Despite having the strongest team in Europe for some years now, Eagles Napoli never won the most prestigious Club honour table football has to offer. However, this year was different, for the first time in history the Eagles won the FISTF Europa Cup held in the city of Almada in Portugal.
The group stage of this competition provided some top-quality matches and in each group it was hard to predict the outcome, mainly due to the high-quality field of clubs participating in Almada.
GROUP 1
Eagles Napoli were clear favourites to finish top of the group. Despite ther being strong teams such as Murcia, Atlas and Dias Ferreira, none of them could measure up to the great Eagles. Eagles won all of their matches, without conceding a lost match. Despite beating Asociacion Murciana, Atlas lost their match against Belgium’s Stembert, in what can be seen as a shock defeat, however they still managed to place second ahead of Murcia only on goal difference. Stembert lost a decisive match against GD Dias Ferreira, therefore counting them out of the latter stages and fixing them in a group fighting for the 17th to 20th place.
GROUP 2
Group 2 was a group where you couldn’t figure out who would finnish top, there were 4 teams of an equal level all fighting for the top spot. Amongst these were Belgian Giants, AS Hennuyer, 2004 Champions Reggiana and Portuguese National Champions, Orfeao de Foz do Douro. The first clash of the titans was between Hennuyer and Reggiana, this ended in a 2-2 draw. Hennuyer then went on to beat Foz do Douro and lost narrowly 2-1 against DEVILS. Reggiana lost 2-1 to the DEVILS to secure the Austrian’s the top place in the group. Hennuyer and Reggiana finnished equal on points, with Hennuyer ousting Reggiana on goal difference, while Foz do Douro finnished fourth.
GROUP 3
The favourites in this group were TFC Mattersburg and Stella Artois Milano, however San Siro and Roligans provided worthy challenges and some big upsets. Although Mattersburg lost the most important match against Stella Artois, they still came round to finnishing top in the group, mainly due to Stella Artois defeat to San Siro and draw against Roligans. San Siro came through their encounter against Roligans unscratched and won all four matches leading to a 4-0 thrashing of Roligans.
GROUP 4
Group four was the group packed with the most quality and talent. The favourites to win this group wer Charleroi and Perugia and it seemed very unlikely that one of the two wouldn’t win it. However the Europa Cup is full of surprises and the Parisian club of Issy-les-Molineaux managed to take the top-spot. Issy were made to fight hard for their success and 3-1 and 2-0 wins against Perugia and Charleroi respectively were the key to their success. However Charleroi’s draws against Delft and Os Pastilhas and Perugia’s defeat at the hands of Catalunya did nothing but help their euopean conquest. The decisive 2nd place match between Charleroi and Perugia ended 3-0 in the Italian Club’s favour.
LATTER STAGES
In the last 16 stage we saw very little surprises, CS Reggiana overcame their Italian Rivals, Stella Artois Milano. Hennuyer defeated the newly-formed San Siro Worthing with a comfortable 2-0 scoreline. Charleroi of Belgium thrashed the mighty Atlas Athens with a score of 3-0 while the other greek team, Roligans Ilioupolis lost only by goal average to the highly-rated DEVILS Austria.
In the Quarter-Finals, the most closely-fought match was that between TFC Mattersburg and Charleroi, in which the Carolos came out on top in a 2-1 victory. Elsewhere the Italian giants, Perugia and Eagles trounced DEVILS Austria and Reggiana respectively, both by an identical 3-0 scoreline.
The Semi-Finals were very closely fought and where not as predictable as the previous matches. The hard-working Charleroi squad had to bow to the expertise of the reigning European Champions, ACS Perugia, however the Italians were made to work hard for their win and only came up with a narrow 2-1 win. In the other match, the Eagles had an easier time beating Hennuyer from Mons in Belgium, where they came out of the match in a comfortable 2-0 win.
Once again, the final was an all-Italian affair, and like last year it was between Perugia and Eagles Napoli. It was a closely-fought match and both sides showed strength, however in the end the Eagles had their way and won 2-1. The only win for Perugia came from their new signing, Maltese Massimo Cremona, who beat Antonio Mettivieri. The Eagles’ wins came from Vasco Guimaraes (against Andrea Di Vincenzo) and Vincenzo Varriale (against Francesco Mattiangeli), while the die-hard Napolitano, Massimo Bolognino settled with a 2-2 draw against Massimo Nastasi and Stefano De Francesco.
