Fantastic turnout of 32 in Athens

George Papadopoulos was the big winner

Last saturday the club of Highlanders Haidari SC was happy to celebrate a fantastic come-back on the table football scene and the celebration was made by organizing a WASPA tournament. Due to the limited space, the event was limited to 32 entries (from 13 different clubs) but organizers had no pain to get a full table so that 8 groups of 4 players were played. The level was very high, probably as high as many Greek FISTF Satellites and the winner was Olympia player George Papadopoulos who defeated Vassilis Koutsompinas (Proteas) in the final. Nikos Pappas and Kostas Seses were the other semi-finalists. The general feeling after this tournament was very positive. The success was a bit unexpected but it offers great perspectives of development for WASPA events in Greece. Thanks to the Greek association and to the Highlanders Haidari for helping to organize a fantastic tournament.
Other shots of the tournament

Home win for Arnold Mair in Rain

The final between Arnold Mair (left) and Marco Zucchi

Last saturday the FISTF Open of Rain took place in Germany and the organizers decided to run a WASPA consolation in the afternoon to give more games to eliminated players. The small event attracted 15 players from 4 nations and had a local winner as TSG Rain's Arnold Mair defeated Marco Zucchi (Czech Subbuteo Team 2014) in the final. Daniele Gamba, also from the Czech club, and Germany's Tom Horn were the semi-finalists. It was another good sign of cooperation between FISTF and WASPA and we are thankful to Thomas Vulpes and his clubmates for making things happen.

6th tournament in Brisbane

This week-end’s tournament has been the best turn out so far, with 7 players attending. We had 3 tables in play and a great day was once again had by all. With new club shirts, brand new Pegasus astro pitches, on brand new tables, with lights suspended above each table, Brisbane has certainly come a long way in the short time since the club formed in January 2015.
New member Chris Scholes got his first point on the board, welcome Chris! Rob Bennett also had a better point’s tally this time, so well done to Rob too!
The first round of league games surprisingly saw current champ Gus Gillespie fail to make the semi finals. There were goals a plenty in the league games, and some fantastic matches.

LEAGUE STANDINGS
Giuseppe started the day on fire, a real hot shot, smashing all before him, and was top of the league table. Rik started the day very poorly, but rallied in the latter games to finish runner up. Andrew Bennett consistently played well again, and last month’s newcomer Andy Rigby upped his game considerably to force his way into the semi finals.

SEMI-FINALS
Giuseppe 1 v 4 Andrew B – level at half time, but Andrew turned on the style to run out with a very impressive victory. This was the 3rd semi final in a row that Andrew swept Giuseppe aside to make the final.
Rik 1 v 1 Andy R  (2 -4 AET/shootout) – Level at full time, and extra time, Andy did not miss a shot in the shootout, a well deserved victory, especially after a remarkable incident showing incredible sportsmanship. Rik once again failed to progress through to the final.

FINAL
Andrew B 6 v 1 Andy R – This was a very tight game which changed on a couple of big decisions. Tied at 1-1, Andy conceded a soft penalty, and never really recovered. Andrew turned on the style in the 2nd half, scoring some fabulous goals, and looked every bit the champion. This was Andrew’s 3rd consecutive final, and he is definitely the man to beat. Congratulations Andrew!
Andy also must be given a huge amount of credit for making the final in only his 2nd tournament. Having played at a high level in the UK 20 years ago, he is starting to find his touch after such a lengthy lay off, well done Andy.
Special thanks to ‘Pino’ (Giuseppe) for hosting again, a great venue, great facilities, and a much appreciated BBQ for the guys. Cheers Pino!
Brisbane Subbuteo Club would like to extend a warm welcome to anyone who would like to come along to join us for the next tournament, to be held in Ipswich, Qld on 23rd August. We also hold practice sessions around Brisbane, so if you want to come for a few friendly games, and meet some of the guys, please contact us;
rikbland@yahoo.com.au or gtardiota@yahoo.it
Check our website - http://www.rikbland.wix.com/brisbanesubbuteoclub

(Report by Giuseppe Tardiota)

Three in a row for Zangylos

In the end of a long week of table football, the 10th stage of the national circuit of Cyprus took place this sunday with a good field of 17 entries. Giorgos Zangylos won his third tournament in a row, defeating Kostas Kalopsidiotis (3-1) int he final. Marcos Kalopsidiotis and Giorgos Stylianou were the semi-finalists.

