Another victory for Marko Karhunen

TFC Lynx organized once again a WASPA tournament. Unfortunately only Lynx players participated. Tournament was played in Raama Bar in Jyväskylä. It was a great place to play and the tournament was also very well followed by the pub customers. This time again Jani Mustonen and Marko Karhunen reached the final. Marko had a payback time from July WASPA tournament final and won the final clearly three - nil. Biggest surprise this time was Joni Karppanen's win over experienced Wille Hölttä in a group game.

Ranking of the group stage:
Marko Karhunen 15
Jani Mustonen 10
Miku Leppälä 8
Jarkko Lindholm 4
Joni Karppanen 3
Wille Hölttä 2

Places 5-6 shootout only: Wille - Joni 3-2
Places 3-4 shootout only: Miku - Jarkko 4-3
Final: Marko - Jani 3-0

Mike Parnaby wins in Thornaby

6 players took part in the latest WASPA event to be held in Thornaby, hosted by the NETFA Teesside Subbuteo Club.   Ben Staples was the surprise package on the night and he came very close to claiming his first WASPA title, only losing out on goal difference to Mike Parnaby. Andy Mill continues to improve from a standing start and it won't be too long before he gets his first point. John Bottomley was unfortunate to score in every game but only win one, but its a good sign when you can score every game! Neil Youngson was as solid as ever, but a rare defeat at the hands of Ben spoiled his night. Chris Kaberry also continues to improve and his possession play is starting to bear fruit!

(report by Mike Parnaby)

The trophy for Mike Parnaby

The six players

WASPA monthly report file of September 2013

The WASPA monthly report of September 2013 can be found here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4_PpphlADgVeDFLdUZ6S25DQTQ/edit?usp=sharing

Here are the news of the month:

a) Events in September 

September was a very good month with 20 tournaments taking place. For the very first time, a National Cup as played under WASPA banner. Well done to the guys in ireland and Northern Ireland for the good job. Hopefully it will help to attract more players over there.

We had the first WASPA tournament ever in Portugal with 18 players. SC Flanders (Belgium) hiosted their first WASPA tournament with 14 players in swiss system. We wish welcome to the guys from Toongabbie (Australia) ho also had their first event. The tournament in Penrith (Australia) had players travelling from Canberra, Melbourne and... Chile! Canada had two good events. Italy and England had several tournaments including some events with the old rules and advanced rules. Germany had their "Startes Cup" with players fromd ifferent cities taking part. So at the end WASPA was happy to have events in 11 different countries. Thanks everyone for the support!

Players at the "Starters Cup 2013" in Kamen (Germany)

b) Rankings

Geoffrey Marain (Belgium) is still on top of the ranking and Canada is still extending the lead in the ranking of nations while England is for the first time in the top 5. 902 players (+69) from 32 nations are ranked. There is now a season ranking as suggested by Peter Sexton to give a better idea of how many points are taken during the sports season. Ruben Português (Portugal) is the leader because the tournament in Tires was the only one to have more than 16 entries.

c) WASPA and FISTF 

There are some good news as Luis Horta has resigned as FISTF president and the new president is now Alan Collins from England. FISTF and WASPA have had very constructive talks in the last few days. FISTF will not pu any threat any more and players competitng in WASPA tournaments and nations organizing WASPA events. On the other side, WASPA will encourage the existing clubs to have tournaments also under FISTF banner. We have sent a proposal asking to create tournaments having the double status (WASPA regional & FISTF Satellite) to motivate organizers to have official events. It will hopefully boost interest in some nations (in particular Canada, South Africa and Australia as there are no FISTF tournaments there for years) and hopefully some FISTF nations (Argentina, Japan, Brazil, Denmark,...) will have a few more WASPA events.

d) Useful links 

Here are a few links to check when you have time:

the WASPA blog: http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com
the WASPA map: http://goo.gl/maps/MP4gu
the WASPA Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/127530464069377/?fref=ts
the WASPA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WASPA-World-Amateur-Subbuteo-Players-Association/231789816834700
the FISTF website: http://www.fistf.com
the independant table football forum: http://tablefootball.friendhood.net/

