Best Gift Ever

Written by Kong Chin Tuan, captain of the 1 Malaysia team that made it to the Final of the Elevyn Futsal Tournament.

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Introduction

Fair Trade Futsal Tournament is a fund-raising futsal tournament put together to raise funds through a sporting event to help artisans in poverty. Why? Fair Trade is about recognizing the producers behind the items we use. It is about buying responsibly and saying no to sweatshop conditions, underpaid workers and child labour.
(Source: www.elevyn.com/futsal/)

1 Malaysia is a team comprising ordinary individuals with extraordinary humour and heart. The heartbeat of this multiracial team is in the likes of M.L. Chai, H.L. Cheng, C.T. Kong, Mohd Al Hazim, Surya, C.H Tan, T.H. Tan & Diksha.

Short of some of their full team members, these individuals were reunited on this eventful and memorable day, 29th Nov 2009 after more than 6 months of NOT playing on the same pitch together.

1 Malaysia got into this tournament via an invitation by a kind and caring lady by the name of S.L. Khing. 1 Malaysia’s main objective was to ‘fair-play’ and be charitable. Little did the team know that they were going to progress to a place higher beyond expectations.

A Sorry End For A Terrific Beginning

Many might think that 1 Malaysia must be a happy team, to have won the silver medals despite not having played together for at least half a year. Deep down in my heart, it was the bond of team that made me and probably us happier than the medals did.

Team 1 Malaysia

What happened? In the first group match against SOLS Blue Lions, it was the final seconds of the match. 1 Malaysia had clawed back from a goal down and was now leading 3-1. A wonderful pass comes to Al Hazim’s legs. He turns free of his marker and readies a shot. And BOOM!! 4-1. Unfortunately came the follow through by the defender and SNAP!! Al Hazim’s ankle gave way under his whole body weight. A substitution was made and as soon as the kick-off was taken, PHWEET!! The game was over. 1 Malaysia won 4-1 but lost the player who scored a hattrick in the 1st game.

Hazim's swollen ankle

After that game, our minds were no longer on the tournament. Hazim was at the bench, agonizing in pain. St. John Ambulance volunteers were busy working on his foot, with the wrong ointments. So, Diksha and me, ex St. John cadets ourselves took over and gave the young cadets some advice. Maybe they just panicked a little, as it was the first case of the day. Soon Hazim was on his way to the University Hospital with the company of T.H. Tan. At that, the team that started off with 8 was now down to 6.

The Game Must Go On

We watched blankly at the other matches’ going on around us, each silently hoping that everything is well. Once in a while, we would call over to check the status of our poor friend. The next game was coming up. Hazim was still waiting his turn at the hospital. It seems T.H. Tan will not be back in time for the game. We restructured and re-gathered our spirits. We can’t let our friends down after such a great start. H.L. Cheng upped his game and 1 Malaysia beat Youth Asia 3-0. As soon as the final whistle went, we were on the phone again to check on our friend.

Hazim was receiving inspection and treatment. Good news finally came but not without some bad ones too. Hazim was cleared to leave hospital. 1 Malaysia only needed a draw to go through to the next stage as group leaders. The bad news is, there was only 10 minutes left before our next match. M.L. Chai was ready to go fetch them from the hospital. T.H. Tan may have sacrificed his best chance of playing in the tournament, being one of our weaker players. A tough decision to continue without them was made. 1 Malaysia drew 0-0 with Crazy Gang and was through to the knockout stage.

As soon as the game was over, the entire team sped off to the hospital. Talk about team spirit. That was one true example. Got there, fooled around a bit and we were soon back at the Challenger Sports Center. Grabbed our lunch and got ready for the next stage that we never expected to arrive at. Other teams we already seen warming up on the courts. Our next opponents were SOLS 24/7.

May The Best Team Win

That game was a thriller. SOLS 24/7 went a goal up, we got back at them. Again they went ahead, and again we got back at them. It was a non-stop action game that got the crowd on the edge of their seats. The game ended 2-2.

