Memorial Cup Tournament, SA - "Not a real tournament".

Just returned from San Antonio Memorial cup hosted by Lions FC.

Summary impression - WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

Fields are located actually in Schertz, not SA itself. which would
be the only good thing that lets you to avoid holiday traffic.

Fields are not the greatest, worse then Plano fields.
Adding unpaved parking and roads around the fields.
We ended up to swallow the dust and flying sand pretty during whole game.

96 boys teams were split into 3 groups - Gold, Silver and Bronze,
four teams each. Three games total, with no championship or playoff games at all. In our group (Gold) one team forfeited, so we have to play only two games total.

But worst of all were referees.

First game we tied, 2:2, but
first goal against us was from offsite.
second goal even better. during the corner kick, someone pushes our goalkeeper to the ground right after the kick, so ball coming to the goalie box with the GK on the ground...

Second game was against host team Lions FC.
Our manager counted that they have too many players on the field comparing to the roster, three players didn't have numbers on the jerseys and first their coach refuses to give their names to our manager.
He said "Why do you care. This is not real tournament"
When he finally gave their names, one of the player's name was not on the roster. After while, tournament director said that that player was added to the roster last moment, so original roster was not up-to-date.
and also, by tournament rules players do not have to have numbers on the jerseys.
I would be really tempted to see some players IDs, as they looked really old.
And considering that Lions 95 team was in the draft schedule, but not in the final, I would be not surprised to find them among the 96 team we played.

During the whole game, referee was playing on their side allowing them to faul against our players (push, kick, trip, elbow). He was calling only their REALLY obvious violations.
He was really strict against our players. And never hesitated to give warning to us and ball to Lions when situation was not clear.

The only goal scored against us was again, after their player pushed our defender to the ground and ball reflected into the goal.
Referee shortened first half to 35 minutes, and second half to 37 minutes,
while rules clearly say - 40 minutes halves for this age group.

I SUGGEST YOU NEVER GO THERE, as even their coach said
"THIS IS NOT REAL TOURNAMENT" anyway.

3 years ago Odyssey 96 went to that tournament. We won our 1st game and the 2nd game was rained out. The next day the game that was rained out ( against the host Lion team) was rescheduled for immediately after our 2nd game so we had to play 2 games back to back. Of course, the Lion team did not have any games before playing us and we lost. We won our second game and had enough points to win the championship as if rained that afternoon. You are correct in stating that the fields are poor and it is not a good tournament to attend.

soccerdad1 wrote:3 years ago Odyssey 96 went to that tournament. We won our 1st game and the 2nd game was rained out. The next day the game that was rained out ( against the host Lion team) was rescheduled for immediately after our 2nd game so we had to play 2 games back to back. Of course, the Lion team did not have any games before playing us and we lost. We won our second game and had enough points to win the championship as if rained that afternoon. You are correct in stating that the fields are poor and it is not a good tournament to attend.

I wish I knew that before going... Coach said it was a good tournament to participate.
Well, I guess, people have different tastes...
May be someone will see these messages and will not make the same mistake we did

I can bid you that most out of town teams that come to play in North Texas tournaments say the same thing. Last year our coach took two of his teams to San Antonio. My son played on one and both teams won first place. Yes the refs made bad calls and the fields were cow pastures, but the boys went to play and win, not worried about the handicappies they were going to face.

DownTown21 wrote:I can bid you that most out of town teams that come to play in North Texas tournaments say the same thing. Last year our coach took two of his teams to San Antonio. My son played on one and both teams won first place. Yes the refs made bad calls and the fields were cow pastures, but the boys went to play and win, not worried about the handicappies they were going to face.

Well, that is not a big problem when one team is much stronger then the other. In this case even the referee can't change the outcome.
But if teams are pretty close then the referee's subjectivity can really turn results over.

It is a shame when the referee takes sides in the game.
But if this is unavoidable then I prefer to go to North Texas tournaments