To add tournaments or to send results, please use this e-mail address: vincent.cop@rsca.com

e) Help needed for interviews 

REMINDER:
For the future, we will try to have more interviews on the blog. If you are interested to be interviewed or if you want to interview one of your friends, you cans end a picture to vincent.cop@rsca.com and answer the following 5 questions:
- can you introduce yourself as a player? When did you start playing?
- why do you like subbuteo table football?
- what are your greatest achivements in the game?
- If you had to improve something in table football tournaments, what would it be?
- What are your thoughts about WASPA? Why do you like (or dislike) it?

f) WASPA is waiting your feedback

Any idea on how to improve WASPA is more than welcome. A new season is going to start and we are looking for ideas to get more players involved, more nations taking part and more clubs organizing events. Your ideas to improve things can be sent by e-mail to vincent.cop@rsca.com

g) If some of your friends want to receive the monthly report by e-mail, they can drop a line to vincent.cop@rsca.com to be added in the mailing list

Have a great month!

Vincent Coppenolle 

The honors for Luca Pini in Firenze

The last tournament of the month took place on monday in Firenze, Italy. The city was also under the lights of the international medias last week-end as the cycling world championships took place there but this time Subbuteo had the honors of sports fans. Ten players were playing under swiss format. After the first round of four rows of games, finals were played. Luca Pini beat Marco Bonciani (4-2) to win the title. Sergio Robertiello was third and Matteo  Cherici was fourth.

More news from Germany, Portugal and Cyprus

The Starters Cup 2013 held on sunday in Kamen was very succesful and the Germans are already thinking the tournament might become an institution every year at the beginnig of the season to involve newcomers and people who come back to the game after a long period. "This could be worth a try to present the idea to other nations to copy the idea", reported Thossa Büsing.

On saturday, 10 of 12 participants plus two guests from Aachen enjoyed the warm-up with friendly matches, rules instructions, tricks & tipps, comparing the equiptment in a harmony way, ended up with a diner for all in a restaurant to (re)built (new) friendships. Four Helpers were involved to advise the competitors and act as referees. These "helpers" played additionally a seperated "cup" (1 X 15 minutes, final 2 X 15 minutes), to show the newcomers how "good" players play in a tournament. A very special thanks to Uli Euler (BSC Schwalbach) for coming to help as former and very first Starters Cup-winner in 2012.

On Day 2 (sunday) the Starters Cup took part. The "helpers" plus german Subbuteo-Legend Axel Schneider as supervisor and special guest guided and refereed the competitiors from (p.e. Hamburg & Frankfurt), through the tournament. Three non-members of DSTFB took part and two comebacker (Edin Mulasmajic & Alexander Büsing) plus all the new DSTFB-members celebrated a wonderful Subbuteo day.

It finished with a sportif and dramatically final between a newcomer and a comebacker. "Newcomer" Tom Horn from Weimar (actually Subbuteo no-man-land in the former GDR) beated the DSTFB german champion of 2005, "Comebacker" Edin Mulasmajic in the final 3-2 after sudden death.

A special thanks to Victoria Büsing. She made her very first steps as tournament manager (autodidactically) without any instruction by her Dad (who is BTW very proud on her... for this) and did very good job!

Steven Evans, Pascal Schäfer, Anja Sklorz (carer), Kevin Abeln and Fabian Mertins played their very first tournament.

And of course to the in 2013 new borned club in Kamen, SUB Kaiserau at the Bürgerhaus Methler as fantastic host event place (link: http://www.buergerhaus-methler.de/). all photos of the week-end were taken by Kai Woytas

The staff of the "Helpers cup"

Celebration in Portugal

In Portugal, the first tournament under WASPA banner had a great feedback and a lot of big names taking part. We receiveed today a great souvenir of the tournament by Bruno Valente who wanted to commemorate the victory of the very talented Ruben Português.

