Claudio Miscia wins in Buenos Aires

12 players competed int he FISTF Open of Buenos Aires this week-end. Claudio Miscia (Rosario) beat Sergio Pelle (Mar del Plata) on shots in the final. Patricio Echevarrieta and Fabrizio Bertolini lost in the semis.

Amberny again!

The french association had a national tournament in Montivilliers on sunday. Jean-Marie Amberny (JSC Rochefort) beat Axel Donval (Rochefort TS) in the final. Sébastien Dubuc and Stéphane Pommier reached the semis. Baptiste Leroux beat Raphaël Pommier in the final of the U15 tournament. In the quarter-finals, the players were Olivier Bastin, Mongi Rouis, Emmanuel Gorgette and Thomas Ponté.

Ruf wins the german cup

Ruf and Rain are the winners of the German Cup 2009 Last weekend the German Cup 2010 took place in Rain. In the final of the individuel competition Alexander Ruf from the host club TSG Rain beated team-mate Arnold Mair 1-0 in the extra-time. The 3rd place reach Frank Hagenkötter (TSL Dortmund). In the team competition the club of Rain played the final against TSL Dortmund 2-2, but won by goals. At that weekend the german association DSTFB elected Janus Gersie as chairman. Gersie already lead DSTFB successfully between 1999 and 2006.

Satellite of Athens

The first winners of the FISTF Satellite in Athens are as follows after day 1 of the tournament.
- Chris Aggelinas (AS Hennuyer) beat Marcos Kapsambelis int he final of the veterans;
- the young Bairas wins the U15 category;
- Nikos Karatarakis wins the U12 section;
- the teams of Pireas Lions beats ITEC Olympia in the team event (2-1).

Is FISTF growing?

Many people are wondering if the number of FISTF players is growing or not. Some also say there is a big lack of ambition from FISTF because the numbers could be much higher. The "official" number of FISTF players is 1877. Why 1877? Simply because there are 1877 different players ranked in the different world rankings. OK, I know some people are currently saying we should have much more ambition and try to reach at least the number of 10.000 players but this can be done only step by step and only with the help of the national associations.
One of the keys to develop the number of players is to make sure they enjoy playing in tournaments. Many players have not attended tournaments in the last 24 months because they don't like to compete in tournaments where the level is too high. A solution for this is that national associations should have a wider range of tournaments from the "Grand Prix" to the "Futures". Of course this is very difficult to do so when the players base in one country is very small.
The other idea is to make sure that more and more countries organize tournaments. The more tournaments there are, the more there are chances players whill show up to compete. Also, the more tournaments there are, the more players will accept to pay a membership fee to their national association.
There is no perfect system to have world rankings but at least there can be some pride for association to organize a few tournaments per season so that the top players can reach the top of the rankings. It's also very nice to read in newspapers that the world rankings are used. It gives more credit to a player to be mentionned with his ranking in the newspapers.
Well, these are a few ideas but it's sure we should definately put more energy to try to organize more and more tournaments and to try to get as many new players as possible. Reaching the number of 3000 players in 2014 shoudl be the goal to reach and we should work all together to achieve this.
For your statistics file, here is the number of ranked players per country (as per October 2009): Italy 500 ; Belgium 242 ; Greece 170 ; Unites States of America 122 ; England 76 ; France 75 ; Spain 68 ; Germany 63 ; Austria 58 ; Argentina 55 ; Portugal 55 ; the Netherlands 49 ; South Africa 45 ; Malta 40 ; Denmark 39 ; Singapore 30 ; Scotland 27 ; Gibraltar 24 ; Cyprus 21 ; Finland 21 ; Canada 14 ; Czech Republic 14 ; Norway 14 ; Wales 14 ; Northern Ireland 13 ; Japan 8 ; Monaco 5 ; Ireland 4 ; Switzerland 4 ; Albania 2 ; Australia 1 ; Brazil 1 ; Hong Kong 1 ; Jamaïca 1 ; Malaysia 1. Total = 1877.

The Eagles Napoli are the champions

A superb goal by Massimo Bolognino in the last 20 seconds of the final offered the continental title to the Eagles Napoli. The Italians were surprising winners as they were not part of the 26 teams who registered in due time. They were invited to fill the field of 32 teams and had a strong role of outsider in the tournament. The second place of Mattersburg and the semi-finals of Reggio Emilia and Pisa will also be remembered! The tournament held in Tournai (Belgium) will also be remembered as the first European Cup with 32 teams.

News from Australia

A few players met last week-end in Sydney. It was the first gathering for many years and there are plans to organize more games soon. News at http://subbuteo-australia.blogspot.com/

Portugal: transfer news

Miguel Castro and Paulo Português have left the club of "Beira Mar de Almada" and are now joining the "Clube de Futebol de Sassoeiros".

Swiss cup

The 4th and last stage of the Swiss cup was held last sunday. Willi Hofmann beat Thomas Baumeler (4-0) in the final. Willi Hofmann is also the final winner of the Swiss circuit as he won the 4 stages.

Scottish circuit

The 2nd event of the Scottish Championship was held in Glasgow on 25 October. The final placings were as follows, full results can also be viewed at http://www.freewebs.com/scottishsportstablefootballassociation/
Rankings: 1, Steve Bennett ; ; 2, Dave Baxter ; 3, Kevin Christopher ; 4, Brian Clark ; 5, Mike Burns ; 6, Scott Fleming ; 7, Dave Gladman ; 8, Terry Brown ; 9, Ronnie McKenzie ; 10, Andrea Andreoni ; 11, Dave Butler ; 12, Colin Day ; 13, Colin Mathew ; 14, Craig Lynch ; 15, Tom Wakefield ; 16, Baver Bari.
Some footage of the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I-cvfDnEY0