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Welcome to the website of Afghan United FC Vancouver! Afghan United FC Vancouver hosted the first ever Afghan Soccer Tournament on Labour Day long weekend, August 31st, September 1st and 2nd, 2002, in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. Teams that participated in the tournament were Alberta, Burnaby (local team), Concord, San Diego, Seattle, and the host team Vancouver. The tournament started with a draw on Friday evening, at Afghan Chopan Cuisine in Surrey, British Columbia. The 6 teams were drawn into two groups of 3 teams. The first group included Alberta, Concord and Burnaby and the second group consisted of San Diego, Vancouver and Seattle. Each team was guaranteed to play at least 3 games in the tournament. After the first round, the match-ups for the semi-finals were as follows: Concord vs. San Diego, and Alberta vs. Vancouver. Concord beat San Diego by a score of 2-0 while Vancouver beat Alberta by the same score of 2-0. So the match-up for the final, as expected by most people, was Concord vs. Vancouver. The third place game took place between Alberta and San Diego and San Diego was able to overcome by a score of 5-2. The final was a spectacular game full of entertainment. There was an approximate crowd of 500-600 people watching the game. Vancouver was able to open the scoring by a beautiful goal by the striker, Aziz Akhtary. Soon after the goal, Concord was able to fight back and tie the game by a breakaway goal by Sulaiman. Vancouver had a number of opportunities to take the lead during the remaining part of the first half, but the Concord goalie came in rescue. Nasir Lal, the Vancouver midfielder had a great opportunity to score a goal, only to be beaten by the Concord goalie. The game remained tie during the second half and went on to sudden death overtime. During the first few minutes of overtime, Vancouver was pushing forward to get the golden goal. This attacking scheme gave the Concord midfielder, Bilal a great breakaway opportunity to score the golden goal and finished Vancouver's dream of becoming first in the tournament. Therefore, Concord became first, Vancouver second and San Diego third in this entertaining Afghan Soccer Tournament. Individual medals for all the players were presented to the top 3 teams during the closing ceremony. The Best Rookie medal went to Zohur Jaan, only 14, of team Burnaby for his best performance in the tournament. The Best Goalie trophy went to the Concord goalie for his spectacular show during the final and the rest of the games. The Best Defence trophy went to Haroon Ururyar of Vancouver for his best performance during the tournament. And last but not least, the trophy for the MVP of the tournament went to Omar Arzo of the San Diego team for his excellent performance in the tournament. The organizers of this tournament once again thanks all the participating teams, Afghan Chopan Cuisine, Afghan-Canadian Women of BC and The Afghan Association of BC, Ayeena Afghan TV, Royal Banquet Hall, and all the Afghan brothers and sisters attending the games for their support and participations in this tournament.
Contact: Asim Niaz, (604) 626-3292 or mailto:aaniaz@telus.net This page was last updated on 09/26/02 11:15:32 PM. You are visitor number |
