Intern. Maui Windsurfing Soccer Champs

18.04.2008

The International Maui Soccer Championships ends with sweet revenge for the Mistral team, with a big victory over Fanatic!

Today saw the rematch of the famous 2007 Mistral vs Fanatic International Soccer match on Maui, between members of the 2 brands windsurfing teams. In 2007 Fanatic pulled off a total domination with a final score of 12-3, a score which the Mistral team riders had to think of for 12 months. Mistral Marketing Manager Donald “Abramovich” Scholz spared no expense in 2008 to sign exclusive agreements with other brands riders to bolster his team, although for the sake of their careers we are not allowed to mention their names! Besides the “outside” help, the very strong Mistral team led by Nik Baker, Brawzinho and newly signed Mistral star Francisco Porcella had a slow start, with Fanatic scoring 2 goals in the very first minutes. However the Fanatic team was quite surprised to see the Mistral team gaining in strength from minute to minute, despite the best efforts of the Ceballos/Sanchez brothers, Victor Fernandez and Klaas Voget.

Soon the Mistral team had equalized and were challenging the Fanatic defense of Andre Paskowski, Laure Treboux and excellent goalie Andreas Olandersson, pulling ahead into a 6-3 lead at the half time. After some tough talk from the coach Fanatic Brand Manager Craig Gertenbach at half time, both sides opted to change a few players and team riders. Although the presence of some suspiciously Brazilian professional players was mildly protested by the Fanatic team, the second half started, with a new defence for the Fanatic team of Brand Manager Craig Gertenbach, Shaper Sebastian Wenzel and R&D team member Peter Slate. Despite some “aggressive tackling” by the Fanatic defence, the Mistral team poured on the pressure and Brawzinho,
Porcella and “imports” Alex Hasch (North Sails) and Ingo Meyer (Windsurfers mag Germany) broke through to score 4 more times. The Fanatic team could only answer once in the 2nd half, with a good effort by Wenzel to clear to the forward strikers the Ceballos/Sanchez brothers, for a final score of 10-4.

The ecstatic Mistral team celebrated their victory with a few beers, the Fanatic team looking quite disappointed, but still stylish with their professionally printed soccer shirts, sail no´s and names all printed on the backs. Afterward both teams enjoyed some great Pizza and drinks at the Flatbread Company in Paia. After quite a few drinks, Ben “Chopper” Proffitt and Dan Ellis managed to figure out that the Fanatic team is still ahead after the 2 encounters by goal difference! However all agreed that the rematch in 2009 will be even sweeter, perhaps this time the other brands who refused to join in the fun this year will also be a part of the Championships, since many of their team riders have anyway been playing “incognito” for Mistral the last 2 seasons!

Fanatic Brand Manager Craig Gertenbach had the following to say:
“Well done to the M° team, it seems the addition of certain key players like Francesco Porcella and others has really helped them both on the water and on the soccer pitch! We had to concede to a better team today, so I guess it was sweet revenge for the M° team after the whipping they got last year from us! But it was a lot of fun and we plan to play a bit more in the next days since there is no wind anyway. Just a pity the JP and Starboard team declined our offer to join in, as they obviously were too busy and too worried about injuries, maybe next year!”

Mistral Marketing Manager Donald “Abramovich” Scholz:
“What a game….it could not be better….after a great year in 2007 with winning the PWA Freestyle World Championship we finally could even beat the Fanatic Soccer World Champion Team. We are very happy about it, but of course we should not forget to mention that we needed some help from outside. But nevertheless we beat them and looking forward to matching them again next year. Thankx to everybody…."

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