Story by Koh Yizhe/Red Sports. Photos by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports

Tampines Central Park, Saturday, June 26, 2010 — Another 50 teams qualified for the grand finals of the Nike Cup in the east zone qualifier.

Over 200 teams came down for the qualifier — the largest participation of all three qualifiers so far — in the heart of the Tampines HDB estate. Seven make-shift street soccer courts were created from the area under the blocks at Tampines Central Park.

Among the seniors to qualify for the finals on July 4th were Team Bedok impressed with a total of 13 wins including a streak of five games. Their close control of the ball was clearly a level above their opponents.

“We do have experience in other tournaments,” said Farouk of Team Bedok. “But initially we just wanted to come here to play for fun as we didn’t know the prize. We just wanted to play a couple of friendly games. After hearing of the trip to Brazil, however, we decided we wanted to go for it and played all out.”

“The trip to Brazil is definitely a rare opportunity and we are totally excited for the final. We are looking forward to it. I believe we can win it,” added Farouk.

Another team that qualified for the final is the Teletubbies which consist of Jason Fang, Hendriawan, Shakiv, Fahmi, Shahril Izman, and Khairi. They managed to garner 12 victories within the time period to book their spot in the final.

“We are definitely here to win the prize,” said Fahmi. “If a team don’t play to win, then they might as well play football under the block instead of coming to this tournament. We are here to show off our talent and our quality.”

“Now that we are in the final, we are looking forward to it,” he added.

In the Nike Cup, registration is free and teams of five plus one reserve pit their skills against each other in a five-minute match. The first team to score a goal wins the match and continue to play on court with the next opponent. If there is a draw after the five minutes, both teams make way for two other teams. Draws and loses do not count for anything while a win grants teams a point. Teams play as many games as possibly in the allocated playing time to accumulate wins.

The island-wide tournament is separated into four zones — north, east, west and central. Teams are split into two categories — junior and senior. Participants aged 14-16 years old play in the junior division while those aged 17-19 years old play in the senior division. The top 25 teams from each category and each zone with the most points go on to the Grand Finals on July 4th 2010.

The winning team from the senior division gets a one week all-expenses-paid football experience at Brazil national team’s training ground while teams from the junior category are playing for a special training experience with the Singapore national team and $8000 worth of Nike prizes.

The last round of qualification will be held at Sembawang Concrete Space beside Sembawang MRT on Sunday, June 27, 2010.

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