FYI. Dallas Dragon team has made a BIG impression on the Chinese Soccer
Community.
-----Original Message-----
From: szhang@nacsl.com [mailto:szhang@nacsl.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 2:04 PM
To: mark.chen@santera.com
Subject: Report on 2001 Grand -- congratulations to Mud
9/1-9/2/2001, LA, California. 2001 Grand.
National Champion: South Bay Bud United!
Team Rank: Red/Yellow Cards
1. Mud -- South Bay Mud United, California / 5
2. Tiger -- Silicon Valley Tigers, California / 5
3. NYWW -- New York Wild Wolves, New York /10
TX -- Dallas Dragons, Texas 2/ 5
5. CB -- CalBlue, north CA, California / 9
NYCU -- New York Chinese United, New York 3/ 5
Honta -- Chicago Honta, Illinois / 3
Eagle -- Chinese Eagles, Wisconsin / 4
9. TH -- Tsinghua Veterans, NY/NJ/CA/etc / 5
10. ASU -- Arizona State U, Arizona / 2
11. SCU -- South California United, California / 4
---------------------
Day 1:
Group A Tigers Mud TX TH pt/GD/GF
Tiger 0:2* 1:0 2:0 6/ 1/ 3
Mud 2:0* 1:1 2:2 5/ 2/ 5
TX 0:1 1:1 2:0 4/ 1/ 3
TH 0:2 2:2 0:2 1/ -4/ 2
*: The third game -- both teams sent mostly bench players.
Group B NYCU NYWW Honta SCU
NYCU 1:1 1:0 3:0 7/ 4/ 5
NYWW 1:1 1:1 2:1 5/ 1/ 4
Honta 0:1 1:1 2:1 4/ 0/ 3
SCU 0:3 1:2 1:2 0/ -5/ 2
Group C CB Eagles ASU
CB 3:0 2:1 6/ 4/ 5
Eagles 0:3 3:0 3/ 0/ 3
ASU 1:2 0:3 0/ -4/ 1
---------------------
Day 2
Friendly games: TH 3:2 ASU, TH 2:0 SCU, ASU 1:0 SCU.
Tiger 2 \
Tiger 0 -
Honta 0 / \ Tigers 0 ---
NYWW 1 \ / \
NYWW 0 - \
CB 1 / Mud (champion!)
NYCU 1 \ /
TX 3 - /
TX 1 / \ Mud 0 ---
Mud 2 \ /
Mud 4 -
Eagle 0 /
---------------------
Some personal comments by ZHANG Shangyou :
(mostly for people not be able to go to the grand. Please
excuse szhang if you disagree or if he is wrong somewhere)
1. The team levels are the closest of all grands.
2. Far away tournament made most teams well prepared this
tournament. For example, the average player numbers
of all teams would be about 25-26, while typically it
is about 18-20.
3. The fields are superb. And a huge group of Mexican
referees are very professional! A lot of players asked
to come back to play next year grand there.
4. The cost is also tripled the normal grand cost too.
Thanks to Walter Yuan of Eagles to get a huge sponsorship
from the Chinese Consulate at LA, and other sources.
5. Thanks to UCLA CSSA and its Chair LIU Zhenyu Victor.
This grand has 4 referees and the 4th referee from UCLA
checked all players' photo ID and CSL cards. The
substitution was well controlled.
6. West teams did much better than "traditional" east teams!
Some players suggested to have an east champion and
a west champion prior to the gran champion in future.
7. The competition level is getting higher each year. Playing
three or even two games in a day seems hard on many teams
and players. I mean, the first game each day seems much
tough than the later games. Players are tired after and
later games have kind of random scores. Well, maybe the
average player age is increased by nearly 1 each year!?
8. Further/brief comments on each team.
1) Mud -- South Bay Mud United, California
It is the first appearance of the team at the grand.
But the team started back at the end of 1997. With a
super star forward (first appearance) Bob, the team
is doubtless one of the strongest.