All eyes were set as the penalty takers got ready. SOLS 24/7 first spot kicker put the ball at the back of the net. I was up next. Calmly setting up the ball, a short run and GOAL!! 1-1. Their next kicker got ready and took his kick. Our goalkeeper, Surya dived to the right direction and managed to keep the ball out. H.L. Cheng made it 2-1 for us and their last player also managed to score. The pressure was on Diksha but he brought us to the next round with his well-taken penalty. We were overjoyed.

HL Cheng Taking His Spot Kick

We were through to the semis. CLC FC was the next team against us. We stuck with our game plan, which was to win no matter what as we have already gotten so far. Both teams were in search for a sole goal and to defend thereafter. We tested them as much as they tested us. Soon came an opportunity at a counter attack and we did not waste it. 1 Malaysia won again and this time the score line was 1-0. IT WAS THE FINALS. WE WERE THROUGH TO THE FINALS. This has been an awesome experience thus far regardless of what have happened.

However, our shortcomings surfaced evidently in the Finals against Maxis. They were the better team. Our depleted 1 Malaysia team was well-beaten 4-0. We still stood tall and shook their hands in the spirit of Fair Play and friendship. We congratulated them on their victory and held our heads high on our own achievements.

Team 1 Malaysia with their silver medals and sponsored gifts.

1 Malaysia team will always stay in my memory as the Best Birthday Gift Ever. Not the medals, the vouchers from PushMore or BEyoga, nor the gift basket from Starbucks. But the knowledge of a multiracial friendship well bonded through thick and thin.

Dedicated to the 1 Malaysia Team…
From the Birthday Boy,
C.T. KONG

Elevyn Futsal Tournament – Roundup

Students and teachers from SOLS turned the event into an awesome party!

It was a noisy carnival of cheers, drums, songs and dance as 24 teams took to the courts in Elevyn’s inaugural Fair Play for Fair Trade Futsal Tournament held at the Challenger Sports Centre in Petaling Jaya today.

The event was held to raise funds and awareness to support poor artisans that Elevyn works with on www.elevyn.com.

A total of 16 men’s and 8 women’s teams battled each other in their respective group games held in the morning session. The top 2 in each group would qualify to the knock-out rounds.

The day kicked off with a warm-up session conducted by PushMore, who put up two teams in both Men’s and Women’s categories.

When the group games started, they were thick, fast and furious, as players soaked in the energetic atmosphere and put in their best performances.

Heart-break for Crazy Gang (red) in the Quarterfinals as they were edged out on penalties by GanForHire (blue)

In the Women’s category, favourites SIB (A) beat PushMore in a heart-pounding penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw in full time. SIB (B) took third by defeating Starbucks in the 3rd/4th tie.

The Men’s category saw Maxis FC romp to the title with ease, winning every game with an average 4-goal margin. They defeated 1Malaysia 4-0 in the Final.

Maxis FC had, however, came perilously close to crashing out in the semi-finals after going 2-0 down against GanForHire AllStars, before rebounding to win 3-2. GanForHire eventually finished third while CLC FC took fourth.

Partner Yoga demo from BEyoga

During lunch-break, players were mesmerized with an amazing display of balance, strength and flexibility with a partner yoga demonstration by Ninie Ahmad and Azmi Samdjaga from BEyoga.

“I think the tournament turned out really well. Everybody went home with an experience to remember”, said tournament organizer and Elevyn co-founder Mike Tee. “In fact, things went so smoothly that we were able to schedule matches AHEAD of time to minimize waiting between games. We managed to finish the tournament at 3pm, more than 2 hours earlier!”

“It was great to see teams from such diverse backgrounds getting together having so much fun and played in such good spirits. Forget artificial slogans – sports is the one thing that can truly break barriers!” Mike added.

A special mention goes out to the students and teachers from the Science of Life Systems (SOLS), who travelled all the way from Malacca in the morning. Their noisy, boisterous cheering and drum-beating turned the tournament into an infectious samba carnival.