WASPA Copa America in Budapest

The players

The top 3 of the "Copa America"

This weekend we organized a special WASPA tournament in Budapest. All the six players choosed a south american team, and we made a Copa America (Brasil – Gabor Baross, Chile – Robert Zsigri, Argentina – Zoltan Baross, Ecuador – Adrian Szaki, Mexico – Laszlo Bobak, Venezuela – Csaba Laska).

In the first round every team played with each other two times and the best four played semi final and final.

The Argentina-Brasil semi final was very exciting, because 30 second before the end Brasil lead, but Argentina could shot one goal. During the extra time the brasilian team two times shot crossbar and finally won the penalty for 5-4.

In the final, Brasil (Gabor Baross’s team) defeated Chile (Robert Zsigri) for 2-0.

The final result
1. Gabor Baross (Brasil)
2. Robert Zsigri (Chile)
3. Zoltan Baross (Argentina)
4. Adrian Szaki (Ecuador)
5. Laszlo Bobak (Mexico)
6. Csaba Laska (Venezuela)

In our blog you can find some photos and the full results of our Copa America:
http://budapestsubbuteo.blog.hu/2015/07/26/brazilia_nyerte_a_copa_americat

(Report by Gabor Baross)

20th WASPA title for Georgios Zangylos

The 9th stage of the Cypriot circuit took place on friday with a good turnout of 16. Georgios Zangylos defeated Kostas Kalopsidiotis (2-1) in the final to win his 20th WASPA title. Marios Themistokleous and Giorgos Stylianou (who defeated Marcos Kalopsidiotis in quarter-final) were the semi-finalists. Looks like it was another great day! Well done to everyone involved!

Cyprus: Zangylos is back

The players

After a hiatus of a few months, the 8th stage of the national circuit took place this wednesday in Limassol with 15 players taking part. George Zangylos defeated Kostas Kalopsidiotis in sudden death (3-2) to win the tournament. Kyriakos Stylianou and Marcos Kalopsidiotis made it to the semi-finals. Well done George.

The final

Report of the five WASPA tournaments held in Gillingham

The English GP in Gillingham Kent hosted 5 WASPA events on the 18th/19th July to keep the players active all through the weekend!

The Open final

In a small field of players, the Open was won by Belgium’s Ralf Gregoire from SC Eugies who beat England & Yorkshire’s Ben Staples 4-2 in the final.

The veterans final

The Veterans on the other hand had a full 16 players in an entertaining knockout! In the end it was the German, Thomas Vulpes, from TSG Rain who beat England & Yorkshire’s Tony McCann with a single goal, 1-0.

Saturday U15 final

The Under 15’s had an all-England & Kent final as Rhys Williams beat Louis Singh 4-1 whilst another Kent player, Conor Atkin won the Under 12’s WASPA final with a 1-0 victory of Wales and Cardiff Junior star, Flynn Barnes.

Sunday U15 tournament

The Sunday event was a special Junior event where 7 U12’s & U15’s players mixed together for 6 sessions of intense play. In the end it was Kent’s Thomas Lacey who lifted the trophy winning the league with Yorkshire’s Dylan Staples in 2nd and Kent’s Joshua Foreman in 3rd

(Report by Terry Arnold)

Dario Passadore dominates Belgians in Delray Beach

What a great day of table soccer in Delray Beach, Florida! Five players, including Vincent and Alyssa Guyaux from Belgium, battled for several hours in a group format with two games against each other. After losing the inaugural game 2-1 against Vincent Guyaux, Dario Passadore eventually won the tournament by dominating the second match and beating the Belgium 4-0. Special thanks to all participants for their sportsmanship and for a successful event!

