Mark Gauci crowned Maltese King

 

 

 

During the third weekend of May, the MTFSA came to its end of season championship when at the Victor Tedesco Stadium, the Malta Championship was organized. A total of eight players played the league against each other in this one day event. All matches were tight as all players have been recently showing great performance. The Premier division was made up from Joe Mifsud, Derek Conti, Joe Borg Bonaci, Hansel Mallia, Samuel Bartolo, Mark Gauci, Charles Aquilina and Adrian Bonnici.

During the first matches nothing was yet decided as all players lost points against each others’ opponents. However after five games, Mallia was leading the table with 11 points winning over Mifsud 3-1 and Bonaci 2-1, followed by Mifsud with 10 points and Gauci and Bartolo aligned with both 8 points. The last matches meant to be decisive and the direct matches were scheduled. This meant that several changes took place with the title bouncing from one player to another with Gauci, Mallia, Mifsud, Bartolo and Bonaci all heading for the final run.

However, Gauci kept his nerves and obtained two consecutive wins to leave his direct opponents stuck to lost points in draw matches to gain lead and finishing winner of this competition and crowned Maltese Champion. With this title, Gauci will be the top Maltese players representing Malta in the individual competition of the World Cup this summer. SamuelBartolo will be the second top Maltese after winning the Malta Cup, while Massimo Cremona obtained direct qualification from the World Rankings.

 

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Samuel Bartolo wins the Malta Knock Out for the 2nd season

                       

Samuel Bartolo obtains his second season in a row winning the Malta Knock Out and a direct World Cup qualification in the individual category.

Although a limited number of participants took part, the Malta Knock Out was held at the Victor Tedesco Stadium. The winner of this competitions obtained qualification to represent Malta in June’s World Cup to be held in Austria. No seedings were set for this event and in the preliminary stage, top players Joe Mifsud and Massimo Cremona faced each other with Mifsud dominating this encounter winning 4-0. In the quarter finals, local winner Derek Conti lost to Charles Aquilina and Adrian Bonnici to Samuel Bartolo. In the semi finals, Samuel Bartolo had the better of Joe Mifsud winning 4-0. In the other match, Charles Aquilina faced Hansel Mallia in a thriller from which the winner was only decided in the extra time after a 0-0 match. Aquilina scored the winner in the last minute of the extra time to obtain a place in the final.

In the final, Bartolo performed one of his best matches and by half time he had already obtained a decisive 3-0 lead against Aquilina. In the second half he controlled the match and besides conceding two goals for a final score of 3-2 he managed to obtain his first Knock Out in style.

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Local Circuit Winners

 

                    

1st Circuit Event -

Derek Conti beats Joe Mifsud 3-2

 

2nd Circuit Event -

Mark Gauci beats Joe Mifsud 3-2

 

3rd Circuit Event - 

Charles Aquilina beats Joe Mifsud 4-3

 

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• The MTFSA committee is to be announced during next Annual General Meeting to be held soon. More information to be adviced.

 

• Now that the season 2005/2006 is over, the new season will soon take its start and Maltese players Joseph Mifsud and Massimo Cremona will be involved in an International event to be held in October in Cardiff

 

• EUROPA CUP - Several Maltese players will be involved in this year's Europa Cup to be held in Lisbon.

 

• Transfers: Some of the Maltese players were also involved in this summer's transfer market. These include :

          Massimo Cremona joined ACS Perugia (Italy)

          Joseph Mifsud joined Atlas  (Greece)

          Mark Gauci joined Atlas (Greece)

          Samwel Bartolo joined Atlas (Greece)

          Stefan Pace joined Palermo (Italy)

  Other players were confirmed by their respective foreign clubs. These are :

        Hansel Mallia AS Hennuyer (Belgium)

       Charles Aquilina Catania (Italy)

       Jean Karl Tabone Palermo (Italy)

       Derek Conti AS Roma (Italy)

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Friday night table football comes to the international calendar when

Malta hosts a pre-weekend FISTF Challenger event in October.

 

The tournament will be organised by the college situated St Martin's

 

TFC in Birkirkira on Friday 27th October, where Open, U19 and

 

maybe U15 competitions are to be staged on six pitches.

 

It comes after a previous attempt to run a satellite event over two

 

midweek evenings at the college last June was cancelled due to

 

problems with the date and the availability of players.

 

The Challenger is one of several tournaments added to the

 

calendar in the past week.

 

The Verviers Grand Prix - International Open for teams - has been

 

rearranged for 3rd and 4th February, which will be exactly three months

 

before the host club's 40th birthday.

 

Meanwhile the Open of Traiskrichen will take place in Austria on 14th and 15th April.

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