Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) secretary-general Fang Ching-jen yesterday touted the success of the Taiwan Business Bank Taiwan Futsal League after Chiayi Tienching on Sunday displayed their all-conquering form and collected the championship trophy with a 5-2 win over YTFC at the Pingtung County Stadium.
Since January, when the season began, Chiayi Tienching scored a perfect 10 wins off 10 games to collect 30 points.
Taichung Traveler were second, finishing on 22 points with seven wins, two losses and one draw, while CTFA U20 were third on 17 points with five wins, three losses and two draws.
Photo courtesy of CTFA
In the season’s final round on Sunday, Taichung Traveler prevailed 6-4 over CTFA U20, while Fangyi Precision of Kaohsiung pummeled Inter Taoyuan 11-4, with all of the matches in Pingtung County.
Soccer pundits were not surprised at Chiayi Tienching’s success, as the team is based on players from Chiayi County’s Wufeng University, which has a long history of soccer programs and as a powerhouse in central Taiwan.
The team previously competed as Wufeng University, but this year changed their name to Chiayi Tienching, after receiving sponsorship from Tien Ching Energy.
Fang yesterday said the league has been a big success, as it has boosted public interest, cultivated young talent and developed players for international competitions.
“We are looking to expand from six to eight teams next season, but also need to carefully assess the new clubs, as they should improve the league and enhance overall competitiveness,” he said.
“This season we saw Chiayi Tienching win all of their games, but it would be better for the league to have strong sides that are able to compete on par with them... All six teams this year are based in a city or county, which will be the requirement for new clubs,” Fang said.
In Taiwan Football Premier League action on Sunday, Tatung FC’s Honduran midfielder Elias Argueta scored twice during his team’s 3-0 rout of Land Home-NTUS at the Taipei Stadium.
In the 19th minute, Argueta followed up on a rebound, hitting a low drive into the net. Just past the half-hour mark he streaked past the NTUS defenders, picking up a loose ball to coolly score again.
Three minutes after intermission, after good work by attacking midfielders Hsu Fan-shao and Chang Hao-wei, the ball was passed across the field to forward Chen Po-hao, who had replaced Argueta. Chen slotted the ball home at close range to ensure victory for Tatung.
“Elias did well with his two goals today,” Tatung manager Chiang Mu-tsai said.
“We will work hard on the final touch, which we didn’t do so well at the start of the season,” he added.
In other games, CPC FC defender Weng Wei-ping thumped the ball home during a scramble after a corner-kick shortly after the intermission, taking his team to a 1-0 win over Flight Skywalkers in Kaohsiung.
In New Taipei City, Huang Yuan FC fought to draw 1-1 against Taipower.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier