We were at the 2024 Porto Sixes Cup Semi-Final stage and from the 15 teams who began the day we were down to the final 4 – already an achievement for those who were still in the hunt for glory. The first Cup Semi-Final would see 5ive Guys versus G.D. Leoes da Guarda.

Unfortunately this match will be remembered for what happened in a non-footballing sense. The scenes were ugly to say the least and it took quite some effort to break up and restore calm. Those of you who have played in eurofootballfives.com events before will know that our tournaments are competitive yet friendly and characterized by good camaraderie between teams on and off the pitch….proof of this is that so many of you come back year after year.

The incident in this game was utterly ridiculous and abhorrent to us as organisers and to all those who saw what happened. Whilst we don't want to be giving such incidents publicity, we also don't want to sweep them under the carpet as they need addressing to prevent such occurrences in the future. The game was proving to be a tetchy affair and came to a flashpoint with subs encroaching on the pitch and remonstrating with the opposition. At this point this was just verbal remonstrations. We tried to calm things and hoped a discussion with the teams would settle things down and common sense would prevail. At this point, this should have been enough. Within moments of the re-start 5ive Guys scored and celebrated in front of the G.D. Leoes players which prompted an angry reaction from them as they entered the pitch and initiated a fracas with the English team. We were left with no choice but to disqualify G.D. Leoes from the tournament for the violence shown. A few teams have been asking why both teams were not disqualified so we want to address that here. From what we witnessed first-hand, whilst the provocation for the brawl was unwelcome and not a wise move, the current rules meant there was no grounds to disqualify 5ive Guys. However, we will be reviewing our Code of Conduct for the future to give greater powers to maintain the spirit of the tournament. In 18 years of events, a review has not been necessary to show how rare an occasion this is. Rest assured we will be doing all we can to prevent such a situation arising again. In almost 150 tournaments since 2006 which spans approximately 10,000 games of football we've only had 2 such incidents (which is still 2 too many). We hope we will never have a third such incident.

The eurofootballfives.com experience is all about enjoying the beautiful game, enjoying travel to great cities around the Europe, having a good laugh on tour and enjoying a few drinks in the evening. Violent behaviour can simply not be tolerated. We only hope that this incident did not spoil the enjoyment of the day for the other teams involved. With the Open Age, Veterans and Super Veterans categories today we had 30 teams and 82 games of football. 81 were played in a great spirit and we prefer to focus on those games rather than the 1 game that didn't.

The sadness of the events of the first Cup Semi-Final were the knock-on effects it had for the rest of the tournament such as delays to the schedule, the impact on the presentation and the atmosphere at the event. This extends to the two teams in the second Cup Semi-Final who had to play their match in the shadows of what had previously happened. It perhaps meant it wasn't quite the occasion a Cup Semi-Final should have been and we'd like to apologise to both Polonia Limerick and Turn Down For Watford for having to play their game in such a scenario.

This match promised so much. On the one hand, we had Polonia Limerick who were not only unbeaten in the tournament but had yet to concede a goal. They'd had 2 wins and 3 draws so whilst hard to beat, would they have the firepower to defeat Turn Down For Watford? On the other hand, we had an English team who had plenty of firepower up front with 11 goals from Jase Opuku-Afriyie and Rich Lyons combined (Polonia Limerick had scored 6 as a team) and had just knocked out the highest ranked team from the group phase. It would be a tough call to pick a winner from this one.

As the match unfolded, Polonia Limerick delivered a commanding performance to defeat Turn Down For Watford 3-0, securing their spot in the final. The match was tightly contested in the first half, with Polonia Limerick taking a narrow 1-0 lead into half-time thanks to a well-taken goal from Kuba Cieloch.

Turn Down For Watford pushed hard for an equaliser early in the second half, but Polonia Limerick's defence held firm. As the game wore on, Polonia capitalised on their opportunities, with Patryk Suwinski doubling their lead with a clinical finish. Max Cyran then sealed the victory with a third goal, ensuring a comfortable looking 3-0 win for the Polish side and booking their place in the final. Dominik Olczak was still to concede during the tournament.

For Turn Down For Watford it was an end to their campaign as they just missed out on a second successive Cup Final. Once again, great to see all the guys and enjoy a few beers at the post tournament social.

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