It took a little Italian magic to prevent another big haul for the Team India machine at the 37th annual Nations Cup.
The three-day tournament, that determines cultural and ethnic bragging rights on the soccer pitch, produced a classic Open Division final as Italy scored a “golden goal” in extra time for a 3-2 victory over defending champion India.
The highly entertaining affair not only prevented India from winning its third Open title in four years — it meant the powerful program had to be satisfied with two titles after four of its teams reached the six division finals.
The Italians overcame plenty of adversity to capture their first Open title since 2007. They battled back from an early deficit and played without their leader Steve Kindel. The 39-year-old former Vancouver Whitecaps standout, during the club’s days in the USL, was red carded in Italy’s 2-1 semi-final win over Ireland.
With a line-up of youth and experience, Italy spoiled the party for the large pro-India crowd at the Hugh Boyd Oval — led by the efforts of tournament MVP and golden boot winner Carlo Basso, along with Top Defender recipient Jon Polli.
Basso, a recent SFU grad, was a perennial All-American, while Polli is a former CIS Nationals MVP with UBC (2005) who is now the Whitecaps strength and conditioning coach.
“They came into this year’s tournament under different leadership and sometimes when that happens you are little concerned when you have been dealing with the same people for a long time,” said Nations Cup president Jeff Wilson. “But give them credit. They were very well organized and certainly knew what they were doing putting this team together.
“The quality of soccer for the final was outstanding, especially when you consider those teams were playing their third game of the day. The thing that really jumped out at me again is the overall parity and how that seems to become more apparent every year.”
It was certainly no cake walk for the Italians to reach the championship game — picking up a point against a determined Scotland team to capture their group Sunday morning, then edging Ireland.
India also was battle tested — beating two very good teams Africa (2-0) and Croatia (2-1) to advance to the final four, then slipping past Fiji 1-0 in the semi-finals.
The recruiting efforts seem to be getting more intense each year too.
Wilson noted how Saudi Arabia flew in a Seattle area player who was playing out of Washington DC. It nearly paid off as a loss to Ireland prevent the Saudis from winning their group.
India also came up short in the Women’s Final, falling 1-0 to Canada on a late goal. Both teams entered the match with perfect 3-0 records and were missing some potential key players as provincial “A” champion Richmond FC were involved in a cross border challenge series.
Montana Leonard, who is fresh off graduation from McMath Secondary and is headed to the University of Calgary in September, was named the Tournament MVP.
India did manage to win the Over 38 title with a 2-0 win over Canada. The road to the title included a 1-0 semi-final victory against Serbia.
India also earned Over 52 honours with a 2-1 win over China. England secured Over 30 bragging rights with a 1-0 victory against rival Scotland. Germany took the Over 45 crown by blanking Germany 2-0.
