When football legends met bloggers: the Indesit Genuine Football Cup

This weekend saw a feast of football, not just at the Emirates Stadium but also at the London Soccerdome, where we saw the Indesit Genuine Football Cup. We were joined by three football legends – Ray Parlour, Pietro Vierchowod and Alain Roche, and five great football bloggers – Steve Norman from Born Offside, Joshua Askew from Holding Midfield, Rocco Cammisola of The Football Express, Dan Mobbs of Three Match Ban and Rob Jordan of Left Back in the Changing Room. Accompanied by other distinguished guests and some Indesit staff, they took part in inaugural version of the four-way tournament.

Each of the four sides represented one of Indesit’s four partner teams – Arsenal, AC Milan, Paris St-Germain and Shakhtar Donetsk. We had a slick, 8-a-side, 20-minutes per game tournament with each side playing the other once. There was the standard three points for a win and one for a draw; goal difference, goals scored and if necessary a penalty shoot-out were our tiebreakers.

With legend Pietro Vierchowod giving a defensive masterclass, and blogger Dan Mobbs in front of him, AC Milan started with a 6-1 win over a Shakhtar Donetsk including Steve Norman and Josh Askew. While on the other pitch despite working hard, Arsenal could only succumb 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain, where Alain Roche was ably assisted by Rocco Cammisola and Robert Jordan in defence.

Milan and PSG looked like early favourites and shared the spoils in a six-goal thriller – PSG coming back from 3-1 down to tie 3-3 late on. Arsenal took a one goal lead over the Shakhtar Donetsk but perhaps like their professional counterparts, could not hold a lead and let three late goals in to give Shakhtar a 3-1 win, their first victory of the tournament.

With one game to go, Milan and PSG both left on four points, but Shakhtar still had a chance with three points. It was all to play for. Milan however were dealt a cruel blow when legend Pietro Vierchowod had to sit out their final game against Arsenal with a knee injury; Milan clearly missed him as Ray Parlour led from the front and dealt a crushing 6-1 victory over the Rossoneri.

Shakhtar and PSG had it all to play for, therefore, and Shakhtar took a 2-0 lead to give them provisional first place and the possibility of a shock victory in the tournament, after that first 6-1 loss. However, PSG regrouped and legend Alain Roche pushed forward from defence, and PSG scored an incredible three goals in the last eight minutes to turn the game around completely. With a 3-2 victory, PSG took the trophy, with the table as follows:

All four teams were presented with medals, but there can only be one winner – congratulations Paris Saint-Germain:

Regardless of the result, all our bloggers said they enjoyed themselves. We’d like to say thanks once again from us at Indesit Football to Robert, Rocco, Steve, Dan and Josh:

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