UNIDAD held a four round, 16-team fall soccer tournament for students from the range of Pennsylvania schools, with 10-minute matches and seven player teams (5 players, 1 goalie on the field, 1 reserve). If a match was tied by the time the match ended, 1 player would be taken off of each team for the tiebreaker. If there was still no winner by the end of the tiebreaker, both teams would choose one player to participate in a 1v1 where first score wins. I met with UNIDAD advisor Ms. Wiedmann and Phantom FC player Edgar Castillo, and asked them about the tournament’s success and how it went as a whole.
Phantom FC and Noce Fam would kick off the tournament with a 1-0 win for Phantom FC. Other matches in the round of 16 included a double tiebreaker 1-0 win for Arsenal FC against the All Stars, two shut out 3-0 wins for Latinos Sin Fronteras against the Straw Hats and Da Mob against Platano Con Salama, a 2-1 win for Los Diablos FC against Parking Lot FC, and a 1-0 win for Norristown FC against Hondizzy FC. Finally, SF FC and Comunicaciones FC would beat FC Juniors and Casi Galacticos respectively to advance.
A specific team that Wiedmann had her eye on were the All Stars.
“I was very excited to see the All Stars play,” said Wiedmann. As for why, it’s because they were “the first girls team we’ve seen in two years.”
Though the tournament is co-ed, UNIDAD hasn’t seen an all-girls or co-ed team recently. It was nice to see the All-Stars, even in the loss, because it was the only all-girls team they had seen in years. Wiedmann said that she hopes it will inspire other girls to participate in the tournament.
Edgar said that one of the teams Phantom FC was nervous to play was Noce Fam, possibly because Mrs. Noce was a player on the team, or because of the others. Luckily, they knocked them out in the first round to advance.
Now heading into the quarterfinals, teams with worse chemistry or tactics seemed to have been weeded out, and the best teams had shown themselves in the tournament. 4 new matches would truly show who were contenders, and who weren’t.
Phantom FC would open up the quarterfinals as well in a match against Los Diablos FC. Phantom FC worked out another 1-0 win in the tiebreaker to move on to the semi finals. Their opponent in the semis would be decided in the next quarterfinals match between Arsenal FC and Latinos Sin Fronteras, in which Latinos Sin Fronteras won 2-0 to lock in a semi-finals match against Phantom FC.
Da Mob would face off against Comunicaciones FC, and in another 1-0 win Da Mob would move on to the semis. In a 3-2 tiebreaker win, Norristown FC beat SF FC to advance to the semis against Da Mob. This locked in the two semi finals matchups, and closed out the quarterfinals.
In the first matchup, Phantom FC dominated Latinos Sin Fronteras in a shut-out 3-0 win to punch their ticket to the final. Now, the match between Da Mob and Norristown FC would decide their opponent.
The two teams went scoreless through regulation and the tiebreaker, leading the semi final matchup into the 1v1 double tiebreaker. Though Norristown FC committed multiple fouls in the double tiebreaker, they eventually managed to score, winning 1-0 and punching their own ticket to a finals matchup against Phantom FC.
Before the final, Da Mob and Latinos Sin Fronteras faced off for third place, with Da Mob winning 1-0 to earn third place in the tournament. Now, all that was left was the final between Phantom FC and Norristown FC.
Both teams played aggressively, in a contact-heavy game throughout regulation. The game headed in the tiebreaker 0-0 and a player would be taken off the field for each team. Both teams continued the same playstyle, but neither scored in the tiebreaker either. This sent the match into the double tiebreaker, which would be a 2v2 to make it a more fair tiebreaker, but it didn’t seem to matter as Phantom FC swiftly scored the walkoff goal to win the final 1-0.
Phantom FC pushed through Noce Fam, Los Diablos FC, Latinos Sin Fronteras, and finally, Norristown FC to win 1st place in the tournament. They played two regulation games, one tiebreaker game, and one double-tiebreaker game. They went through all of which without having a single goal scored on them, and scored six goals overall.
Castillo said, “it felt amazing” to win the tournament; when asked about playing through the tournament as a whole, he said “it was quite easy,” which is pretty believable with how dominant their performance was.
On the other end, Norristown FC pushed through Hondizzy FC, SF FC, and the third place winners in Da Mob, but lost to Phantom FC in the final, winning 2nd place. In the tournament, they played one regulation game, one tiebreaker game, and two double-tiebreaker games, producing some of the best matches in the tournament. They had three goals scored on them overall, but scored five in their path to the final.
Wiedmann claimed that “[UNIDAD] expected Norristown FC to make it far.”
They had won the last two tournaments UNIDAD held, so a three-peat wouldn’t be shocking for the group, and it came down to a double-tiebreaker for them to be taken down.
As for 3rd place, Da Mob, they beat Platano Con Salama and Comunicaciones FC in regulation, but lost to Norristown FC in a double-tiebreaker semi finals match. Thankfully, they beat Latino Sin Fronteras to earn third place. They had only one goal scored on them in their third-place run, and scored 5 overall.
Wiedmann described it as a very successful night for NAHS and UNIDAD saying that “the tournament was pretty good,” and that “It was a great turnout…one of the biggest [tournaments] we had.”
She said that the “best thing about preparing was seeing the students work together and the hype leading up to it.”
Wiedmann was happy with “seeing the entire community get together,” and how students, players, and UNIDAD worked hard to make it happen.
To end it off, I asked if there was anyone she wanted to thank for putting the event together. “Thank you to the other teachers that helped like Mr. Kinsey, Mr. DeSalvo, Mrs. Noce, Coach Jason, and the custodial staff.”
Finally, she wanted to give a big thanks to UNIDAD for putting it all together.
