Beijing Vikings wins Diamond Hill Cup

The Beijing Vikings Big Day Out 2009 Tianjin 7-side Tournament started from the Den on Saturday morning 9 am with the heavy breakfast. Only the Danish Embassy’s Friday night Tun Bar interns Breusch and Mads skipping the breakfast and joining the team little bit later as usual. Finally after about 2 hours trip we arrived to Tianjin, where friends from the Tianjin expat community were so kind to welcome us and escort to our hotel. Around 2 o'clock we arrived to the tournament venue, located to just next to the Tianjin Olympic football stadium. Finally the last little bit sleepy Vikings starting to wake up, when they get services and facilities like Olympic athletes, and the smell of the fresh grass coming from the pitch. Before the tournament Peter 'the Wizard' Viig reveals his tactics on how we will steal the Tournament Trophy and bring it back to Beijing. Basic strategy is that we start with 2 different teams; team 1 plays the first half and then team 2 the second half. Because of the extremely hot weather our tactic is to let the opponent do the running and concentrate more on moving to ball fast between us. In our first game tactics works perfectly and we beat our opponent Teda Warriors easily 3-0 (1-0). Team 2 played very well in the second half and created lot of good chances, so numbers could easily be much higher for us. MOM is Sebastian with lot of nice efforts and one fantastic goal, other goal scorers are Breusch and Jan E. In our second game we face Diamond Circle, a much stronger team than in a first one. But again our tactics and especially the defense worked very well. We don't let them create many goal chances and a few they get Aaron MOM stops confidently.  Again the Team 2 in a second half shows up some great plays and one of the strongest Vikings also in this game Sebastian makes an important goal, which guarantee victory for Vikings again by 1-0 (0-0). In a Final game we faced another very strong team Airbus Tianjin. Starting point for the game is that win or draw would give us win of the tournament. Off course our tactic is to win the game and leave from the tournament with the 3-0 winning streak. The first half is very even and both teams had only a few scoring chances. I the end of the first half the referee whistles very controversial hand foul and Airbus get free kick from close distance. Great shot didn’t let Aaron any chances and Airbus gets a 1-0 lead. In a second half we get better into to the game creating some great chances. Half way into the second half Sebastian gets fouled inside the box and penalty kick is rewarded for us. Cement MOM takes a great penalty shooting the ball confidently inside the net and with that bringing the Vikings again close to the Trophy! After nerve racking final minutes the final result is 1-1 and Vikings get their well-earned tournament victory. Trophy heading to Beijing and The Den! Then it's time to start celebrating the victory. Next to the pitch local expat community has arranged a big barbecue party with a free flow of beer.  And as you all know Vikings really know how to party and take advantage of the free beer, so evening basically continued getting back all the liquids that we had sweated earning the trophy. For some it needed more liquids and others a little bit less I guess. The secret layer of Ali Baba was the first destination of the night for the victorious Vikings! After finishing most of the local liquor in the local bar, the notorious gang headed to the Sitong nightclub to rape and pillage long into the night. Anyways, fortunately everybody found their way back to the hotel successfully (thanks to the location of the Xitong nightclub, next door from our hotel), and got little bit rest before heading back to Beijing next morning. All in all very nice trip and special thanks for Andreas Moeller for smooth arrangements!! Remember to check out the pictures from the tournament in the gallery!

/Jon Trausti and Niko Toroi