The friends cup for Michael Choong

Jurong Central Subbuteo Club Friends Cup WASPA 
Tuesday 14 July 2015 - Jurong Central Subbuteo club

Jurong Central Subbuteo Club (JCSC) had the privilege of welcoming a flicker from Perth, Australia, John Harty. John was in Singapore to catch Arsenal in action at the Barclays Asia Trophy, and got in touch with a JCSC member, Irwan, whom he met while the latter was on holiday in Perth. JCSC then extended its hospitality and welcomed John to our humble club grounds for a WASPA tournament, aptly titled, Friends Cup.

Five players turned up to battle it out, playing in a round robin format. Bolkiah, our under-19 player, faced up against John in the first match and portrayed a strong showing by winning 4-0. Michael Choong was not to be outdone and dispatched his opponent Irwan by a score of 4-1. In the next round, Haikal beat Irwan by a solitary goal whereas John fought valiantly but could not overcome Michael and succumbed 0-1.

After 5 rounds, Michael asserted his dominance in the tournament by fending off Bolkiah and Haikal to clinch the Champion’s title. Haikal, after beating all his opponents save for Michael, obtained the runners-up position whilst Bolkiah bumped Irwan to 3rd position by virtue of goal difference. Alas, John had to contend with propping up the table from bottom of the group.  

However, the results were immaterial as the name of the tournament suggests. The tournament was essentially a meeting between friends from different countries who share the same passion for table football. JCSC President Rudy Hesty was there to grace the occasion and presented John with the Friends of the Club certificate. This gives him a special pass to come back to the club and flick anytime (whenever he’s in Singapore that is).

Luca Martineli wins the Gary Wright Subbuteo Club League

The players who took part

In Italy we are used to say, "Tra i due litiganti il terzo gode", in English would sound more or less like, " Between the two litigants the third has it", that's how incredibly the season ended in Harrow where, whilst Rudi Peters and Paul Andreas were making sure to prevail each other in order to stay at the top, Luca Martinelli in the background stormed to surprise everyone and win both the usual WASPA evening tournament and the WASPA League, succeeding to Paul Andreas (reigning Champion) despite loosing to him the first match of the night (1-2). Must say, Luca deserved it as he was the best player by far. Oh well, next year (un)luckily enough he won't be taking part to it but this one goes back with him to Italy. Seven players took part at last meeting on wednesday night, Luca, Paul and Rudi were joined by Gianpaolo Vitulano (4th in the league), Paolo Barone, Gerald Brightwell and Neil Doherty, it was a very competitive evening.

Table for the night
Luca 15 pts (+6)
Gp 15 pts (+6)
Paolo 12 pts
Paul 9 pts
Rudi 7 pts
Gerry 4 pts
Neil 0 pts

FINAL LEAGUE TABLE
Eleven meeting were played and only the 80% of the results were counted (8.8), therefore 8.

2014/15 CHAMPION: LUCA MARTINELLI 70 PTS (out of 8 scores)
RUNNER-UP: Paul Andreas 68 PTS (virtual 71 but loses 1 result (3) as he played 9 meeting)
3RD: Rudi Peterschinigg 65 PTS (Virtual 76 but played 11 meeting so loses 11 pts (4-4-3)
4th Gianpaolo Vitulano 52 pts
5th Gerald Brightwell 27 pts
6th Lee Fenton 18 pts
7th Matthias Peters and Kevin Cordell 14 pts
9th Victor Jones 13 pts
10th Jonathan Lopez Real 11 points
11 Colin Lindsey 8 pts

Also thanks to Mark Green, Neil Doherty, Paul ODR, Steve Dettre, Terry Edge, Colin Tarry, Adrian Davis, Lucio Canicchio, Elliott Bellefontaine and everyone else which at least came once to join us in this wonderful and exhausting season, hopefully i'll see most of you for the forthcoming 2015/16 back in September. WELL DONE LUCA!