Famagusta is spreading!

In case you missed the info, there are now three clubs in Limassol. Famagusta TFC has two "sons" called Salamis Famagusta TFC (with the Kalopsidiotis brothers) and Phoenix Famagusta TFC. We guess this will stimulate the competition in the country and hopefully attract a lot of new players.

The logo of Phoenix Famagusta

The logo of Salamis Famagusta

Kalopsidiotis brothers in front of their club logo

Zangylos again in Limassol

12 players attended the first tournament of the season in Limassol. It was a special event wince there are now three clubs in the area and some kind of fair rivalry between the different groups. Georgios Zangylos (Famagusta TFC) managed to win his 9th title under WASPA banner after beating Marcos Kalopsidiotis (Salamis Famagusta) in the final on shots! Pambos Zorbis and Kostas Kalopsidiotis reached the semis.

The group picture

The finalists

Ruben Português wins in Tires

It was a special week-end for sports fans in Portugal and not only because Rui Costa (26) became the first Portuguese rider to win the title of professional cycling world champion or because John Sousa (24) won his first ATP tennis title by beating Julien Benneteau in Kuala Lumpur.
The first WASPA tournament ever was held in Tires with 18 players taking part. It was a good event with players dropped in four groups. At the end, it was a first class final with two excellent players. Ruben Português beat Sergio Ramos on shots to win the title. Nuno Noronha and Ricardo Pavão lost in the semis.
To be noted Portugal took also the honors in the FISTF Grand Prix of Scotland on sunday as Vasco Guimaraes won the Open final. Well done to everyone involved in making this week-end a wonderful one for table football in Portugal. Special thanks to Paulo Elias and his friends for asking the WASPA status for the Tires tournament.

The final

The trophy for Ruben Português

The semi-finalists were Ricardo pavão and Nuno Noronha

Sergio Ramos, finalist

The Starters Cup 2013 for Tom Horn

The second edition of the "Starters Cup" was played this sunday in Germany with 12 players taking part. There were some new names but also some players coming back to the game after a long break. Tom Horn finally won the tournament with Edin Mulasmajic finishing second and Alexander Büsing third. Congratulations to all the players and organizers.

The final ranking

1. Tom Horn
2. Edin Mulasmajic
3. Alexander Büsing
4. Gerhard Grünberg
5. Patrick Schneider
6. Oliver Jeschke
7. Marc Reitz
8. Philip Hansen
9. Pascal Schäfer
10. Kevin Abeln
11. Fabian Mertins
12. Steven Evans

Good luck Alan Collins

Here at WASPA we are sending our congratulations and wishes of good luck to Mr Alan Collins, the new president of FISTF! We are looking forward to have a strong relationship between FISTF and WASPA.

Gianmarco Del Brocco and Patrizio Lazzaretti on top in Rome

On September 24 the first of the eight tournaments of the circuit "WASPA Lazio League 2013/2014" was played in four rounds of play with the Swiss formula. The defending champion Gianmarco Del Brocco and Patrizio Lazzaretti ended with 10 points and were awarded the victory together as their respective opponents had the same total of points. Gianmarco Del Brocco was offered the WASPA title due to a better goal difference though. The third place went to Stefano Tagliaferri with 9 points and the fourth place for Simone Trivelli with 7 points.

Also in this case, the Swiss formula has proposed a great final round of play as five players were contending for the first seasonal event WASPA: Patrick Lazzaretti, Simone Trivelli and Gianmarco Del Brocco (all 7 points), Stefano Tagliaferri and Paolo Barone (6 points).

Lazzaretti beat Trivelli (2-1) and while Barone lost to Del Brocco (2-5). In the same time Stefano Tagliaferri was sweating to beat the excellent Iacovacci (2-1).

Barone, Matteo Del Brocco and Paolino end the evening with 6 points. Filippo Iacovacci, Luigi Aniballi and Sergio Sassi have 4 points. Marco Moretti has 3 points and Alessandro Spoto ends with zero point.

2 winners for 1 trophy