTF season starts now on January 1. Therefore, if you have transfers to announce or is you see that some players are reported under a wrong club, just send me a private message. Keep in mind that in many cases, we have players having different clubs in FISTF and WASPA circuits and this is fine for me.

Christmas tournament in Derry, Northern Ireland

You will find in this messages the updated WASPA rankings at the end of December. You can see in the results that the activity has been huge with 31 regional tournaments, 4 old rules tournaments, 4 promotional tournaments and 1 test match.

EXCEL file (rankings)
PDF file (results)

Congratulations to Brian Daley who is number 1 in the WASPA ranking again.

Small Subbuteo event in Yokohama, Japan

We are glad to see Japan back in the circuit. This is great news! Japan is one of the emerging nations in the table football scene outside Europe and it's great to see a tournament took place in Yokohama under WASPA banner a few days ago.

In December, England, Italy and Australia have been the most active nations but we were glad to also see WASPA tournaments in Wales, Belgium, the US, South Africa, Northern Ireland and Greece. Special mention for the Rebels Genova in Italy who run tournaments only for juniors, wich is great.

Perth players in Australia

One of your dreams for 2022 will be some nations back in the circuit and we are sure that with a bit of work, we could easily see tournaments in Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Russia, Portugal, Argentina, Indonesia, Peru, Israël,... 

Another important note is about people moaning about "big scores" in the games between experienced players and novices. Please keep in mind the WASPA circuit is there to help local development. In belgium we have a rule stating that the final score of an individual game can not be higher than 5-0. This is something that should be implemented everywhere to prevent some sad situations.

First WASPA tournament if the Nuovo Falco club in Italy

All your ideas to make the WASPA circuit more attractive are more than welcome. Don't hesitate to send your feedback. We also hope to see more and more clubs running events under WASPA banner in the future.

We also take to opportunity to thank our partners:

- Victory kits at https://www.victorykits.co.uk/

- Flicks for Kicks at http://shop.flickforkicks.com/

- MAD ABOUT GAMES at http://subbuteo2012.co.uk

Well, that's all for now. Please remember you only need 3 players to register your tournament. Don't be scared to join. It's free and tournament requests can be sent by e-mail to vincent.cop@rsca.com

Players in Johannesburg, South Africa

Keep an eye on the WASPA blog at http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com as there are updates almost every day.

Please invite your friends to join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/waspasubbuteo/

We also have a WASPA page here: https://www.facebook.com/WASPA-World-Amateur-Subbuteo-Players-Association-231789816834700/

Keep in mind WASPA is also looking for new partners. If you know any company ready to support us (we don’t ask for money but we want some win-win agreements so that we can promote each  other), don't hesitate to contact me at vincent.cop@rsca.com or vincentcoppenolle@gmail.com

Thanks for the reading and have a great day!

Vincent Coppenolle, WASPA organizer

Eliot Kennedy and Alan Kimber winners in Australia

It has been a bad year for Subbuteo in Australia. For Western Sydney Subbuteo COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions have meant that it wasn't until the final few days of the year that we could hold our first tournament of the entire year! The annual Christmas Binge WASPA Tournament saw its 4th incarnation draw a small but enthusiastic crowd. The 'Clubhouse in the Carport' was again put to use to minimise COVID risks, with some slight winds having effect at a few stages during the afternoon, but nothing this experienced bunch couldn't cope with.

The day belonged to the only entrant from Northern Falcons TFC - Eliot Kennedy - who went on a ruthless goalscoring spree throughout the afternoon, dispatching his nearest three rivals 4-0 (Geoff Sirmai - Hipfingerz TFC), 4-0 (Adrian Elmer - WSS) and 3-0 (Costa Kamarados - WSS). There was no denying Eliot's claim to the title of the tournament, which used a Swiss System.

Further down the rankings, Geoff and Adrian finished on equal points and, not having played a head-to-head match to split them, took an equal share of second place. After their respective losses to Eliot, Geoff picked up a tightly fought win over Costa (1-0) before easing to victory against Stefanos Milatos (Sydney TFC). Adrian had an opening round victory against Stefanos before finishing up with a victory over his clubmate, Franck Cozzarin (WSS). 

With his slim loss to Geoff, Costa had to settle for 4th place, going ahead of Franck based on their head-to-head match, which Costa won 1-0. Franck picked up a victory against Stefanos to slot him above Stefanos on the final table. 

The highlight of the day, though, of course, were the Christmas leftovers (1 Panatone, 1 Celebrations Chocolate Box, 1 Box of Lindt Balls, 1 Packet of Gourmet Almond Shortbread, 2 Pear Ciders, 4 Cans of Coke, 1 Can of Vanilla Coke) consumed, the traveling fans (Franck's entourage being inspired to possibly enter the upcoming Sydney Open) and Eliot & Geoff's trading of ever more cringe-worthy puns. 

A big thanks to all who attended and, very hopefully, here's to a LOT more tournaments in 2022!

Final standings:

1. Eliot Kennedy (Northern Falcons)
2. Adrian Elmer (Western Sydney)
3. Geoff Sirmai (Hipfingerz)
4. Costa Kamarados (Western Sydney)
5. Francis Cozzarin (Sydney TFC)
6. Stefanos Milatos (Sydney TFC)

(Original post from the Western Sydney Subbuteo website)

Earlier in the month, Alan Kimber finished on top of a group of 6 to win the last Perth tournament of the year. Brian Pearson and Mick DeVincentis were tied for place 2. Final standings:

1. Alan Kimber (Subbuteo Perth)
2. Brian Pearson (Subbuteo Perth)
2. Mick DeVincentis (Subbuteo Perth)
4. Chris Thorn (Subbuteo Perth)
5. Hugh Best (Sports TFC of Western Australia)
6. Ron Byrne (Subbuteo Perth)