Pierpaolo Murabito wins in Catania

Bob Green (left) and Pierpaolo Murabito during the presentation of the trophies

In the recent FISTF Open of Catania (Italy), organizers decided to play the consolation tournament under WASPA banner. 11 players were taking part and Pierpaolo Murabito from Siracusa won 1-0 on sudden death against Australia's Bob Green. Thanks to Daniele Calcagno for making things possible!

Jayden van der Merwe wins the PFC Gold Cup

Saturday 11 July 2015, Pretoria, South Africa

The 6th event on the 2015 PFC calendar drew a field of 9 entries with each player "adopting" a nation as we attempted to relive the thrills and spills of the
recent 2015 COPA AMERICA finals. The tournament was played under round robin stage with 2 points per win & 1 point per draw awarded. In the end the honours went to Jayden van der Merwe (playing in the colours of Mexico) as he battled through to become the 2015 PFC Gold Cup winner. However, in the early stages of the tournament it was the newcomers who set the early pace when Justin Thumbran and Adam Murray somewhat surprisingly found themselves in 1st & 2nd places respectively after 4 rounds of play!

When Jayden beat Rowin Wilson by 2-0 in Match 19, he (Jayden) found himself in 2nd place behind Justin and he was now gaining momentum and established himself as favourite for taking the honours - especially after Jayden also grinded out a hard fought 1-0 win over the other serious contender of the day Bevin Reed (playing in the colours of Argentina) earlier in the day. Jayden's surge to the top took a damper as Jayden lost 1-0 to Julian van der Merwe in Match 32.
Match 17, Bevin 1-0 Julian marked Bevin's first ever triumph over Julian in a Subbuteo event, and that result ensured Bevin was suddenly in contention too.
Kegan van der Merwe saw his hopes fade after he suffered three shock 1-0 losses to Justin Thumbran, Adam Murray and Rowin Wilson - in that order. The event had 36 scheduled matches and it was in Match 35, Kegan 1-0 Jayden where a draw would have been enough for Jayden to secure the title but that result meant that Jayden and Bevin were tied on 12 points each and the event had an extra play-off final match between Bevin & Jayden. A very exciting match then played out, with Bevin having one good chance with Jayden's goalkeeper pulling of a stop to deny Bevin a certain goal! The final had to be decided on shots - with Jayden winning by 2-0 and the result saw Jayden secure his first WASPA title for 2015!

Final Classification
1st) Jayden van der Merwe (Mexico)
2nd) Bevin Reed (Argentina)
3rd) Julian van der Merwe (Paraguay)
4th) Justin Thumbran (Ecuador)
5th) Kegan van der Merwe (Bolivia)
6th) Chessray Jooste (Brazil)
7th) Adam Murray (Chile)
8th) Rowin Wilson (Colombia)
9th) Sherwin Reed (Uruguay)

Thanks to all for attending and ensuring a great day of fun and action, with 39 goals scored on the day!

The PFC website & facebook page will be updated shortly with photo's & news content at :
http://pfctest.leaguerepublic.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PFC-SA/519566284755728

(report by Kegan vd Merwe)

First tournament win for Paolo Talarico

Good job from Paolo Talarico who wins the tournament

Monday evening, a small tournament was held in Catanzaro, in the South of Italy. The event was played in a group stage of five players. Paolo Talarico finished as winner with 10 points while Alessio Talarico was runner-up with 7 points. Later in the ranking, Ugo Custo was 3rd, Andrea Pagano 4th and Alfredo Priamo 5th.

A beautiful medal for the winner

Two wins for Joseph Kinrade

Darren presenting England with winners medal after international (and unofficial) friendly between England and the Isle of Man

Two tournaments have recently been held in Sheffield (England) with the special fact that several players were competing under the banner of the "Isle of Man Subbuteo Association". Brian, Joseph and Ewan Kinrade but also Darren Wilkinson are playing FISTF events for England but are reported as "IOM" in the WASPA circuit. In the first event held on June 28, Joseph Kinrade took the honors, defeating Brian Kinrade in the final (1-0). Brett Pricce was third and Thomas Price was fourth.