A warm note to our volunteers Eileen Chiang, Stanley Sridas, Jonathan Cheah and Jesse Wong – thanks for the support! Also to Amy Tan, Sharanjeet & Shafie for the pre-event assistance. It’d be impossible to run the event without you guys.

Lastly – a big thank you to all our sponsors: Starbucks, Spritzer, PushMore, BeYoga, Ureka Ideas and KLue. Not forgetting the individual sponsors, namely Dr Yeoh Seng Guan, Ms Puah Ser Sze and Mr David Chiam.

We hope to see everyone again in next year’s edition!

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What did you think of the event? How can we do things better and take this further? Give us your thoughts!

Photos and results will be published once we’ve sorted them out… over 1,500 photos in all. Wait for announcements here!

Elevyn Futsal Tournament – Match Schedules

3 days to go!

Here’s the Schedule of Matches (15KB, PDF) for the tournament, starting at 9am. Registration counter opens at 8am – it is COMPULSORY for all team captains to sign-in to collect your team’s goodie bag!

At 8.30am, there will be a warm-up session conducted by PushMore. Group games start at 9.00am.

During the lunch break, teams get a chance to do some stretching to warm up (for the knock-out games) or cool down, thanks to BEyoga.

Please note that the 2 Women’s Groups have been renamed to Group X and Group Y for easier identification. Men’s Categories remain as Group A, B, C & D.

Know The Team: SIB

Samuel Kading is the manager of two women’s teams (SIB A & B) that will be participating. Let’s find out more about them!

Q: Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

A: We are bringing two female teams made up of players from our youth fellowship in church (Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) @ Evangelical Church of Borneo) and college students from Masterskills University College Malaysia.

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

A: We play among our church members practically every Sunday evening.

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

A: Enjoy the game!

Know The Team: Youth Asia

Youth Asia is an innovative social enterprise unlike any other – utilizing online media for youth empowerment to drive change. The good folks will be sending TWO teams to grace the tournament, in both Men’s and Women’s categories.

We speak to Lina Halim to find out more.

Q: What do you know of the concept of “fair trade”?

It’s really no surprise to hear people not knowing where the stuff their purchase came from – was it made in a factory by machines or well-paid factory workers or by children.

Fair trade is a good thing. When you don’t purchase sweatshop condition products, you don’t support it. And hopefully, bit by bit in the future, sweatshop conditions and child labor will be eradicated.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

We can pretty much say the YouthAsia team consists of members from very different walks of life — each of them pretty much belong to different generations but it just shows that we all support the same cause regardless of age.

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

Each of us have hectic schedules but we try to make time to actually train a little

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

Good luck and have a good game

Elevyn Futsal Tournament – Group Draw

Group Draw and Briefing Session

Group Draw Results!

16 men’s teams in 4 groups, and 8 women’s teams in 2 groups. Here are the groupings:

Women’s Category

• Group X: Starbucks, SIB B, Youth Asia, Mang Tha
• Group Y: SIB (A), SOLS Unity Girls, Pushmore, MMIG

Men’s Category

• Group A: SOLS 24/7 FC, Pushmore, GanForHire All Stars, ACR FC
• Group B: SOLS Samba FC, Maxis FC, CLC FC, Ureka Ideas
• Group C: SOLS Blue Lions, 1 Malaysia, Crazy Gang, Youth Asia
• Group D: SOLS United, Hyundai, Motion Balls, Oracle Reds

See you all on the 29th! Train well, have fun and play fair.

Photos of the briefing and draw session are available on our Facebook Event page.

Know The Team: Ureka Ideas

We speak to Razlan from Ureka Labs on their team, Ureka Ideas. On top of sweating it out on the pitch themselves, Ureka have also provided generous sponsorship to 5 teams from the Science of Life Systems (SOLS).

Q: What do you know of the concept of “fair trade”?

A: Fair Trade to me is about helping out the real producers of goods and materials in order for them to achieve economic self-sufficiency and stability. In essence it promotes sustainability. This means the real/marginalized producers of goods will get a higher payment for their goods so that they would be a greater stakeholder and will make them play an important role in international trade.

