Vegas Mayors Cup Champions

Oct 22-24, 2010. The TopGun97-Red girls headed to Las Vegas to play in their first "out of state" tournament. This Mayor's Cup is a platinum ranked tournament and is rapidly becoming one of the most respected tournaments in the USA. And the reputation is deserved. The organisation was superb, and the grass fields were cut to perfection with not a bump or gopher hole in sight.

There were 12 teams in TG's section, split into 4 groups of 3 with the group winners advancing to the semi finals - so no room for error, 2 games would decide whether the girls played a semi final and possible final, or just a consolation game on sunday

The games for TopGun started at 8am on saturday morning with a 3-0 victory over Arizona Fury. Maximum points was a good start but next up was Rubisport from Tijuana, Mexico. They played against Fury in between the TG games and scored a 3-1 victory so we went into the game knowing that a tie was good enough to progress. The game was like a classic Europe v. Mexico encounter. The Mexicans played lots of short passes trying to keep possession, TopGun played fewer and longer passes and were more direct. The game finished 7-2 in TopGun's favor and so the girls headed to a semi final on sunday morning (after quite a lot of fun on saturday night)

The semi final was a very tough game against FC Alliance Gold from Seattle who are ranked #10 in Washington and are a very good team full of skill and aggression. TopGun took the lead twice in this game, only for Alliance to equalise from corners within minutes of each TG goal. Alliance applied lots of pressure in the final 10 minutes but TopGun held strong to take the game to PKs and prevailed 3-1. And so to the final against Surrey Guildford United from Canada. Here TopGun were the stronger team and forced multiple saves from the Canadian GK in the first 10 minutes but the ball would not go in. United were more of a threat in the second half and TG continiued to fire shots on goal as well, but the clock ran down and the game finished 0-0. So more PKs and TopGun won again, 4-2 this time to become champions. In true Vegas style, the presentation was made on a stage with speeches given via microphone while "we are the champions" played through the PA !!.

Some more points !

Last week TG did a 1st ever and lost 2 games on the trot... we stopped that run this weekend

Topgun pulled out a 2-1 win against the SCC Breakers "A" team on saturday afternoon. This was an important win against another team in the bottom half of the Silver Elite bracket and gives TopGun some breathing space.

The girls started with our now familiar 3-4-3 formation and gave the Breakers a real going over in the first half. The game really should have been done and dusted by half time as Olivia, Hannah, and Ysa missed at least 5 reasonable chances between them. The score at half time was only 1-0 after a nice finish from Ysa. This was worrying. We all now recognise the pattern when TG misses that many good chances, and Breakers are a good team.... and they soon reminded us of that in the second half as they piled a lots of pressure on our penalty box with neat interchanges in the middle of the field. Breakers equalised with another of those high loopy shots that dipped in under the cross-bar. We are conceding a lot of goals this way, but another year and this will stop happening and then other teams are going to need to play proper attacking soccer. Finally we worked out how to clog up the midfield and stop the Breakers attacks and then with the game almost over, Ysa got on the end of a long clearance and unleashed and ferocious shot from the right which hit the side netting giving the Breakers goalkeeper no chance. 2-1 to TG and closing in on 3rd place.

Cruyff

The prize for the best Cruyff turn video goes to Tess.... no-one else bothered to send one in


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1k7DGqRF5g&feature=related