Conor presenting Joseph with winners medal

Matt defending shot from Ewan

In the second tournament held on July 11. The "WASPA Isle of Man Steam Packet Cup" was won by Joseph Kinrade who finished on top of a group of four while Brian Kinrade was runner-up.

Joseph wins event 2

Next event in Singapore

Jürgen Lizar on fire in Ebreichsdorf

Tuesday was the hottest day in Austria this summer and the hottest table soccer tournament in Austria ever! Fourty degrees, nine players, three tables and a lot of non-alcoholic drinks to come through the evening without beeing dehydrated. After the group stage the two favorites met in the first semi. Heinz Eder was succesfull against Thomas Busch, at the end it was a 5-3 for Heinz. In the other semi final, Jürgen Lizar won against the surprise of this tournament, Lukas Eppensteiner, after shots.

The last thirty minutes of this hot evening brought a little sensation: Jürgen defeated Heinz with 1-0. Heinz was a bit unlucky with shots, Jürgen's keeper was fantastic, his second win in this season absolutely deserved!

(Report by Thomas Eppensteiner)

Trisha Baumeler wins international event in Urfdorf

Trisha, Naomi, Roman, Clinton and Thomas

This tuesday the Swiss club "Linth Sliders" had a special guest for a small event of five player. Clinton Gahwilher, a player from Cape Town TFC (South Africa) was visiting the local Swiss players. The event was played as a round robin and Trisha Baumeler (TSC Black Rose) took the honors after winning her four games. Thomas Baumeler was runner-up. Well done for a good evening of play and for giving the chance to Clinton to gain international experience.

Number 40 for Geoffrey Marain

The monthly tournament of the Templeuve United club in Belgium took place this tuesday with a good field of 12 players. Among the competitors, there were a few beginners but the presence of Italian player Vittorio de Pascale was the highlight of the day. Vittorio, who also competed in last week-end's FISTF Open of Barcelona in Spain, took a well-deserved second place.

Vittorio and Geoffrey before the big game

As the tournament was played in Swiss system, there were many surprise and the "fight of the chiefs" between Vittorio and Geoffrey Marain ended in favor of the Belgian. It was a good evening, full of fair-play and with young players gaining experience. The final standings of the evening were as follows:
1. Geoffrey Marain (SC Eugies)
2. Vittorio de Pascale (Flickers Milano)
3. Vincent Coppenolle (Templeuve United)
4. Stéphane Lambert (Kent Invicta)
5. Jérémy Zenner (Templeuve United)
6. Renald Deloose (Templeuve United)
7. Baptiste Mahieu (Templeuve United)
8. Benjamin Marain (SC Warcoing Ducks)
9. Matthias Averlant (Templeuve United)
10.= Mélanie Cordenier (SC Warcoing Ducks)
10.= Anaïs Piette (SC Warcoing Ducks)
12. Vicky Vanoverskelds (SC Warcoing Ducks)

Second WASPA title for Colin Lindsey

Coulsdon Subbuteo Club held a small tournament last friday with four players taking part. This time Colin Lindsey took the honors, finishing with 2 wins and a loss. Jonathan Lopez-Real was runner-up, Lee Fenton was third and Scott Freeman was fourth.

Gianpaolo Vitulano wins in Gillingham

Kent Invicta hosted an 8 player WASPA on Friday 3rd July which saw Gianpaolo Vitulano come out on top with a 100% record. Plenty of goals, fun and action meant a good evening was had by all with again, many juniors playing. Terry grabbed 2nd spot despite an early battering from Gianpaolo whilst Kye got 3rd. In addition it was great to see Brian Butterworth of SuBButeoGrafix also come down for a couple of games and again support the Kent Invicta youth players with some equipment.

Final Standings:
1. Gianpaolo Vitulano
2. Terry Arnold
3. Kye Arnold
=4. Rhys Williams
=4. Finnley Taylor
6. Adrian Davies
7. Louis Singh
8. Josh Foreman

(Report by Kent Invicta TFC)