Our MS Girls Football team travelled to Kiev for their first CEESA tournament from 3 - 7 November, hosted by the Pechersk School International. Competing in a CEESA tournament was a very different experience from the annual SRAA matches we were used to. Our girls faced three 50-minute 7-a-side matches each day against very strong CEESA veteran teams from International Schools in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Latvia, Serbia and Macedonia.



Day 1

Starting against a strong opponent from Sofia, the girls needed some time to get into their game but with a determined goal from Alina Tuzova our TITANS were able to end this first match 1:2. The second game against the team from Latvia showed a confident TISA TITANS team, the girls were able to learn from earlier mistakes and impressed everybody with a strong performance. 2:0 for TISA with two goals by Rosa Terres Morata (assisted by Katharina Hermann and Angelina Gerlich). The last game of the day against Belgrade was played in very cold weather with some snow. TITANS showed again great determination but lost with a very unlucky goal 0:1. The first tournament day ended with a Pizza Party and a Rock Band performance at PSI. The teams had the chance to bond, chat and make new friends.



Day 2

For the first match of Day 2 we had to face the top ceded team of the tournament, PSI Panthers. The TITANS were in great spirits despite very sore muscles but were unable to stop the Panthers, 0:2 after 50 minutes. The only chance to play for 3rd place was now a win against the NOVAS from Macedonia. We had watched them before and knew that they had an amazing defence with some determined and tough players. They managed to score early to 1:0 and unfortunately we were unable to turn the game around at this point.

One thing we know for sure is that our TISA TITANS never give up. Now playing for 5th place, our MS girls were determined to win their last match in this tournament and show their parents back home their very best performance via live stream. And what a performance they gave, finishing the tournament with a 3:0 victory, Nicole Hanneman scoring one goal and Angelina Gerlich scoring two.



Day 3

We were able to explore Kiev during our last day as our flight left later in the evening. It was great to see some of Kiev’s famous sites, try to get some bargains in a street market, walk through Kiev’ s famous Mosaic Garden and of course do some shopping in Kiev’s big mall.

We were approached by other teams, who told us how impressed they were by our TITANS girls, their attitude, their behaviour and their positive approach. This made us very proud and we felt lucky to be able to travel with such an incredible team.



Maytham Al-Rubaye and Andrea Gerlich