The climax of the day's events had arrived - The 2018 Mallorca Veterans Tournament Cup Final.

Whilst those teams who had battled hard yet departed could enjoy a nice cool beer on a warm and sunny day, there was still work to do for our two finalists. What a Cup Final we had in prospect! We had two teams who had both excelled throughout the day and I don't think anyone could argue that they didn't deserve to be in the Final.

The two teams;

Bure Park Seniors: Played 7, won 4, drawn 2, lost 1. They had scored 5 goals along the way but crucially conceded just one. Six clean sheets out of 7 was hugely impressive. Including the Plate Final today, they had appeared in 6 eurofootballfives.com finals – 1x Wooden Spoon, 1 x Trophy, 3 x Plate and now their first Cup Final.

Policia Local de Palma: Played 7, won 3, drawn 2, lost 2 today. They had scored 8 goals and conceded five. So, they were scoring more but conceding more. Appearing in their second Cup Final having won the 2011 Mallorca Tournament. Took 4 points out of 6 against Bure Park Seniors in the group phase.

From the stats, it seemed an open and high scoring game would suit the Policia. A tight and defensive game may well suit Bure Park Seniors.

The referee blew the whistle to kick us off and Policia Local de Palma wrestled the ascendency in the early stages. It was going to be key for Southgate County Vets to be at their best defensively (as they had been all day) and keep Policia Local de Palma out for as long as possible, frustrate them and make the most of their own opportunities when they came but Policia Local de Palma scored fairly early in the piece. With their tails up they added another and were 2-0 up at half-time. Jose Manuel Garrido Jimenez scored both and took his tally to 5 for the day.

The second half kicked off with Bure Park Seniors needing a couple of goals to force this into a penalty shoot-out at the very least – certainly not impossible. They had to score the next goal though and they came close a couple of times but the next goal would decide if this was game on or game over. It was game over. Carlos Alomar Amoros scored his fourth of the tournament to make it 3-0. Any hopes of a comeback for Bure Park Seniors were extinguished. That was indeed how it finished.

We would like to congratulate Bure Park Seniors on a superb performance over the course of the tournament and commiserations on missing out on the Cup victory. They would have been popular winners but they collected runners-up medals in the presentation.

The win saw Policia Local de Palma become the 18th team to win more than 1 Cup title in our events. The roll of honour reads:

5 – CIS Committee (Blr): Budapest Fives (2014), Bratislava Fives (2014), Prague Tournament (2016), Vilnius Tournament (2017), Amsterdam Sixes (2018).

4 – Olympic Phil Babb (Eng): Amsterdam Fives (2008), Algarve Open (2009), Prague Masters (2010) and Budapest Fives (2011)

4 – CIS Committee (Blr): Budapest Fives (2014), Bratislava Fives (2014), Prague Tournament (2016), Vilnius Tournament (2017).

3 – Athletico Do Hollande (Hol): Algarve Open (2010 and 2011), Amsterdam Fives (2014)

3 – FC Radbroke (Eng): Prague Masters (2011), Algarve Open (2013) and Mallorca Veterans Tournament (2017) as FC Mahou.

3 – L'Albliceleste/Grant Thornton (Fra): Mallorca Fives (2013), Riga Tournament (2016), Barcelona Fives (2017)

2 – ABC United (Rom): Budapest Fives (2012) and Berlin Fives (2013)

2 – Goldsmith Williams (Eng): Prague Masters (2008) and Amsterdam Fives (2010)

2 – Lozenetz City (Bul): Prague Masters (2009) and Manchester Fives (2010)

2 – Rigford Seahawks (Eng): Krakow Trophy (2009) and Berlin Fives (2012)

2 – Skidmarks (Eng): Valencia Fives (2011) and Krakow Trophy (2012)

2 – JNJ Russia (Rus): JNJ Soccer Tournament Budapest (2013) and Krakow (2016)

2 – Cilag Team (Swi): JNJ Soccer Tournament Prague (2015) and Bratislava (2017)

2 – Budapest Celtic (Hun): Krakow Trophy (2013), Budapest Fives (2017)

2 – Saipan FC (Ire): Mallorca Tournament (2015), Lisbon Tournament (2018).

2 - 9 Nana Budds (Eng): Valencia Fives (2009), Algarve Open (2018)

2 – Mini FC (Por): Algarve Veterans (2015), Algarve Veterans (2018).

2 – Policia Local de Palma (Spa): Mallorca Tournament (2011), Mallorca Veterans (2018)

Congratulations to Policia Local de Palma. The 2019 Veterans Tournaments will take us to Alicante (15th June) and Budapest (21st September) - we hope you can all join us next year.