The Cup of Friendship includes the participation of the football player from VTV, Notary Public’s Office of District 10, Vietvalues, HDBank, VPBank, Canada International School, TPBank and IMM Group – the home team. After the first round is finished, four teams, which are VPBank, HDBank, TPBank and Notary Public’s Office of District 10, continued the competition at the semi-final round.
IMM Group: The semi-final started with the encounter between TPBank and HDBank. This was the first time they competed in The Cup of Friendship. HDBank had a wonderful starting when overwhelming the match and scoring as the opener. However, with the discipline play-style and tireless fighting spirit, TPBank made an upturn and scored continuously 3 goals and was in the lead with score 3-1. At that time, HDBank team had to be onward and accelerated the match speed. Seemingly, HDBank could regain the position when they reduced the gap of score to 2-3. However, TPBank secured the lead excellently, especially the ecstatic penalty tackle of TBank goalkeeper had helped his team win the first ticket for the final.
The other competition was between two familiar teams of the league – VPBank and the Notary Public’s Office of District 10. Being assessed as teams with technical and binding play-style, two teams devoted to the audience beautiful shots with uncompromising ball competitions. After passing up a lot of opportunities in the first half, VPBank had a first goal of the match in the second half. The goal seemed to make VPBank football players became more excited, they continued cornering the competitor to widen the distance. However, the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 expressed that it was not easy for them to be struck down. When competing with the defensive-offensive play-style, which had helped them win in the round before, the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 created the surprises. The goal at the end of the second half helped the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 to level the score and lead two teams to enter the penalty shootout. Each team would have respectively 03 shots. In all 03 first shots, the two teams’ football players were very good, completed without giving any chance to the opponent goalkeeper. Only when implementing the fifth shot, the difference happened. After the teammate scored and resulted to psychological advantage, VPBank goalkeeper had the excellent tackle of penalty shot from TPBank, which helped VPBank win finally with score 5-4.
HDBank and the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 entered the march to compete for the third and fourth prizes in the spirit of dedication and exchange experiences. Both teams continuously implemented the play-style of “tit for tat” in spite of reducing physical strength after the semi-final. Just in a short time, HDBank had scored continuously 03 goals, closed the first half with score 3-1. Seemingly, the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 would be able to stand up because the key players had to be out of the pitch due to injury. However, this football team gave the audience an unyielding spirit of competition when implementing the most incredible turnaround in the league. The Notary Public’s Office of District 10 had continuously 03 goals in the second half resulting to a draw and the competition was delimited by a range of penalty shots. With the psychological advantage, it was easy to understand when the Notary Public’s Office of District 10 won over HDBank with score 2-1 after HDBank had missed 02 penalty shots.
The final is worthy as a contest between the strongest and youngest football teams of the league. Although VPBank won with overwhelming score 6-2 to TPBank in the first time of the round, TPBank cannot be under-estimated when they excellently won over the championship candidate – HDBank in the semi-final. Two teams entered the match with carefulness and firm play-style. The dangerous counter attacks could not convert into goals due to the excellent tackles of defenders and goalkeeper. Seemingly, the match had to be settled by penalty shootout, the defender of VPBank had a very beautiful far shot making the goalkeeper of TPBank completely helpless to see the ball rolling into the net. That goal really boomed the atmosphere of the stadium, made the coaches and football players delighted. Meanwhile, TPBank football players determined to replace the goalkeeper by a football player with an offensive play-style and applied the power-play tactics for “eating all-or-nothing”. The five final minutes of the match was extremely nervous and stressful. TPBank team was upward to attack, cornering VPBank to the home and continuously had dangerous closing shots. At some times, TPBank team seemingly had opportunity to score, but upright and crossbar did not smile with them. In spite of making every effort, TPBank football players had to admit the second continuous defeat by VPBank. In addition, to VPBank, they won worthily and completely convincing.
IMM Group
