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Sunday, July 5, 2015

B-67'S SUCCESS STORY CONTINUES

The first major trophy of the Greenlandic outdoor football season, the City Cup, which is competed for by most of the football clubs in and around the nation's capital Nuuk, was won, perhaps predictably, by B-67.

However, they were pushed all the way by IT-79, who continue to impress and were narrowly defeated 1:0 by B-67 in the City Cup final, which was held on 22/06/15 at the Nuuk Stadion. Five teams took part in this year's competition, which kicked off on 10/06/15; apart from B-67 and IT-79, NÛK, GSS and new boys NB-15 were in action. Most of the teams had players selected for the Greenland team which left for Denmark for a mini-tour in mid-June before taking part in the Island Games in Jersey, which commenced at the end of June, so it was a good chance for fringe squad-members to stake a claim to a first-team spot.

Matches in the competition consist of two halves of 30 minutes each, and, in spite of the games not lasting the regulation 90 minutes, there were an impressive number of goals scored. The City Cup was initiated by the Nuuk Firma Forbund (Nuuk Business League) in 2004 - B-67 have now won the competition eleven times in a row - and there are now five competitions which, since 2014, fall under the auspices of the NBU (Nuuk Boldspil Union), the regional football association. 

These are: A - Seniors (i.e. first team); B - under-18 and veterans (over-35s); and C - women's teams and Oldboys (over-45s). B-67 There are also two further underage competitions which will be played at the brand spanking new (but not full-size) artificial pitch at Nuussuaq, which was inaugurated on 30/6/15.

NB-15 were playing in their very first outdoor competition, and it was evident in their first couple of matches.
Their first-ever fixture saw them on B-67 on 12/6/15, but there was to be no dream start; they were soundly thrashed 14:0. Consolation, however scant, could perhaps have been found in the fact that B-67 put 13 past GSS in the competition's opening match, which took place two days earlier. They recovered sufficiently from their experience at the hands of B-67 by recording their maiden victory against GSS on 14/6/15, winning 4:2.

IT-79, themselves still fairly new to the Greenlandic football scene, continued to impress and kept up their run of fine form from last year which led to their finishing in third place in last year's national championship. They drew their first match 3:3 with NÛK and then achieved a more than acceptable 1:1 draw against B-67 before inflicting the second double-figure defeat suffered by NB-15, winning by 10 goals to 1. 

NÛK were also proving difficult opponents for anyone in their way, and eventually finished undefeated in third place behind IT-79 on goal difference, their inability to score freely against GSS and NB-15 ultimately nullifying their hopes of making it to the final.

Meanwhile, GSS, Nuuk's oldest surviving team, went on to lose their next two games, against NÛK and IT-79, losing 6:0 to the team in purple, white and black, and finish bottom. NB-15, courtesy of their victory over GSS, finished in fourth place.

That was an achievement in itself, considering the brevity of the club's history and the limited amount of time they had to come together as a team. A number of the players had founded a Futsal team at the beginning of 2015, and the club itself was only founded in May 2015. Mikael Rosing, the NB-15 manager, said that the NFB (Nuuk Fodbold Bond) had written to him "less than a fortnight before the competition as due to begin, asking us to play the City Cup, and we did it! Our team was very optimistic. We lost three times and won one game, but we left the stadium with pride and glory!"

NB-15 will not be taking part in qualification for the 2015 national championship as they will be concentrating on getting into shape for next year's championships, both indoor and outdoor. Hopefully, they will not go the way of Tugak and Tuktu; both clubs made appearances in the City Cup and regional qualifiers for the national championship in the 2000s but then disappeared without trace. 

B-67, on the other hand, will be using their city championship triumph as a confidence-booster going into the GM2015, though Christian Laursen, who doubles as club chairman and chairman of the NBU, was somewhat surprised that his team won the competition. 

"Actually, we were a bit surprised that we won, 10 players from our first team left with the national team to the Island games, so we played the last 2 games in the tournament with a mix of the rest of the first team, U18 and Oldboys players, we even had one player from the U15 team. It wasn't pretty but we won both games."

Laursen was also a little disappointed with the standard of football on offer during the tournament, but explained that there were valid reasons for this: "We had a very long winter this year [there was still snow at Nuuk Stadion until just before the tournament started], and the first game in the city championship this season was played on the 10th of June, none off the teams had any training before the games started, and I think this made the level of football low."

Watch out, though, for IT-79; they will prove a handful and will surely be looking to match, if not improve on, last year's fine third-place finishes in both the national indoor and outdoor championships. They will be hard pushed to do so, however, by NÛK. The Nuuk/central Greenland regional championship will be a hard-fought affair and will be one to watch. Whoever qualifies for the GM2015 will have earned the right to do so.

Please find below the results of the 2015 Nuuk City Cup A-tournament.

GROUP STAGE

10/06/15 19:50 B-67 13:0 GSS
10/06/15 21:00 IT-79 3:3 NÛK
12/06/15 21:00 B-67 14:0 NB-15
14/06/15 17:30 B-67 1:1 IT-79
14/06/15 18:40 GSS 2:3 NB-15
15/06/15 20:20 GSS 0:3 NÛK
16/06/15 19:50 B-67 0:0 NÛK
16/06/15 21:00 IT-79 10:1 NB-15
18/06/15 19:50 GSS 0:6 IT-79
18/06/15 21:00 NÛK 6:1 NB-15




TEAM
P
W
D
L
GF
GA
PTS
GD
B-67
4
3
1
0
28
1
10
27
IT-79
4
2
2
0
20
5
8
15
NÛK
4
2
2
0
12
4
8
8
NB-15
4
1
0
3
6
32
3
-26
GSS
4
0
4
4
2
26
0
-24


FINAL

22/06/15 20:00 B-67 1:0 IT-79


TOP GOALSCORERS: Malik JUHL (B-67) 5 goals; Jens Peter DAHL (NÛK) 4; Jakob FLEISCHER (IT-79) 4; Lars MØLLER (NÛK) 4; Julius MOTZFELDT (IT-79) 4; Nikki PETERSEN (B-67) 4; Frederik FUNCH (B-67) 3; Lullu KLEIST (B-67) 3; Jens SIEGSTAD (NB-15) 2; Sallu SIMONSEN (NB-15) 2


OTHER RESULTS

SECTION B FINAL

22/06/15 18:30 B-67 Veterans 1:0 B-67 Under-18s

GROUP TABLE: B-67 Veterans 10 pts; B-67 Under-18s 9; NÛK Veterans 7; IT-79 Under-18 3; GSS Under-18 0

SECTION C FINAL

22/06/15 17:00 NÛK Oldboys 4:1 GSS Oldboys

GROUP TABLE: NÛK Oldboys 12 pts; GSS Oldboys 6; NÛK Ladies 3; B-67 Ladies 0

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many thanks are due to the Nuuk Fodbold Union and, in particular, to its chairman Christian Laursen for allowing the above information to be used in this article and for providing much more. Thanks, too, go to NB-15 manager Mikael Rosing; hope to see much more of the team in the coming years. Good luck to them, and also to all of the teams taking part in the GM2015 regional qualifiers all around Greenland.



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