2) Tiger -- Silicon Valley Tigers, California
Well, people often use the term San-Lian-Guan (three times
champion) but Tigers are unluck to be San-Lian-Ya!
If there is a poll prior to the tournament, Tigers would
be voted number one probably. It seems to me people always
favor Tigers to win before each game in this tournament.
3) NYWW -- New York Wild Wolves, New York
The oldest team in our community is not old! The team
keeps its special spirit -- running crazy. No team would
get an easy point from WW! In the 6 matches Tigers had
this grand, I felt only at the semi-final game with WW
Tigers were kind of worry, or under pressure, or ...
4) TX -- Dallas Dragons, Texas
This is the second time appearance of the Texas team.
The team has tried many years but most time had to give
up for lack of players to go. At 1999 grand, they got
only 10 players going and had to united with many other
team. But this time, it got most of its good players to
go! But still, it seems not enough players. In the
semi-final against Mud (in group game, 1:1), it led the
match 1:0 and suddenly it swung to 1:4!!! Well, injuries
and 2 red cards (in the quarter final against NY Chinese
United -- another toughest game in this tournament)
made quite a few players of Dallas off the game. Of
course, Mud players are tired too and need to preserve
some energy for the final. More or less for this reason
TX came caught up to 3:4 (highest score of the tournaments).
5) CB -- CalBlue, north CA, California
Well, CalBlue is one of the oldest team too. Its forward
players are still the best. But not luck enough to lose
penalty kicks at the quarter final (1:1) to NYWW. Otherwise
NO east team would be in fianl 4!
6) NYCU -- New York Chinese United, New York
This is its second appearance. Most of its players are
second generation immigrants. Many people commented this
is the best team. It won the seond World Cup for overseas
Chinese in England a few years ago (but did not do well
this year at the 4th World Cup at Canada.) Both last year
and this year, the team was very relaxed the first day,
and in lead the second day game. However, both times,
letting the opponent catch up. I think the tireness of
the key players made the team lost its sharpness.
7) Honta -- Chicago Honta, Illinois
This Chicago team showed up several times in the grand.
But definitely, it is getting stronger each year! It
nearly defeated NYWW in group with 1:0 lead for a long
time.
8) Eagle -- Chinese Eagles, Wisconsin
Eagles is a long history team. But since 1997, the team
seems to go down each year. Though it is a very strong
team, but few would expect it to win the champion this
year. In 1997, it lost to the champion Tsinghua at the
last few minutes with 3:4. Hope it can get back to that
level again.
9) TH -- Tsinghua Veterans, NY/NJ/CA/etc
Well, after the first grand in 1996, on captain email
list, some commented that no one would ever win the
national champion as long as Tsinghua team exists.
And some even suggested me to ban Tsinghua from the
grand. You see, how strong Tsinghua veterans team is/was!?
It won the first two grand champoins "easily".
At its first game against Tigers, I joked to some players
that we put the championship game first! But no one
would believe it that Tsinghua could not even get out
of the group! Well, if it does, then the final 4 teams
are all from group A (only NYWW went to final 4 not in
this group.)
10)ASU -- Arizona State U, Arizona
This is a new team! ASU has young players and many
excellent players. Most are students. If the team can
survive for a few years, it would be definitely one of
the best -- just like Maryland College Park team!
ASU lacks experience in playing whole field. Except
not so good for the first few minutes of the very first
game against Eagles, I do not feel ASU as a young/new
team at all! It plays at a very high level against
any teams.
11)SCU -- South California United, California
This is a local team. As always, local team could not
do well. With so many Chinese students around, this LA
team has a lot of good players. But without experience
and good cooperation, it is hard to survive in such a
competetive national tournament. I am sure this team
would be quite different if the grand is held in LA
again next year!
Thanks to all who supported/participated in this grand!
By the way, Tsinghua's former captain CHEN Wei will take my "job"
from now on, and will coordinate all future grand tournaments!
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