The Londoner Scunners Spring Invitational Cup came to a close in Taichung yesterday as the Eagles made their return north to Taipei with the tournament’s premier Cup.
Another sun-drenched day saw all 16 teams kick off with a chance of taking home some silverware.
Tournament favorites and reigning champions, the Animals, continued their goal-scoring form with some excellent performances that saw them into the final of the Cup competition, where they were outclassed by the aforementioned Eagles.
Photo: Courtesy of Pascal Lartet
An uncharacteristic three consecutive goalless games for JFC in the same competition saw them only manage to take home the third-place trophy. Several valiant performances from Shane gained them two points, but they were not enough to lift them from last place in the group.
Despite their last-placed finish, several outstanding individual performances by Shane striker Alastair Frost saw him awarded with the tournament’s golden boot trophy after he netted five times over the weekend.
The second-tier Plate competition saw Phoenix romp through the group, with three wins from three seeing them into the final, where they proved too much for Compass.
A late goal from Compass in the final was not enough to overcome two earlier strikes from the Tainan team, who left Taichung with the Plate trophy in their possession.
In the Spoon competition, the Badgers not only notched up their first ever tournament victory with a 3-0 win over the Scrubbers, who walked away with the runners-up trophy.
Badgers manager Jason Lowe was delighted at his team’s efforts.
“We entered Taiwan expat soccer to have fun and meet new people, whilst not necessarily competing at the highest level, but to leave today with a trophy just makes the whole weekend so much sweeter for our guys,” he said.
The Boot competition provided a great spectacle for the neutral viewer as the semi-final between the Tubbies and Carnegies went to penalty kicks after a goal proved unforthcoming in regular time. A nail-biting sequence of penalties followed until Carnegie’s slipped up and provided the Tubbies with a 4-3 win.
The Tubbies went on to face Massive of Kaohsiung, who claimed the trophy with a 1-0 victory over the opposition from Taichung.
This year’s Summer Cup is scheduled to take place in Tainan, where all of the teams once again lock horns, attempting to take the title from the jubilant Eagles.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
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