Students from team Central America won Suffolk University Football Club’s World Cup during the annual event, hosted at East Boston Memorial Park April 6.
“It was a lot of fun, a lot of people from last year’s world cup were there. There was better chemistry there. We had a couple new members who joined us this year, they were part of the Suffolk team. They helped elevate the team a little bit more and I feel like that’s how we won,” said Maximo Abad, the club’s vice president who was on team Central America.
Though impacted by unfortunate rain, the event went on without a hitch giving soccer fans from across the university a chance to take part in friendly competition. SUFC’s World Cup saw over 100 sign ups this year from both men and women.
Featuring regional teams of 11 players from North America, South America, Central America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Oceania, the teams played in a tournament-style format. This event mixed the immense passion of soccer fans from across the world with the drive to show out in front of their fellow students.
“The competitiveness was really crazy. We had a couple interesting calls, per say, and the entire team was like ‘what the heck?’,” said Kostas Winslow, the club’s president. “It was very competitive, but it was a good competitive. When it comes to football culture, it’s very competitive so it was very nice to have that culture of sport in an event we were hosting.”
Players from all levels of experience showed up, from people who play as a hobby to players from Suffolk’s varsity soccer teams.
The SUFC World Cup Final saw team Central America go up against team Asia in a winning effort. The game went to penalty kicks and ended 4-2.
“It was tense. The game was 0-0 throughout the first half, then we broke the tie five minutes into the second half. Then Asia came back right after. We were tied then the game ended, so we had to go in penalties,” said Abad. “It was stressful. Our goalkeeper for penalties blocked two back-to-back and that’s how it ended.”
Playing in front of an audience of friends and foes from the tournament, students who just play recreationally got to experience the feel of a crowd cheering them on.
“Most of it was players who got defeated and were still interested in seeing who’d win. We had a bit of an audience, it was a lot of fun. Everyone knew what was going on, so everyone had their favorites and who they wanted to win,” said Abad.
Due to the limited number of spots on each roster some students had to play for regions that weren’t their first choice, but the event presented a fun, competitive environment for all players regardless of who they played for. When it came to balancing each team, giving all teams a fair shot was a priority.
“We try to put varsity guys on separate teams. One of the missions of our club is that anyone can show up and play. Anyone who wants to play, we want to welcome them,” said Jose Wellington, the club’s event coordinator.
According to Wellington, aside from one game, every game was a close-scoring affair where it could’ve gone either way for the teams involved.
Abad agreed, noting that this was a huge improvement over last year where there were many more blowouts.
“We wanted to make sure all the teams were competitive because last year there were a lot of blowouts. We wanted them to be a bit more balanced, and I think we achieved that this year. All of the games were close,” said Abad.
With the success of this event, they hope that this event will soon become a celebration of culture for a diverse Suffolk campus.
This year they began giving people armbands with club logos so they could not only represent their country, but their respective clubs on campus. According to Wellington, next year they hope to go even further than that.
“Our ambition for the event is to create the best event on campus. We’re still working to be more representative of food and activities from the continents. We want to invite clubs next year to have booths with Asian food, African food and more,” said Wellington.
SUFC’s World Cup is just the next step in the rapid growth of this relatively new club on campus. Winslow commented on this growth noting how different it’s gotten in just the last couple years.
“The growth has been crazy honestly. I joined back in my freshman year, it was more focused on pickups. Now we’re doing pickups but we’re also doing events, so the growth has been pretty interesting and we’re still getting new members which is amazing. We’ve always had a big influx of members, but now we’re growing our event program which is pretty interesting,” said Winslow.
Winslow noted how it’s very easy for students to get involved with SUFC. If a student is interested in participating next year, it’s as simple as joining their WhatsApp group and getting involved.
Anyone interested in participating is welcomed to contact SUFC on Instagram @Suffolk_FC.
