After 58 games of football we came down to the most important of them all. Game 59 – The 2013 Budapest Fives Cup Final.

The two teams set to do battle for the honour and glory of victory were Team Bear and Rigford Seahawks Omega. Team Bear were on debut and making a hugely impressive debut at that. Rigford Seahawks had been into a eurofootballfives.com Final on 4 previous occasions – twice in the Cup and twice in the Plate. On all four occasions they had emerged victorious. Could their greater experience tell and they make it 5-time glory and a hat-trick of Cup wins. If so, they would be only the second club to make it 3 tournament wins in eurofootballfives.com history after Olympic Phil Babb (who have 4 titles to their name).

The two teams had met earlier in the day in the final game of Group C – on that occasion it finished 0-0. In a fairly even first half it was 0-0 with Team Bear coming the closest to breaking the deadlock when Justin Bowen struck the bar moments before the half-time whistle. In the second half the pattern of the game continued as it remained pretty close although it looked like Team Bear would be the most likely to score as Billy Saunders came close to his 7th of the day as he struck the post. Ultimately though, no-one could find the goal that would win the coveted trophy and we were still 0-0 at full-time.

It was penalty shoot-out time, our third and most important shoot-out of the day…to decide who would be 2013 Budapest Fives champions. It would be Rigford Seahawks Omega to shoot first….

* First up was Alex Harding, goal-scoring hero in the Cup Semi-Final. He struck it hard and low in the bottom right hand corner. Simon Walker in the Team Bear goal pulled off a great save to get down low and put out a strong left arm to divert the ball wide.

* Simon Hanover was up first for Team Bear. He scored 5 goals in open play today but was unable to beat Alex Moss and it was still 0-0.

* Max Eagle was up next for Rigford Seahawks Omega. He went for the top right hand corner beating the outstretched arm of Walker but also over the top of the bar it went.

* It was advantage Team Bear who could go ahead if Justin Bowen could convert. His penalty was on target but saved by the legs of Alex Moss. Still 0-0.

* Chris Jestico would take the third penalty for Rigford Seahawks Omega – the other goalscorer in the Semi-Final. He thumped his penalty down the middle but straight into the midrift of Simon Walker and another penalty went begging.

* Goalkeepers were on top and so perhaps it was wise for a goalkeeper to take a penalty. Up stepped Simon Walker and he did what no-one else in this match had done so far and sent the ball into the back of the onion bag. His penalty won the shoot-out 1-0 and claimed the 2013 Budapest Fives title for Team Bear.

There were shades of the 2011 Budapest Fives Cup Final where Olympic Phil Babb defeated Budapest Celtic Tigers on penalties where Olympic Phil Babb goalkeeper Dan Andrews was also the hero – saving penalties and scoring the winning spotkick.

Our sincere commiserations to Rigford Seahawks Omega who had come so close to glory but just missed out. It was a superb day's play for them though.

Our congratulations go to Team Bear and also Yanick Jista of Les 5 Salopards who picked up the Top Goalscorer prize! We hope to see you all again at a tournament very soon.