First FCU Tournament in Quito

On Saturday May 31 F.C. United (Futbol en Cristo) held its first 4 v 4 tournament at the soccer field of the Alliance Academy International. Being that this was our first tournament we were not sure what to expect but the outcome was a very pleasant surprise.

Much of the legwork for the tournament was done by Chris Sylva and Joey Swenson before I arrived. My arrival was two weeks before the tournament which meant that there was plenty to do when I arrived. In the two weeks leading up to the tournament Joey and I spent much of our time figuring out the field set ups and the various logistics involved in building goals, ordering nets and lining the fields.

We built our goals out of 3" PVC using a design that Joey came up with. We built 14 goals in total. Chris was able to find a guy on the street who specializes in weaving soccer nets and he did all 14 of them over night so that by the Friday leading up to the event we had everything in place.

In addition to getting the field components ready, Chris and Joey also spent most of their evenings on the phone confirming the participant teams. This was the most difficult facet of all and most assuredly a learning experience for all of us. Through much sweat and tears and a few scholarships we had secured 16 participant teams for the tournament. Through this process we continued to pray that the weather would be good and that there would be a break in the four month pattern of rain.

On Saturday we woke up to a beautifully sunny day. The three of us arrived at the field at 7:00am and began to set up the field. By 7:45 teams were arriving on the scene and changing and stretching and warming up. We had figured on about an hour of set up and had thus scheduled the first game to begin at 8:00. Unfortunately our estimate had been off by about 30 minutes as it proved much more difficult to set up four fields between just three people.

In addition to the surprise of how long the set up would take, our worst fears were realized as five of the sixteen teams decided to either not show up that morning or cancel via text message. According to our set up there would be four groups of four teams playing in a group stage with eight teams progressing to the elimination rounds. While my own frustration rendered me somewhat helpless in the wake of the cancellations, Joey immediately went to work re-scheduling the brackets so that we could indeed follow through on our promises of three games per team.

Once the brackets were re-worked the tournament was under way. Throughout the day Chris, Joey and I walked around making sure that nets were secure, re-lining the creases in front of the goals and talking to as many players and teams as was possible in order to get feedback. On multiple occasions people commented on a different feeling from this tournament. There is no doubt play was aggressive but there was something different about the attitudes of players and refs.

The last whistle blew at about 3:30 and as teams walked off the field it seemed that everyone commented on how much fun they had and their desire to participate in more tournaments with us. The winning team was awarded the $300 prize and we set out to tear down the field.

Despite the frustration of cancellations, the tournament was a success and was a wonderful sign about the faithfulness of the Lord.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support.

Continued Prayer

1. We still do not have a fridge. Some of you have inquired about prices and how you can help with this. I hope to be looking into it this week, please pray that I am able to find some good deals.

2. Ongoing prayer for the tournaments. We believe this first tournament was a wonderful first step but we need to sharpen our team acquisition skills and need to build in some systems that will minimize the number of cancelations. Please pray for wisdom.

3. Joel and I will be going to the high school camp next week as the activity directors. Please pray for safety for the kids and everyone involved as well as for the work of the Spirit in their lives before, during and after camp.

P.S. I fixed the comments piece and you can now comment to the blog entries. I've also uploaded a slide show of our tournament. Slideshow