And there’s no doubt Peter Sakael’s coached Manus team are the best soccer team in the tournament following their 1-0 Besta FA Cup final defeat of the Madang at Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium on Saturday to retain the champions tag for the second year.
With the main focus of the International Food Corporation (IFC) sponsored tournament to ‘raise tomorrow’s champions’, IFC Sales and Marketing manager Roslan Wahed gave the thumbs up for another successful staged nationwide tournament but would like to see the centres utilising their unknown ‘grassroots’ talent playing in their Regional leg of the competition.
Manus trio’s captain Nigel Yohang, Lote Richard and Shane Sakael were superb in all department in beating the Momase champion Madang.
Proud coach Peter Sakael said his side has one aim going into the final and that was to retain the title they won last year.
Sakael said the outcome was the result of the players and the team management working together since day one.
“We are proud of this achievement and the credit goes back to the players to put their body on the line to achieve the result we deserve,” Sakael said.
Manus lived up to expectations as the champions in the pool stages, topped Pool B and advanced to the semi-finals, where there were pushed all the way to beat impressive Southern region champion Koupa three 5-4 in a penalty shootout.
The team’s victory would be a boost for the soccer in Manus especially for their team Admiralty FC in the National Soccer League 2015-2016 season.
In the third and fourth place play-off, Central’s Koupa 3 defeated Momase regional heavy-weights Lae Football Association 6-4 in a goal-fest.
In the women’s final, the Port Moresby Soccer Association beat Lae’s Lahi Football Association 1-0 from an only goal in the 13 minute by Jacklyn Chalau.
First place received a prize money of K20,000 with second place received K15,000 and K10,000 goes to the third place.