XBLN XI: Champions

TweetFor many of you who don’t know, the FVPA (Fifa Virtual Pro Association) is a new online Fifa community set up to bring Community Websites and serious Clubs together to play true 10vs10. Having stumbled across the site in the middle of last week, members of XBLN Club TheInbetweeners investigated and pushed on with the idea of getting involved, with Davo’s permission. Permission granted, and the then 4 team 10vs10 Community Shield had a late late entrant.

What followed was a mad rush to get a team together that could compete and represent XBLN with pride. We eventually achieved this on Sunday afternoon only hours before the 7pm kick off. A new club was created: XBLN XI, and after much debating on who should get the call ups, the formation was 4-1-3-1-1 and the starting line-up was: RB: Yapamillias, RCB: Psychodan, LCB: Tiernobyl, LB: Raysyourgame, CDM: Beckowitz, RM: ARightTouch, CM: DavoteK, LM: Davidj, CF: Rising Star, ST: Craig1687.

The format was round robin with the top 2 placed teams competing in a final to determine the winner. We knew nothing about the teams involved, apart from the fact that one of them had defeated the EA Developers from Canada in a 10vs10 friendly.

We won our opening game 4-1 against Freedom Footballers, a solid performance in what was only our 2nd full match together. There was room for improvement though, and even Jims current outfit could have scraped a win against these fellas. Onto our 2nd game, and we cruised to victory with a crushing 6-0 defeat of Sporting Club Corinthians. Tiernobyl and Psychodan carrying on their fine CB partnership from the 1st game with a dominating diisplay from the back in the 2nd.

Then, due to connection problems in the other game and the fact we sat out the 3rd set of fixtures, we had a 45th odd minute rest. Our left back, Raysyourgame, went AWOL. Rumour has it he went to buy some pies. So in came sub Daftfox, who slotted straight into LB. This rest had clearly worked against us though, disrupting our rhythm and confidence, as in our next game vs. Planet Fifa Team we found ourselves 2-0 down within the first 30mins. We pulled one back before the break and then equalised in the second half believing we would take all 3 points and secure our place in the final. Thus, it was a devastating blow when late on, having had all the possession and piling the pressure on, we got caught on the counter. Planet Fifa broke down the right flank and crossed it into the big forward, who was an absolute custom built monster by the way, to nod home past our 5ft3 keeper.

Our final game then was of massive importance. We were playing Sweetpatch FC. who had won all 3 of their games and sat top of the table, with XBLN XI in 2nd. A win would secure our place in the final, a draw might not have been enough. We won the game and closed it out with a bit of time wasting by the corner flag in injury time. This wasn’t taken well by the opponents but we certainly enjoyed it, and it would add something to the final.

So we finished top of the round robin table on goal difference, and felt we deserved this as we played some great football and were organised all over the pitch. Our CBs were dominating and Rising Star was causing the opponents’ defence all sorts of problems up front. Davidj, who impressed at LM, had to dash to work having already stayed later than he should have. An SoS was sent out to Mo to the Fo to play in the final, he accepted and filled in at RB, as Yapamillias was keen to get forward and be involved, promoted himself to the vacant LM spot.

The banter in the chat room with Sweetpatch FC after the time wasting incident set the final up perfectly. In a tense 1st half we were perhaps unfortunate to find ourselves 2-1 down at HT. We picked ourselves up and rallied to win the game 3-2. Rising Star was again the danger man and scored a fabulous solo goal, but it was his strike partner Craig1687 who stole the headlines after scoring the winner with a thunderous drive into the top corner, and earning the Fifa MotM award in the process. Tiernobyl and Psychodan were also outstanding in defence for XBLN XI.

This was a very successful event from FVPA which, to the credit of all teams involved, ran fairly smoothly despite some connection issues initially. 10vs10 is the pinnacle of Fifa for me and it was thoroughly enjoyable to play in such a dedicated and capable team. The FVPA are now in the process of organising a Sunday League, which could involve 7+ clubs. Bring it on.

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