|
 It was a little like the old youth soccer days for the four Men's Over-30 teams that kicked off Madison United's annual President's Cup indoor tournament Saturday morning at BreakAway Sports Center, up and on the field bright and early.
Well, maybe.
"I don't know," Madison United's Jared Burdick (Madison La Follette/UW-Platteville) said. "That was too long ago – I don't remember those days."
A record 88-team field meant the earliest start time in the tournament's 19-year history, with referees blowing the whistle to start the opening matches at 7:30 a.m.
"I work early, so I'm used to it, but I'm sure a lot of the guys on the team had a hard time adjusting," said the 36-year-old Burdick, whose side dropped a 4-2 decision to Smoky's Blue Rockets in its first game. "It seemed a little bit warmer than normal in here; it was hard to catch your breath after a couple of runs. Well, that's being over 30, and that's just the pace of the game. It's so much faster."
Tournament organizers lined up local teams to play the early-morning matches.
"It was rough for the old guys," said Ryan Hartberg (Verona/UW-Whitewater), whose Smoky's team had nearly 12 hours before its second group game at 7 p.m. over at Keva Sports Center in Middleton. "We just had to warm up a lot because we were tight coming out of bed and whatever else we did the night before."
Both Burdick and Hartberg were preparing for a challenging weekend. The Men's Over-30 division grew to 20 teams this year, with several teams making the move to the older bracket after playing in the Men's Open in recent years.
"It's by far the best I've seen it," said Burdick, who has played in all but one President's Cup – he'd like to add to the title he won with Dionysus in the Men's Open division back in 1999. "It's great for the tournament. I just wish I was in my younger 30s instead of my older 30s."
"There's not a lot of discrepancy between the top teams and the bottom teams, which is good," Hartberg added.
Surprising start
The first two games on Field 1 at BreakAway each produced eye-opening results.
Chivas turned in an impressive performance as they cruised past The Other Dinos 4-0 in a Men's Over-30 opener. The Other Dinos feature several former University of Wisconsin players, including David Martinez, Christian Poppert and John McGrady.
In goal for The Other Dinos – an offshoot of The Dinos, who won the Men's Open title in 2008 – was Nick Pasquarello (UW), who coached many of his teammates during his tenure as an assistant under former Badgers coach Jeff Rohrman.
"Some of these guys just turned 30, and just an opportunity to play with them, that was something I just couldn't pass up," said Pasquarello, who is playing in the President's Cup for the first time.
"The biggest thing I miss about coaching is the relationships with the guys, and I don't get to stay in touch with them as much as I'd like to. So opportunities like this, I know don't come up very often, they're few and far between, so I wanted to take advantage of it."
Pasquarello said he doesn't play regularly, but played quite a bit last month when he renewed his U.S. Soccer Federation "A" license during a course at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. He pointed the finger at himself following The Other Dinos' opening loss.
"The goalkeeping has to improve," said Pasquarello, who works at the UW Family Business Center and is a staff trainer for the Madison 56ers. "Losing 4-0, I think it starts in the back for sure. ... I know I have to do a little bit better."
Bottom Line: No spark for Fire
Reigning Men's Open champion Madison Fire dominated play in their opener, but gave up a goal on a counter attack with about 6 minutes left and had a penalty kick saved as they lost to Bottom Line 1-0.
The result left the Fire essentially facing a must-win in their second group match against the Platteville Monsters at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Keva – the top two teams in each group advance to the playoffs. But the three-time champions weren't about to start panicking at 8:30 a.m.
"No, absolutely not," the Fire's Keenan Newallo said. "You know, we're a little bit older so it takes us some time to get going."
Bottom Line – a team put together by Madison player Dante Viscarra – were solid defensively, packing the box and contesting shots throughout, and made the most of a 2-on-1 midway through the second half of the 25-minute match. The Fire's Royston Ngwayah saw his penalty with about 4:30 remaining saved.
"One counter, and that was it, and they tucked it away," Newallo said. "We didn't finish our opportunities."
Polish exchange rate Marcin Wasik and Dante Viscarra, Bottom Line
Marcin Wasik, who plays for hometown club ŁKS Łagów in his native Poland, was part of that stout defensive effort for Bottom Line. Wasik has been in Madison for the past year as part of an exchange program, working as a programmer at ScheduleSoft and learning English.
Łagów is a village of about 1,000 in central Poland near Krakow – for comparison, if every team in the President's Cup used their 12-player maximum this weekend, there would be more than 1,000 players in the tournament. ŁKS Łagów plays in Liga IV, the fifth division of Polish soccer.
"This is the biggest tournament I've played in ever, I think," said Wasik, who will return to Poland in May. "So much competition."
Wasik acknowledged that the Fire were the better team, saying that if the teams played five times, "We should lose.
"But soccer is an unpredictable game," he said.
Style points
 Gaelan Fraboni models his team's pink shirtsBottom Line has sharp uniforms, as they're wearing the blue-and-black vertically striped shirts of Brazilian club Gremio with sponsorship from La Communidad News and Culver's in Cottage Grove.
But the jerseys that drew the most attention Saturday morning were the pink ones worn by fellow Men's Open entry Fraboni's.
"Actually, Josh (Sendelbach) put the team together. He just asked me to help find a sponsor," said Gaelan Fraboni (McFarland/Madison College), whose family owns the Italian delis in Madison and Monona. "I was like, 'Sure, just get my dad to plug his name a little bit.' "
As for the choice of jersey color, Fraboni said he was inspired by teams in Italy's Serie A, several of whom have pink kits.
"I figured nobody else would have pink - I don't want to have to change my jersey," he said.
Check back later for all of Saturday's scores and group standings from the President's Cup.
|