Q:  Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

A: Our team is basically a bunch of geeks with attitude. The main objective for the players is for them to have fun while getting fit at the same time. Having Fun is really important to us because it will inspire creativity in the work that we do. And of course we spend most of our time in-front of the computers so we need to do some exercise so that our butts will not get any bigger than they already are. We also have some new recruits that just joined us this month so it’s a chance for us to build greater camaraderie among the team. We’re also looking to build on their competitive spirit so that we can crush our industry competitors to smithereens hehe.

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

A: We’ve started training for the past couple of weeks and will be having another three more training sessions before the tournament. What I can say is that from the first training that we have the team have improve with leaps and bounds. On the first day we had a few of them that could not kick the ball properly but now they’re scoring goals!! Oh and we found out that our Head Developer who’s never played or watch football in his life is a natural defender. He’s got the instinct and bravery to thwart anything that comes his way.

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

A: We might look like we don’t know what we’re doing but disregard us at your peril!! Hehe. Oh and to the teams that we sponsor if you do come up against us the least you could do is let us win… hahahaha just kidding

Know The Team: Crazy Gang

The Crazy Gang was one of the first teams to sign up for the tournament, eager to test their mettle after nearly 3 years of playing together.

According to captain Eric Chen, the team “consists of players incapable of winning anything but we wish to make a small contribution to the society”. Let’s find out more!

Q: What do you know of the concept of “fair trade”?

A: Fair trade advocates typically espouse a number of guidelines. The movement intends to provide market access to otherwise marginalized producers, connecting them to customers and allowing access with fewer middlemen. It aims to provide higher wages than typically paid to producers as well as helping producers develop knowledge, skills and resources to improve their lives. Fair trade advocates also seek to raise awareness of the movement’s philosophies among consumers in developed nations. (I would like to thank Wikipedia for this)

Q: Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

A: We intend to spread our craziness to the rest of the participating teams. Futsal ain’t about winning, its the participation that counts, the friends you make, the laughter when scoring goals (including own goals) and we just want to have a good time.

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

A: Do you seriously need to ‘prepare’ to have fun?

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

A: If you see players doing cartwheels before the game, that should be us. Just come over and say hi.

Know The Team: Oracle Reds

Oracle is one the largest enterprise software company in the world. Captain Wong Yih-Khai has managed to drag in 10 of his colleagues to form a team called Oracle Reds.

Let’s see what they are made up of!

A: Fair trade means selling a commodity at a price consistent with a fair-trade agreement.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

A: Team? What team? Event objective would be to get to know the woman’s teams and have a friendly later on. Hopefully we won’t get our egos bruised.

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

A: Had a friendly game last week and got thrashed. After that we went for drinks. So yeah, I think we’re gonna do well.

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

A: Please bring your WAGS, :p

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Well said!

Know The Team: PushMore

Some may know of PushMore as the crossfit gym that sends it members seeing stars and getting smashed after each workout.

We speak to Jonathan Wong, captain of 2 PushMore teams that will be gracing the event in both Men and Women’s categories.

Q: What do you know of the concept of “fair trade”?

A: I understand it as a way for us to shop responsibly and to contribute to the economic sustainability of the communities that produce the things we buy.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your team, and the event objective for the players.

A: Our Men’s team consists of members and trainers at PushMore. Most of the guys are futsal regulars with the exception of me (the last time I kicked a soccerball was 5-6 years ago). Our main objective is to have fun! And being PushMorians, we’ll definitely be competitive. For the Women’s team, PushMore will be fielding a group of gals who are serious futsal players (we’re banking on them to win!)

Q: How well are you guys preparing for the tournament?

A: For the Men’s team, we’re actually going to have our first practice as a team one week before the competition. Fitness wise, the whole team has been training at PushMore. The girls have been playing regularly and have taken part in a few competitions prior to this, so in terms of the game, they are way more prepared than the Men’s team.

Q: Any words to the other teams participating?

A: Don’t take us too seriously! We’re really nice (and competitive) people.

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You’ve been informed!