By Mars G. Alison
A total of 168 teams will be seeing action this weekend in the 4th Sinulog Football Festival, which is backed by Super Metro.
The tournament will be held in two venues—the Aboitiz Sports Field and the San Roque football field. Both venues are located in Mandaue City.
This annual tournament will feature 13 age-group categories still to follow a 7-A-Side festival format of play except for the Under 7 which will be a 5-A-Side.
Match Schedules Jan. 11, 2013
@ Aboitiz Sports Field
Under 7 Mix
Under 9 Mix
Under 11 Mix
Under 15 Girls
Under 18 Girls
@San Roque football field
Under 18 Boys
Under 15 Boys
Under 13 Boys
The Men’s Open, Ladies Open, Inter-BPO, Inter-Company and 38-Above will be held on Sunday.
The 2014 age cut-off will also be observed in this year’s undertaking of the tournament.
“This is something that we have always neglected but every time a year starts, all players must belong to a new age group and we are starting that with this year,” Rico Navarro, vice president of the Cebu Football Association (CFA), which is organizing the event, explained.
Aside from that, the Sinulog bootfest will also be the first tournament which will follow standardized festival-type tournament rules which the CFA is implementing this year for consistency as well as to better prepare the younger footballers for an 11-A-Side tournament as some of the rules are also applicable for the latter.
According to Dino Musni of the CFA, among the rules standardized is the use of the throw-in instead of kick-ins.
Others are back passes using the feet to the goalkeeper cannot be handled using his or her hands. Unless a pass is made from above the knee; goal kick must be within the goalkeeper’s team’s half of the field and pitches must have a standard size of 30 x 50 meters.
Glenn Quisido, the CFA tournament director, said that the tournament will also continue to follow rules it has adhered to since its inception in 2011 such as no draw and the grace period will only be observed during the first game.
No draw means that elimination games that end in a tie score will be decided by a shootout.
Francis Ramirez, also one of the organizers, said that a separate pitch is prepared for the shootouts so as not to disrupt the match schedules.
Match Proper
Teams to look out for in Saturday’s action are Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC), Springdale, Abellana National School (ANS) and Don Bosco Technology Center (DBTC) as they battle for the U18 title.
It will be an uphill battle for defending champions ANS to retain its title with the Magis Eagles, Springdale and DBTC all having showed strong performances in big tournaments such as Milo Little Olympics Regional and National competition, Cesafi and CVIRAA.
Also to look out for is the University of San Carlos in the U18 Girls and the Lahug FC in the U11.
Also this year, the awarding will be immediately done after the championship match of each category.
Super Metro
This annual football tournament almost did not happen if it weren’t for Super Metro which stepped in to become the event’s major sponsor.
The Sinulog Foundation Inc. (SFI), which has been supporting the event, has begged off for this year following several cuts in its budget.
CFA had scrambled on how to accommodate the request of the Cebu football community to continue holding the tournament after SFI backed out as its major sponsor.
Fortunately, a British consultant of Super Metro, one of the biggest department store chains in the Philippines, was able to convince the management to throw support behind the tournament.
This was also the reason why a lesser number of teams have signed up for the event as compared to last year as the invites were only sent out last month after a major sponsor was secured for the event.
