Vancouver International Soccer Festival Day 2 Recap

A late update on the festivities from Sunday, Team United Nations won a nail biter against Serbia on penalties and then moved on to the semi finals. The match ended 0-0 after two halves of play mostly dominated by Team UN, but with precious little chances overall. Up stepped Jose Burgos, Will Meredith & Pierce Joneson to bury all their penalties in ice cold fashion, while Sherman Lai made a cat-like save to put Serbia out of it.

Team UN’s semi final opponents were the Jordan-Palestine team who had been involved in a near-serious altercation with the Campos team in the group stages - forcing the match to be abandoned. They were a tough opponent with some very skilled players, including Mehdi Jalali, a former member of Yaletown Football Club. The match ended 0-0 after regulation and an unfortunate return to penalties followed. Again, Jose, Will and Pierce stepped up to the spot and this time Will narrowly missed his spot kick while all others from Team UN and the Jordan team were made, ending Team UN’s run in the VISF.

It was a great tournament, Adri needs to be commended yet again for being the spearhead of a wonderful event that hopefully continues to be the highlight of every summer.

Location Change for Kick-About!

Attention to all players interested, we’ll be moving our kick around to a new location starting today. These kick-abouts are open to all player and will be used for assessing any new player interested in joining Yaletown for 09-10 season.

Time: 7:30 pm (Mondays and Thursdays)

Pace: Andy Livingston Turf

Location: 600-798 Carrall St (corner of Carrel and Expo Blvd) : Map

Any questions: email Nima @  yaletownfc@hotmail.com

Vancouver International Soccer Festival

Today members (and future members) of Yaletown Football Club’s first team took the field twice during the Vancouver International Soccer Festival at David Lam Park (sandpit *cough*) under the name Team United Nations. This is in the spirit of the event where members of nations around the world are competing in 2 divisions, Mens & Co-Ed. Team UN is in group B of the Mens division alongside Serbia, Ismaili-Muslim  & IH World.

Formerly the Wish Cup, which YFC has won twice, the Vancouver International Soccer Festival is organized by Adri Hamael and so far has been a great success. Teams are playing fair, competitive footie and the general atmosphere of the event has been very positive so far.

Taking part in this year’s competition, YFC’s 4th year participating, are the following club members:

• Minoru Echizenya
• Will Meredith
• Allyn Fong
• Peter Rossing
• Darryl Sheepwash
• Sherman Lai
• Jose Burgos
• Nima Farahmand
• Stuart Trann
• Adam Jennings
• Antonio Rabelo
• Pierce Joneson 

Team UN won both their games at 1pm and 7pm against IH World & Ismaili-Muslim.

In the first match, Team UN won 3-0. Nima Farahmand slotted in the first against IH World, followed by a Will Meredith finish from distance & Jose Burgos was played into the box to work his way into shooting position to roof it past a helpless keeper.  This was somewhat of an easy match where Team UN had the run of play throughout. IH World were forced  into damage limitation and barely succeeded going down by three goals, having their post rung twice and at least two other clear chances were missed.

During a 6 hour layover spent at Soho and watching some matches on the grass, to everyone’s shock Peter Rossing popped up in False Creek. Fearless, Peter dove into the water to fetch a Yaletown Teamgeist ball booted there by someone. It made for quite the afternoon! Soon after Team UN’s next match kicked off against Ismaili-Muslim, which was a far more difficult game. They made for tough oppposition, however the end result was similar with a 3-1 victory. After a big challenge near half-way, Adam Jennings lasered a freekick through the wall into the bottom left corner. Will Meredith then finished off an Antonio cross, before Ismaili-Muslim pulled one back only for Will to put the game on ice with a neat finish after a well executed team move.

Tomorrow at 10am Team UN takes on Serbia who looked decent with a win & a loss.

Here you’ll find the fixtures for the tournament.

Tryouts Commence

Yaletown FC has opened its doors to all.

We are planning to put a team together, that not only can challenge for top spot next VMSL season, but also follow our motto of a socially active club…  

We’re looking for skilled players with a personality to match. We have a large mix of people in our club, and welcome people with all backgrounds and ages.

Tryouts open immediately (Just show up):

Location: False Creek Elementary (Grass field)
 
Address: 900 Lamey’s Mill Rd. Vancouver BC (MAP)
 
Time: 7:30pm (kick off time)

Days: Every Monday and Thursday

{Early candidates could qualify to play in our world tournament end of June}

Any questions: email yaletownfc@hotmail.com subject: Tryouts

Extremely late end of season update

Sorry all for the extreme tardiness of this post, as you can see YFC finished the 08/09 VMSL Division 2 season on 25 points in 4th place. The season overall was quite enjoyable to be part of, the team came together very well in the face of the departures of quite a few long-time, key members of the club. Though there were far too many draws that could and probably should have been converted into wins, the team performed admirably throughout the year.

The cup dream ended, in the tradition of past years, in the first round against Desmesh FC from Surrey. They played a solid match and YFC were their equals, but they managed to pull out the win after a defensive mixup. Theres always next season…

After another long season, many thanks are due to the tireless efforts of team manager Nima Farahmand, without whom we would have been utterly lost. He had some massive shoes to fill (namely those of Rahoul Ghose and Oleg Benesch) but he totally rocked it all season long, thanks Nima!

Glynn Roberts again provided the inspiration from the touchline and the many hours on the training ground, he ran the boys into the ground for another devastating pre-season and he ran drills like nobody’s business all year. Cheers once again Glynn, hope to see you next season!

Currently YFC are taking it easy and having fun at their bi-weekly kickarounds over at False Creek Elementary, feel free to swing by Monday and Thursday at 6:45pm.