The Fifth Year of the „Marek Mintál Cup“ with a Label of a Highly Respected Tournament
The fifth year of the traditional and yet a very popular international football tournament of an „UNDER-17" young players „Marek Mintál Cup" have set up the level of standard, quality and organisation a step ahead in a comparison the previous years tournaments. Longer announced attractive participating football clubs were promising interesting and exciting matches. Many people have been attracted to the crowd by the home team of the U-17 boys due to their excellent achievements in the last season. It was also worth to see a play of Viktoria Plzeň, the team which is usually the guarantee of a quality. Doubtless, the young talents from a famous clubs like Celtic Glasgow or Dynamo Kyjev have put the attraction, too. We have been also wondering how would perform Belarussian BATE Borisov this year. Finally, the newcomers from Finland, Honka Espoo have been catching the eyes of the fans.
People says that history is used to happen again and it counts at the Mintál Cup this year. In the final have met the teams of MSK Zilina and Viktoria Plzeň, the same as the last year. And the winner was the home team again. Both these teams has presented themselves with attractive build-up play, creating many of breathtaking chances and wonderful goals. Despite a fact, that both teams have began their summer drill just before the competition, their gameplay deserves the applause from the crowd. Celtic Glasgow which performed classical british football added with technical skills of their players, also helped to the tournament´s high standard. The same thing could be said about BATE Borisov. In spite of being beaten by the home team at the beginning, they showed more from their skills and creativity in the other two matches. The 3rd place clash of these two teams had been decided by scottish team in dramatic penalty shoot-out. The Ukrainian Dynamo Kyjev arrived to Žilina with a few younger boys and they didn´t make their way from group stage. Competitors, both Viktoria Plzeň and Celtic Glasgow has been too much for them and they lost both matches 0:3. The Úkrainians made their reputation better in the 5th place play-off against Honka Espoo, which Dynamo had won. There is no point getting upset about the results of the team from Finland. Despite ended up sixth , they prooved good ability and many of talent. They have lost fifty-fifty battles against MŠK Žilina and BATE Borisov at group stage and in their last match they just lost their coolness at finishing despite having many goal-scoring opportunities. According to a voice of Jani Nieminen, Honka Espoo´s coach, they result would be better not leaving their best players at home.
So, we have definitely seen a quality of these youth category in pitches at Strážov, Bytčica and Závodie. And the cherry tree of this tournament took place at brand new ground of MŠK Žilina stadium. Saturday´s evening final was a real celebration.
It is enjoyable to know that both the tournament organization and the gameplay level was highly awarded by foreign competitors. They all confirmed that they had been pretty satisfied and feeling comfortably. „We felt perfect and we would like to come back sometimes.", as many coaches and players have said. Of course they had already took part in many international tournaments and they labeled Mintál Cup as one of the best. It´s nice to hear the words of praise but it is also a commitment to the future. It just means that we put the standard of the quality very high and we have to keep it for next years.
